Jones Lang LaSalle recently asked: Is there still room for the buccaneer property developer?

But in the contemporary world of real-estate – corporatized, institutionalized and massively capitalized – is there any longer room for the swashbuckling “merchant developers” or are they doomed to go the way of the wildly-gesticulating floor traders in colourful blazers that once symbolized financial markets?

“There is always room for the entrepreneur,” says Richard Bloxam, JLL’s head of capital markets, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “It is, however, fair to say that real estate has been on a journey away from total reliance on the entrepreneurial model.”

I’ve written about the institutionalization of the business before. And it’s something I’ve been asking developers that I interview for my BARED blog series. Are the days of the eccentric and larger than life developer behind us?

The consensus appears to be no. 

All that has changed is the capital source / stack. The skills that make for a successful developer haven’t changed. You still need to be creative and look for opportunities that others don’t see. You still have to navigate through all of the various constraints – of which there is probably more of today. You still need to be entrepreneurial in spirit.

What I wonder though is if this change hasn’t undemocratized the business to a certain extent. It seems to me that it’s harder, today, to fly by the seat of your pants with just an idea (and no capital). The barriers to entry feel more significant. But as Richard says, “there is always room for the entrepreneur.” And I believe that.

I would be curious to hear your thoughts. 

Also, the next BARED post will be up shortly. Stay tuned.

Venture capitalist Matt Turck has a post up on his blog that is packed full of information about the New York City tech ecosystem. (He has also written similar posts about Berlin and Paris.)

His overall thesis is that New York – as a startup/tech hub – is only now starting to catch up to the hype of 4 or 5 years ago. He now refers to NYC as the de facto Number 2 after the Bay Area.

If you’re interested in all of this, you can go read his full post. But I would like to pull out 2 points. The first is about the “rinse and repeat” cycle that happens over time that allows cities to become substantive startup hubs:

As any student of emerging tech ecosystems knows, the key dynamic to success is the “rinse and repeat” cycle. You need several waves of successful tech companies to go through the whole cycle of founding, financing, scaling and significant exit.   Post-exit, the hope is that successful founders, employees and investors then contribute back both money and expertise to the next generation of tech startups, a few of which eventually become highly successful themselves and then provide money and expertise to the following generation.

The trouble is, each successive cycle takes years, because the average successful startup takes 5 to 10 years to get to a large exit.

One key reason the Silicon Valley has become such a powerful network is that this “rinse and repeat” cycle has been happening there for decades, at least since the 1940s and 1950s (Hewlett Packard), with a real acceleration in the 1970s and 1980s (Apple IPO, founding of Kleiner Perkins, etc).

I’ve written about this idea before, but didn’t refer to it as “rinse and repeat.” I’m thinking about adopting that terminology going forward.

The second is a list of New York-based startups. Matt uses it as an example of how entrepreneurial activity in New York is operating across a broad cross-section of different industries. That’s an important characteristic to identify.

However, I also thought you might find it valuable to see what startups are out there, particularly if you happen to work in one of the below verticals/horizontals. I certainly went right to the real estate line.

Fintech: Betterment, IEX, Fundera, Bond, Orchard, Bread
Health: Oscar, Flatiron Health, ZocDoc, Hometeam, Recombine, Celmatix, BioDigital, ZipDrug
Education: General Assembly, Schoology, Knewton, Skillshare, Flatiron School, Codecademy
Real estate: WeWork, HighTower, VTS, Compass, Common, Reonomy
Enterprise SaaS: InVision, NewsCred, Sprinklr, Namely, JustWorks, Greenhouse, Percolate, Mark43, Movable Ink
Commerce infrastructure: Bluecore, Custora, Welcome Commerce
Marketplaces: Kickstarter, Vroom, 1stdibs
On Demand: Handy, Via, Managed by Q, Hello Alfred
Food: Blue Apron, Plated, Maple
IoT/Hardware: littleBits, Canary, Peloton, Shapeways, SOLS, Estimote, Dash, GoTenna, Raden, Ringly, Augury, Drone Racing League
AR/VR/3D: Sketchfab, Floored

I was happy to see my friends at Floored in the above list. They are under AR/VR/3D, but they service the real estate industry.

Air Canada bumped me from my flight this morning and so I am spending the day hanging out at Toronto Pearson Airport. I can think of more enjoyable ways to spend Canada Day, but at least there’s a nice seating area in Terminal 1 with free wifi and lots of plugs.

I just finished watching the below talk by Harvard economist Ed Glaeser at the Manhattan Institute. His overall thesis is that unemployment is a far worse problem than income stagnation and that the US needs to stop creating incentives for people not to work. He refers to it as a war on work.

He addresses a few topics that we’ve talked about here on this blog, such as guaranteed basic incomes, as well as others that we haven’t talked about, such as raising the minimum wage. To give you one spoiler: He argues that a higher minimum wage has been shown to cause an overall drop in employment, which he, again, believes is a deeper problem.

Glaeser delivers a passionate performance. So if you have 30 minutes to spare – perhaps you’re stuck in an airport somewhere – I recommend you give it a watch. If you can’t see the video below, click here.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xaNV_6wgak?rel=0&w=560&h=315]