Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:32:31 · Kevin Ryan
[00:32:31] S0: You know, so New York is crushing it, and I think everyone loses sight because already they're having the conversation of, you know, New York versus San Francisco. Last year, we surpassed San Francisco in health care funding. So we're already comparing... And people forgetting that only a decade ago, we were probably one fifth of their size in health care funding. So it's just a dramatic change. You know, last quarter, VC funding in New York was 10 times Miami. Miami is so small, we don't even see it. So so New York is crushing it. Now that doesn't mean that San Francisco is not doing extraordinarily well and is still bigger and is still better on deep, deep, you know, large bets, crazy bets. I think San Francisco is still the best place for that. New York is a little bit more practical. You know, is this gonna make money? Vertical applications. We're gonna leverage off the fact that we have the industry. So, for example, the company I mentioned earlier, Rogo, that sells to investment banks. Obviously, you don't wanna be located in San Francisco. There are no investment banks headquartered there. You have to be here. If you're selling to arts organizations, Madison Avenue, all these industries, you need to be in New York. DoubleClick needed to be in New York. Our clients were all here. So a lot of this is just, can you attract the talent? And what has gone so well for New York is the fact that New York has become more and more livable. In fact, our only problems in New York due to success. Yes. Apartment prices are crazy. Why are apartment prices crazy? Because of supply and demand. Everyone wants to live here, and we need to build more housing, and people are focused on it. And San Francisco has been, you know, not run as well in the last twenty years. I mean, I I feel slightly unsafe when I'm downtown in San Francisco, and I don't feel that way in New York. But New York is... I mean, San Francisco also has a great quality of life. You know, people can live. There's more outdoors. So it's a very good city, but these are the two dominant cities. The raw material for our industries are twenty four to forty year old people from the top schools, the smartest, most aggressive people in this country, and the number one place those people wanna go is New York City, and that's not changing right now.
00:34:48 · Kevin Ryan, Alexa von Tobel
The fact that there were 2,200 murders here in 1990, and I was living here, And this year, that number is gonna be, I don't know, three twenty. It's just staggering. So as long as we continue to to execute as a city and keep having great bars and restaurants and ballet and art museums and cool things, then we will continue to do well. [00:35:08] S2: I once had an entrepreneur in the last month say something to me that actually I think is an an underappreciated dynamic, which is that if you are an SF, your team's sort of head on a swivel being like, where should I maybe go next? Because they're... You're kinda... Tech is the industry, and you're constantly like this. I'm here because I've gotta be the best at it. And as a result, you know, if you're building something in New York, you may actually have more loyalty law and and sort of long term commitment for your team because to your point, these are industry companies in some ways. Right? Your your point of, like, it's art, it's retail, it's ecommerce, it's healthcare, it's fintech, it's finance. You sort of have people are opting into a category that happens to make a lot of sense here. What I worry about for New York, and I'd love your opinion on this, Kevin, is the pace in SF is breakneck. It was not. We we we say AI really helped SF because none of us want a city like SF failing, but it it was in a tough spot during COVID. The the competition, the speed, engineering focus is relentless. And how do you think about that, Kevin?
00:36:26 · Kevin Ryan, Alexa von Tobel
[00:36:26] S0: Yeah. No. I think it goes back to my earlier point, which is that I do think that we still lose some of the, I'll call it, the craziest, most extreme, most dedicated tech only people sometimes gravitate to San Francisco. We get a lot of people who are very, very good, and also want to, on the weekends, go to an amazing club, go to an incredible restaurant, or broader. And that's amazing. Those are great. It was a big part of the ecosystem. But the sort of Elon Musk, if you think of that type of person, some of those people are in San Francisco and want that. It's a slightly different product, and that's what makes San Francisco an incredible ecosystem. And they... I mean, look, the best companies here are working unbelievably hard in New York, but I agree that the the the San Francisco can be more extreme. [00:37:23] S2: Yeah. There... Well, I mean, particularly in this moment where the big dogs are in a full break bout war of execution. And, you know, I think Google is showing us that they are dominating. [00:37:40] S0: But we also see we also see that OpenAI is hiring, you know, hundreds of people in New York City, that Google are hiring hundreds of people in New York City or thousands and building it up. They they need to follow the talent, and I have to look this up, but I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, they're almost hiring more people in New York right now than in San Francisco.
00:37:40 · Kevin Ryan, Alexa von Tobel
[00:37:40] S0: But we also see we also see that OpenAI is hiring, you know, hundreds of people in New York City, that Google are hiring hundreds of people in New York City or thousands and building it up. They they need to follow the talent, and I have to look this up, but I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, they're almost hiring more people in New York right now than in San Francisco. [00:37:58] S2: Yeah. That's probably... That is a good point. That's a great point. Kevin, I know we have the big thirtieth thirtieth anniversary. And to properly name you, you are the godfather of New York Tech. We're very grateful, and you've been an incredible mentor to me. I can speak, you know, firsthand. You've been a wonderful cheerleader of my career and everything I've done. What do you hope for New York City tech in the next fifteen to twenty years? I wanna go further out than just ten. Like Yeah. What what should we be holding hands and making sure we make happen?
00:38:32 · Kevin Ryan
[00:38:32] S0: No. I think it's gonna be more of the same, you know, except that we're rippling through other industries. So, you know, fifteen years ago, we were not at all present in health tech, and now that is really happening. Five years ago, we didn't have a deep tech practice. We didn't have a robotics practice to speak of. That is really growing. What you're seeing is, you know, frankly, like people like you and me who started... You know, had a company, started a company in one industry, and then either, in your case, went off into VC, but... Or started another company in another space, and so just expand. It's like Adam and Eve have children, and it just keeps expanding and expanding and expanding. You know, I'm sure in your company, it's the same thing, but there are so many companies from Gilt and from DoubleClick, see people who work there who then, you know, started other companies. And we're gonna continue to see that. So I don't have any concern. I think as tech dominates the the world economy, you know, that companies... You know, car companies are now basically tech companies. They're basically creating computers with four wheels as opposed to what they were were really, you know, mechanical engineering projects. That's an example. But that's just ripping through everything. You know? Healthcare companies now are just tech companies. They were looking at data. You used to go to your doctor, and he would actually look at you, or feel your shoulder, or things like that. Now, as you know, he looks at your blood results. It's basically a tech question now. It's analyzing data. So as that happens, we need to have companies that take advantage of every one of those things. We do, and they're gonna continue to grow, and we just need to keep our people here. And so far, that is happening. Everyone worries when a new mayor... When de Blasio came, everyone was worried. Turns out that the crime rate went down under de Blasio, significantly down. So that was much lower than under Bloomberg, which people didn't expect. I hear people worrying about mom Donnie. I feel good about where we are. So we need to just keep doing smart things.
00:40:32 · Alexa von Tobel, Kevin Ryan
[00:40:32] S2: Kevin, before we move to the quick fire round, where we just get a few of your favorite nuggets, my favorite reason to sit next to you at a dinner or a cocktail party or anything is you always have some weird thing that you're kind of thinking about. Because let's be honest, you're really a learning machine. [00:40:48] S0: You [00:40:48] S2: are a very fast, speedy learning machine, which is really what a venture investor's job is is to be good learning machines. Can you just give us any nugget of anything weird or interesting that you're kind of excited about or you've changed an opinion on? What would it be?