Silicon Alley

Silicon Alley is an area of high tech companies centered around southern Manhattan's Flatiron district in New York City. ^[1] The term was coined in the 1990s during the dot-com boom, alluding to California's Silicon Valley tech center. The term has grown somewhat obsolete since 2003 as New York tech companies spread outside of Manhattan, and New York as a whole is now a top-tier global high technology hub. ^[2] Silicon Alley, once a metonym for the sphere encompassing the metropolitan region's high technology industries, ^[3] is no longer a relevant moniker as the city's tech environment has expanded dramatically both in location and in its scope. New York City's current tech sphere encompasses a universal array of applications involving artificial intelligence, the internet, new media, financial technology (fintech) and cryptocurrency, biotechnology, game design, and other fields within information technology that are supported by its entrepreneurship ecosystem and venture capital investments.

Contents

• Origin
• Dot-com bust
• Recovery
• See also
• References
• Further reading

Origin

The term Silicon Alley was derived from the long-established Silicon Valley in California. It was originally centered in the Flatiron District, in the vicinity of the Flatiron Building at Fifth Avenue near Broadway and 23rd Street, straddling Midtown and Lower Manhattan. ^{[4] [5]} Silicon Alley initially also used to extend to Dumbo, a neighborhood in Brooklyn. Columbia University and NYU's leaderships were especially important in the alley's early development. ^[6]

The term Silicon Alley may have originated in 1995 by a New York staffing recruiter, Jason Denmark, who was supporting clients in the newly dubbed technical hub in downtown Manhattan; in an effort to attract candidates who, at that time, were focusing on positions in Silicon Valley, he posted in public usenet postings of Object Technology Developers, job ads with the Silicon Alley label. "Subject: NYC - silicon ALLEY" shows up in an internet post by Jason Denmark on February 16, 1995; another Jason Denmark post on June 16, 1995, is "Subject: SILICON 'ALLEY' POSITIONS." ^[7]

The first publication to cover Silicon Alley was @NY, an online newsletter founded in the summer of 1995 by Tom Watson and Jason Chervokas.^{[ citation needed ]} The first magazine to focus on venture capital opportunities in Silicon Alley, AlleyCat News co-founded by Anna Copeland Wheatley and Janet Stites, was launched in the fall of 1996.^{[ citation needed ]} Courtney Pulitzer branched off from her @The Scene column with @NY and created Courtney Pulitzer's Cyber Scene and her popular networking events Cocktails with Courtney. First Tuesday, co-founded by Vincent Grimaldi de Puget and John Grossbart, became the largest gathering of Silicon Alley, welcoming 500 to 1000 venture capitalists and entrepreneurs every month.^{[ citation needed ]} It was an initiative of law firm Sonnenschein and the Kellogg School of Management, as well as other corporate founders, including Accenture (then Andersen Consulting), AlleyCat News and Merrill Lynch. Silicon Alley Reporter started publishing in October 1996.^{[ citation needed ]} It was founded by Jason Calacanis and was in business from 1996 to 2001. @NY, print magazines, and the attending media coverage by the larger New York press helped to popularize both the name, and the idea of New York City as a dot-com center.^{[ citation needed ]}

In 1997, over 200 members and leaders of Silicon Alley joined NYC entrepreneurs, Andrew Rasiej and Cecilia Pagkalinawan to help wire Washington Irving High School to the Internet. This response and the Department of Education's growing need for technology integration marked the birth of Making Opportunities for Upgrading Schools and Education (MOUSE), an organization that today serves tens of thousands of underserved youth in schools in five states and over 20 countries.^{[ citation needed ]}

Dot-com bust

The rapid growth of internet companies during the 1990s, known as the Dot-com bubble, came to a rapid halt during the early 2000s recession. During this economic contraction, many internet companies in Silicon Alley folded. The recession also affected publications that covered the sector. After the dot-com bust, the Silicon Alley Reporter was rebranded as Venture Reporter, in September 2001, and sold to Dow Jones. Self-financed AlleyCat News ceased publication in October 2001. ^[8]

Recovery

A couple of years after the dot-com bust, Silicon Alley began making its comeback with the help of NY Tech Meetup, ^[9] and NextNY.^{[ citation needed ]} On December 19, 2011, then Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced his choice of Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to build a US$2 billion graduate school of applied sciences on Roosevelt Island, with the goal of transforming New York City into the world's premier technology capital. ^{[10] [11]} As of 2013, Google's second largest office by number of employees, 111 Eighth Avenue, is located in New York. ^[12] Verizon Communications, headquartered at 140 West Street in Lower Manhattan, was in 2014 in the final stages of completing a US$3 billion fiber-optic telecommunications upgrade throughout New York City. ^[13]

This revival was not restricted to Lower Manhattan, but was spread throughout New York City. Hence "Silicon Alley" has been considered by some observers to be an obsolete term. ^[8]

See also

• BioValley
• Silicon Beach - Westside, Los Angeles
• Silicon Docks - Dublin, Republic of Ireland
• Silicon Fen - Cambridge, United Kingdom
• Silicon Forest - Portland, Oregon
• Silicon Hills - Austin, Texas
• Silicon Prairie - Several Midwestern cities
• Silicon Slopes - Lehi, Utah
• Silicon Valley - San Jose, California
• Silicon Wadi - coastal Israel
• Tech Valley - Hudson Valley, New York

Related Research Articles

The Flatiron District is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan of New York City, named after the Flatiron Building at 23rd Street, Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Generally, the Flatiron District is bounded by 14th Street, Union Square and Greenwich Village to the south; the Avenue of the Americas and Chelsea to the west; 23rd Street and Madison Square to the north; and Park Avenue South and Gramercy Park to the east.

Jason Chervokas is an American journalist, educator, writer, commentator, entrepreneur and musician. Some of his writing focuses on cultural issues.

Jason McCabe Calacanis is an American Internet entrepreneur, angel investor, author and podcaster.

The economy of New York City encompasses the largest municipal and regional economy in the United States. In 2022, the New York metropolitan area generated a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of US$1.4trillion, with a population of 23.6 million people. Anchored by Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City has been characterized as the world's premier financial center. The city is home to the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, the world's two largest stock exchanges by both market capitalization and trading activity.

Jerry Colonna is an American venture capitalist and professional coach who played a prominent part in the early development of Silicon Valley. Colonna has been named to Upside magazine's list of the 100 Most Influential People of the New Economy, Forbes ASAP's list of the best VCs in the country, and Worth's list of the 25 most generous young Americans. He is a co-founder and CEO of the executive coaching and leadership development company, Reboot. He is the host of the Reboot Podcast. He also serves as chairman on the Board of Trustees at Naropa University.

Fred Wilson is an American businessman, venture capitalist and blogger. Wilson is the co-founder of Union Square Ventures, a New York City-based venture capital firm with investments in Web 2.0 companies such as Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, Zynga, Kickstarter, Etsy and MongoDB.

Kevin P. Ryan is an American investor and entrepreneur who has founded several New York–based businesses, including Gilt Groupe, Business Insider and MongoDB. Ryan helped grow DoubleClick from 1996 to 2005, first as president and later as CEO. Ryan continues to found and invest in companies through AlleyCorp, a venture capital firm he founded with Dwight Merriman in 2008. He holds a B.A. from Yale University and an M.B.A. from INSEAD.

Katherine Oliver is an American media and entertainment executive based in New York City. Oliver is currently a Principal at Bloomberg Associates, a philanthropic consultancy firm founded by Michael Bloomberg to provide advice and long-term solutions to cities worldwide. She also oversees film, television and digital media projects for Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable foundation of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The "PayPal Mafia" is a group of former PayPal employees and founders who have since founded and/or developed additional technology companies based in Silicon Valley, such as Tesla, Inc., LinkedIn, Palantir Technologies, SpaceX, Affirm, Slide, Kiva, YouTube, Yelp, and Yammer. Most of the members attended Stanford University or University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign at some point in their studies.

Amol Sarva is an American entrepreneur who founded Knotel, Halo Neuroscience, Knote, Peek, and Virgin Mobile USA.

David Semel Rose is an American serial entrepreneur and angel investor. He is an investor in startup technology companies and founder of New York Angels, an early-stage technology investment group. He is Managing Partner of Rose Tech Ventures, a venture fund focused on Internet-based business, and CEO of Gust, which operates a collaboration platform for early stage angel investing.

Cornell Tech is a graduate campus and research center of Cornell University on Roosevelt Island in Manhattan, New York City. It provides courses in technology, business, and design, and includes the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, a partnership between Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

The Muse is a New York City-based online career platform founded in 2011 by Kathryn Minshew, Alexandra Cavoulacos, and Melissa McCreery.

.nyc is a top level domain (TLD) for New York City. It was delegated to the root zone by ICANN on March 20, 2014.

Silicon Peach is a term used to refer to Atlanta and the concentration of high tech development in the area. The term is a continuation of the reference following Silicon Valley (California), Silicon Alley, Silicon Prairie (Chicago), Silicon Hills (Austin), and Silicon Beach. Atlanta has long been a high tech center. Some of the traditional engines of technology development in Atlanta have been the ATDC at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG). New centers of innovation and technology acceleration are emerging, including the recent launch of the Atlanta Tech Village; the Ponce City Market; Tech Square Labs; and the Flatiron Accelerator.

David Tisch is a businessman and angel investor based in New York City. He is managing partner of BoxGroup, a seed-stage capital firm, and a co-founder of TechStars New York City. He is the grandson of American businessman Laurence Tisch, co-owner of Loews Corporation. His great-uncle, Preston Robert Tisch purchased the New York Giants, now co-owned by Steve Tisch, who produced the films Forrest Gump and Risky Business.

Kim Taylor is an American entrepreneur. She founded the online college manager company Ranku and the recruitment technology company Cluster, the latter of which she is serving as its CEO.

Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator is an American seed accelerator launched in January 2011.

References

Further reading

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