We often talk about superstar cities such as New York, London and, in the case of tech, San Francisco. But what about the superstar people that drive these economies?
Aaron Renn recently wrote a post called “The Superstar Gap”, where he argues that the interior of the U.S. is suffering from a big handicap because of its lack of superstars. Chicago is one example he gives. Very good, but not the best.
He also cites a 2010 analysis by Carl Wohlt that shows the “100 Most Creative People in Business” predominately living in the West and Northeast, compared to the Midwest and South.
This is interesting because – if we assume this gap to be true – it gets me thinking about a number of important questions:
Is it that the interior isn’t effectively fostering superstar talent?
How much superstar talent is actually latent and untapped?
Is it that superstar talent is getting sucked into a select few superstar cities, away from other places? Definitely happening.
How many superstar cities (filled with superstar people) can sustainably exist in today’s world?
Now by definition, superstar talent is going to be a smaller segment of the population – it’s one tail of the bell curve.
But I do think we should be careful not to assume that the raw talent doesn’t exist in certain cities. People and place are linked, and superstar cities are arguably just empowering new forms of individual superstardom.
If we are to use successful startups as one measure of superstardom, it’s important to keep in mind that they are incredibly fragile in their nascent stages. The right people need to come together. The right funding has to fall into place. And the list goes on.
Below is an excerpt from a 2006 essay by Paul Graham (Y Combinator) called, Want to start a startup?
Successful startups are almost never started by one person. Usually they begin with a conversation in which someone mentions that something would be a good idea for a company, and his friend says, “Yeah, that is a good idea, let’s try it.” If you’re missing that second person who says “let’s try it,” the startup never happens.
That someone might have been a superstar.
When I met with all of the lovely folks from Amsterdam last week, one of the things that I mentioned about intensification is that it is almost certainly a contributing factor towards innovation, agglomeration economies, and the overall startup ecosystem here Toronto.
I don’t know to what extent, but I feel it happening. And there’s lots of research correlating urban density with innovation.
The continued densification of Toronto means it is constantly becoming easier to schedule that morning coffee before going into the office or to pop into that meetup after work. And those sorts of things are hugely valuable in today’s economy.
I talked about a number of local startups in my presentation, including 500px, Wattpad and Wealthsimple. But I didn’t show any hard data. So I’d like to do that today. Below is a chart showing total venture funding (internet/software) and the number of deals (Seed to A/B/C/D) in Toronto since 2009:
We often talk about superstar cities such as New York, London and, in the case of tech, San Francisco. But what about the superstar people that drive these economies?
Aaron Renn recently wrote a post called “The Superstar Gap”, where he argues that the interior of the U.S. is suffering from a big handicap because of its lack of superstars. Chicago is one example he gives. Very good, but not the best.
He also cites a 2010 analysis by Carl Wohlt that shows the “100 Most Creative People in Business” predominately living in the West and Northeast, compared to the Midwest and South.
This is interesting because – if we assume this gap to be true – it gets me thinking about a number of important questions:
Is it that the interior isn’t effectively fostering superstar talent?
How much superstar talent is actually latent and untapped?
Is it that superstar talent is getting sucked into a select few superstar cities, away from other places? Definitely happening.
How many superstar cities (filled with superstar people) can sustainably exist in today’s world?
Now by definition, superstar talent is going to be a smaller segment of the population – it’s one tail of the bell curve.
But I do think we should be careful not to assume that the raw talent doesn’t exist in certain cities. People and place are linked, and superstar cities are arguably just empowering new forms of individual superstardom.
If we are to use successful startups as one measure of superstardom, it’s important to keep in mind that they are incredibly fragile in their nascent stages. The right people need to come together. The right funding has to fall into place. And the list goes on.
Below is an excerpt from a 2006 essay by Paul Graham (Y Combinator) called, Want to start a startup?
Successful startups are almost never started by one person. Usually they begin with a conversation in which someone mentions that something would be a good idea for a company, and his friend says, “Yeah, that is a good idea, let’s try it.” If you’re missing that second person who says “let’s try it,” the startup never happens.
That someone might have been a superstar.
When I met with all of the lovely folks from Amsterdam last week, one of the things that I mentioned about intensification is that it is almost certainly a contributing factor towards innovation, agglomeration economies, and the overall startup ecosystem here Toronto.
I don’t know to what extent, but I feel it happening. And there’s lots of research correlating urban density with innovation.
The continued densification of Toronto means it is constantly becoming easier to schedule that morning coffee before going into the office or to pop into that meetup after work. And those sorts of things are hugely valuable in today’s economy.
I talked about a number of local startups in my presentation, including 500px, Wattpad and Wealthsimple. But I didn’t show any hard data. So I’d like to do that today. Below is a chart showing total venture funding (internet/software) and the number of deals (Seed to A/B/C/D) in Toronto since 2009:
It was taken from this Medium post. Supposedly this places us 12th in the world as far as startup cities go.
Again, who knows how much of this venture growth has been helped along by intensification. After all: “Silicon Valley proper is soul-crushing suburban sprawl.” But I would bet money that it’s moving the needle in the right direction.
Here is another relevant post by venture capitalist Albert Wenger where he talks about the great startup ecosystem that Toronto is growing. He posted it earlier today.
All of this is important because some of these deals will spawn big companies. And those companies will the hire lots of people, as well as consume space.
Real estate developers like to talk about how they create jobs. And we do. But we can’t have a city of people just building buildings. People and businesses need to fill that space and that hinges on entrepreneurs who are willing to go out there and forge something new for themselves. Fortunately, Toronto seems to have a growing number of those kinds of people.
I am a big believer in making things.
That could be writing a blog post, recording a podcast, coding an app, designing a building, making something tangible, or whatever. It is the act of creating something. And it’s one of the reasons I love what I do. At the end of the day, I have had a hand in (hopefully) creating something awesome that didn’t exist before.
I don’t think everyone feels this way but, for me, when I don’t block time to “make things” I can sometimes feel antsy. I need time to do creative things. It makes me feel like I’m being productive. It makes me feel like I’m producing output, as opposed to just sitting in meetings and making sure everything is on track. Maybe that’s the architect in me.
Paul Graham describes these two mindsets as that of a manager and that of a maker. And in a great essay published in 2009, he talks about how different these two people’s schedules can be. Below is a longish excerpt that I think you’ll find valuable for life and business.
“There are two types of schedule, which I’ll call the manager’s schedule and the maker’s schedule. The manager’s schedule is for bosses. It’s embodied in the traditional appointment book, with each day cut into one hour intervals. You can block off several hours for a single task if you need to, but by default you change what you’re doing every hour.
When you use time that way, it’s merely a practical problem to meet with someone. Find an open slot in your schedule, book them, and you’re done.
Most powerful people are on the manager’s schedule. It’s the schedule of command. But there’s another way of using time that’s common among people who make things, like programmers and writers. They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can’t write or program well in units of an hour. That’s barely enough time to get started.
When you’re operating on the maker’s schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in. Plus you have to remember to go to the meeting. That’s no problem for someone on the manager’s schedule. There’s always something coming on the next hour; the only question is what. But when someone on the maker’s schedule has a meeting, they have to think about it.
I find one meeting can sometimes affect a whole day. A meeting commonly blows at least half a day, by breaking up a morning or afternoon. But in addition there’s sometimes a cascading effect. If I know the afternoon is going to be broken up, I’m slightly less likely to start something ambitious in the morning. I know this may sound oversensitive, but if you’re a maker, think of your own case. Don’t your spirits rise at the thought of having an entire day free to work, with no appointments at all? Well, that means your spirits are correspondingly depressed when you don’t. And ambitious projects are by definition close to the limits of your capacity. A small decrease in morale is enough to kill them off.”
This really resonates with me. It’s a great reminder, regardless of which schedule you’re currently on. Because even if you’re firmly ensconced in one of the two camps, chances are you work with people in the other one. And understanding where they’re coming from is important.
Paul then goes on to talk about speculative business meetings in his essay. These are the “let’s grab coffee” meetings. They’re costly if you’re on the maker’s schedule, but they’re expected if you’re on the manager’s schedule. I have learned to cap these throughout the week. They can easily overwhelm a calendar.
The big takeaway for me after reading Paul’s essay is that – if you make things – you have to be draconian about blocking time for that. I completely agree that even one meeting can derail an ambitious make session. So I am going to work harder at doing just that.
Would you consider yourself to be a manager, maker, or both? I aspire to be both.
It was taken from this Medium post. Supposedly this places us 12th in the world as far as startup cities go.
Again, who knows how much of this venture growth has been helped along by intensification. After all: “Silicon Valley proper is soul-crushing suburban sprawl.” But I would bet money that it’s moving the needle in the right direction.
Here is another relevant post by venture capitalist Albert Wenger where he talks about the great startup ecosystem that Toronto is growing. He posted it earlier today.
All of this is important because some of these deals will spawn big companies. And those companies will the hire lots of people, as well as consume space.
Real estate developers like to talk about how they create jobs. And we do. But we can’t have a city of people just building buildings. People and businesses need to fill that space and that hinges on entrepreneurs who are willing to go out there and forge something new for themselves. Fortunately, Toronto seems to have a growing number of those kinds of people.
I am a big believer in making things.
That could be writing a blog post, recording a podcast, coding an app, designing a building, making something tangible, or whatever. It is the act of creating something. And it’s one of the reasons I love what I do. At the end of the day, I have had a hand in (hopefully) creating something awesome that didn’t exist before.
I don’t think everyone feels this way but, for me, when I don’t block time to “make things” I can sometimes feel antsy. I need time to do creative things. It makes me feel like I’m being productive. It makes me feel like I’m producing output, as opposed to just sitting in meetings and making sure everything is on track. Maybe that’s the architect in me.
Paul Graham describes these two mindsets as that of a manager and that of a maker. And in a great essay published in 2009, he talks about how different these two people’s schedules can be. Below is a longish excerpt that I think you’ll find valuable for life and business.
“There are two types of schedule, which I’ll call the manager’s schedule and the maker’s schedule. The manager’s schedule is for bosses. It’s embodied in the traditional appointment book, with each day cut into one hour intervals. You can block off several hours for a single task if you need to, but by default you change what you’re doing every hour.
When you use time that way, it’s merely a practical problem to meet with someone. Find an open slot in your schedule, book them, and you’re done.
Most powerful people are on the manager’s schedule. It’s the schedule of command. But there’s another way of using time that’s common among people who make things, like programmers and writers. They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can’t write or program well in units of an hour. That’s barely enough time to get started.
When you’re operating on the maker’s schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in. Plus you have to remember to go to the meeting. That’s no problem for someone on the manager’s schedule. There’s always something coming on the next hour; the only question is what. But when someone on the maker’s schedule has a meeting, they have to think about it.
I find one meeting can sometimes affect a whole day. A meeting commonly blows at least half a day, by breaking up a morning or afternoon. But in addition there’s sometimes a cascading effect. If I know the afternoon is going to be broken up, I’m slightly less likely to start something ambitious in the morning. I know this may sound oversensitive, but if you’re a maker, think of your own case. Don’t your spirits rise at the thought of having an entire day free to work, with no appointments at all? Well, that means your spirits are correspondingly depressed when you don’t. And ambitious projects are by definition close to the limits of your capacity. A small decrease in morale is enough to kill them off.”
This really resonates with me. It’s a great reminder, regardless of which schedule you’re currently on. Because even if you’re firmly ensconced in one of the two camps, chances are you work with people in the other one. And understanding where they’re coming from is important.
Paul then goes on to talk about speculative business meetings in his essay. These are the “let’s grab coffee” meetings. They’re costly if you’re on the maker’s schedule, but they’re expected if you’re on the manager’s schedule. I have learned to cap these throughout the week. They can easily overwhelm a calendar.
The big takeaway for me after reading Paul’s essay is that – if you make things – you have to be draconian about blocking time for that. I completely agree that even one meeting can derail an ambitious make session. So I am going to work harder at doing just that.
Would you consider yourself to be a manager, maker, or both? I aspire to be both.
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