Hello

New York City Beats San Francisco

This is remarkable.

Many of us have been connecting the dots for years. But this has come sooner than I expected.

The center of gravity for tech innovation shifted from Silicon Valley to the city of San Francisco a while ago. Silicon Valley feels rural. That is where the old companies are. Old like Google and Apple. And most engineers who work for those companies live in San Francisco, because, well, it is the city life they crave. But if it is about city life, San Francisco has nothing on New York City. Shanghai beats NYC on infrastructure, but NYC is not its infrastructure, it is its collection of people. There NYC beats Shanghai.

Already NYC was a strong number two. Then, in terms of VC money, NYC became neck and neck last year. And Amazon voted with its feet. Google has been expanding in the city for a long time.

Years ago Dennis Crowley of FourSquare made news by not moving to San Francisco. His startup did open up an office there, but he stayed put. I was unsurprised. At the time FourSquare was the NYC tech startup with the most buzz.

The next phase in innovation is about reimagining entire industries. I said so in my last article posted on LinkedIn. And NYC is a good place to be for that. It is home to numerous industries.

New York City Beats San Francisco https://t.co/uhQSiNRWDJ Celebrating? @fredwilson @dens @albertwenger @naveen @kortina @alexahirschfeld @lessin @rachelhaot @R_Scheinman @nihalmehta @reshmasaujani @thegothamgal @cdixon @businessinsider @MikeBloomberg?

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) February 8, 2019

Could The New York Times Relaunch As A Tech Startup?

The New York Times Co. Reports $709 Million in Digital Revenue for 2018

709 million dollars is a lot of revenue. For a tech startup on the way up. But for an old company, it is chump change. Your market value is not what you are making this year. It is what you are projected to make in the future years. If you are making 700 million this year, but are projected to make no money in three years, your market value will nosedive to zero. On the other hand, if you will stagnate at 700 million, you might get a 5X or a 10X and have a market value below 10B.

What would it take for the New York Times to see a 40% increase in revenues every year for years and years? Obviously the same old, same old would not do.

Is it possible for an old company to relaunch itself? Or must old companies necessarily die and new ones take their place?

Is there a hybrid model possible where a new small team comes in to take an old company to new heights? An equity structure might be where that new team gets one third, and the old NYT keeps two-thirds in equity, and the new team helps take the organization to new heights with new business models.

The broad directions would be deeply digital, niche payments, tiny payments, and global.

Could The New York Times Relaunch As A Tech Startup? https://t.co/fzXDeCdzAI Hey @nytimes I have a proposal for you. @NickKristof @nickbilton

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) February 6, 2019