紐約今年發展高新產業 開始奮力追趕硅谷
After decades living in the shadow of the West Coast’s more numerous and wealthier geeks, 2013 was the year New York City’s tech start-up community really found its swagger.
幾十年來一直籠罩在數量更龐大、財力也更雄厚的西海岸“極客”們的陰影下，2013年紐約市科技創業羣體才真正揚眉吐氣了一把。Backing from City Hall and the metropolis’s first billion-dollar deal – Yahoo’s acquisition of Tumblr – built on several years of momentum to create a start-up community that is hoping to make up for what it lacks in deep technical capability with cultural and industrial diversity.
近些年來，紐約初創企業領域漸成氣候，這個領域希望憑藉文化和產業多樣性，彌補自身在尖端技術能力方面的缺陷。正是在這股發展勢頭的基礎上，初創企業得到了紐約市政廳的支持，而紐約市也成就了首筆規模在十億美元以上的科技企業收購交易，也就是雅虎(Yahoo)收購Tumblr。Some Silicon Valley luminaries are already starting to see New York as a better place to build tech start-ups – among other local perks. Sean Parker, the Napster founder and first president of Facebook, railed against Silicon Valley’s “echo chamber” when he hosted the Founders Forum event for entrepreneurs in New York this October.
紐約除了原有的許多優勢之外，一些硅谷名流已開始將紐約視爲創建科技企業的更佳場所。Napster創始人、Facebook首任總裁肖恩•帕克(Sean Parker)去年10月在紐約主持“創始人論壇”(Founders Forum)活動時，向與會企業家們抱怨起了硅谷的“迴音室”現象。
“New York feels more normal to me. Silicon Valley feels totally in the clouds,” he said. “There is something so all-consuming about the tech world in San Francisco and it’s inescapable . . . If you are building a consumer internet company in particular, you need to have a people-centric perspective.”
“我覺得紐約更正常一點。硅谷讓人感覺完全是在雲端，”他表示，“舊金山科技界有一種讓人耗盡心神的東西，而且無法逃避……特別是，如果你要創建一家消費互聯網公司，你需要具備以人爲中心的視角。”Technical capabilities are not Mr Parker’s only concern.
技術能力並非帕克唯一在意的因素。“Your engineers here have less sexual frustration [in New York]. It’s a major point – they are happier people,” he said to nervous laughs from the assembled entrepreneurs. “In New York engineers go out and get laid and have fun.”
“你們這裏（指紐約）的工程師會少一些性壓抑。這很重要，他們更快樂。”與會企業家們爆發出了不太自然的笑聲，他接着說道，“在紐約，工程師們會出門、上牀、找樂子。”While Silicon Valley retains a dominant share of US tech deals, New York’s has been growing steadily (see chart), even though most of that funding was for early stage companies, suggesting the community will take some time to build real scale.
儘管硅谷在美國科技領域的交易中仍佔領先份額，但紐約的佔比一直在穩步上升（見圖表），不過多數融資都針對初創企業，這意味着，紐約科技企業羣體要真正具備規模還需要一段時間。“While still smaller than Silicon Valley, New York looks to be the only market with enough momentum to eventually (in the medium to long term) overtake Silicon Valley as a venture capital hub,” say analysts at CB Insights, a research consultancy.
研究諮詢機構CB Insights的分析師們表示：“儘管規模仍不及硅谷，但紐約看起來是唯一一個具備足夠動能，最終（在中長期內）成爲超越硅谷的風險資本中心的市場。”Rather than trying to out-geek Silicon Valley, New York entrepreneurs and investors say it can succeed as a tech hub because it sits alongside so many other sizeable industries, from finance and real estate to fashion and media, rather than just tech.
紐約企業家和投資者表示，紐約不是要在技術上超越硅谷，而是有望成功發展爲一個科技中心，因爲它坐擁衆多其他規模可觀的產業，從金融和房地產到時裝和媒體，而非僅僅是科技。After completing the Y Combinator accelerator programme in Silicon Valley in 2011, the founders of Codecademy, a site that teaches computer programming, moved back to New York.
2011年在硅谷參加完Y Combinator創業孵化器項目後，Codecademy網站的創始人們回到了紐約，該網站教授電腦編程技能。“One of the primary considerations was that we aren’t designing a product for people in San Francisco,” says Zach Sims, chief executive of Codecademy, which now has 22 staff in New York. “As we try to build a product for a mainstream audience, it helps to be around mainstream people. Being surrounded with people from other industries allowed us to test our product.”
“我們主要考慮的一個問題是，我們不是爲舊金山人設計產品的，”Codecademy首席執行官扎克•西姆斯(Zach Sims)表示，“我們正努力爲主流用戶設計產品，因此生活在主流人羣中是有幫助的。周圍其他行業的人們讓我們可以測試我們的產品。”該公司目前在紐約有22名員工。However, more of the traffic still goes the other way. The creators of photo app Frontback, backed by prominent New York investor Betaworks, moved from Brooklyn to San Francisco this autumn, for example, because its founders felt it was more likely to have longer-term success there.
然而，目前仍然以反方向的遷移爲多。例如，去年秋季，圖片應用Frontback的創建者們從紐約的布魯克林遷往舊金山，因爲該公司的創始人們認爲，在舊金山他們更有可能取得長遠的成功。該公司得到了紐約知名投資者Betaworks的支持。While Tumblr has remained in New York after its takeover, Yahoo’s buyout of the blogging site suggests that, like many up-and-coming start-up communities, the biggest “successes” are acquired by Silicon Valley giants rather than breaking out on their own.
儘管博客網站Tumblr在被雅虎收購後仍留在紐約，但這一收購表明，與很多積極進取的初創企業羣體一樣，最大的成功由硅谷巨擘斬獲，而不是依靠自己突破。Some say that could change next year, with some online retailers such as Etsy, a marketplace for craft or handmade goods, and Rent the Runway, a members’ site that rents out designer dresses, tipped as potential IPO candidates.
一些人表示，今年情況可能會出現變化，出售手工藝品的Etsy和出租設計師服裝的會員網站Rent the Runway等一些在線零售商被認爲有可能啓動IPO。But other one-time darlings of New York’s online retail market have struggled to maintain momentum. , which sells designer homewares, and Gilt Groupe, a luxury goods vendor, both suffered from consumer fatigue of Groupon-style flash sales sites, leading to staff cuts and management changes in the past six months.
然而，紐約在線零售市場上其他曾經的寵兒卻難以保持增長勢頭。銷售設計師家居用品的和奢侈品銷售商Gilt Groupe都遭遇了消費者對Groupon風格的限時特惠網站的厭倦，這導致兩家公司在過去6個月均出現裁員和管理層變動。New York may have more sex appeal than the “monoculture” of Silicon Valley, but despite the recent progress of its tech community, Silicon Valley’s focus still seems to trump New York’s diversity when it comes to creating a sustained stream of local successes.
相對於硅谷的“單一文化”，紐約可能洋溢着更多性吸引力，然而，儘管紐約科技界近年來取得了一些進步，但在打造源源不斷的本地成功案例方面，硅谷的專注似乎仍勝過紐約的多樣性。
