
Canada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...

The bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
The story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...

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Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.

Canada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...

The bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
The story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
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>4.2K subscribers
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.
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.
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