It’s been 30 years since the creation of the so-called Silicon Alley — the nickname given Flatiron and Union Square where the original tech scene emerged during the ’90s dot-com boom — and the investors have never been more bullish about NYC’s prospects.
Despite Mayor Zohran Mamdani in City Hall and predictions that remote work would devastate expensive coastal hubs, veteran VCs and newcomers alike tell me that New York is poised to dominate the next 30 years in tech.
Much of that is because, New York is better positioned to capitalize on the AI boom than any other city — due to its variety of industries.
“Every company is a tech company,” Julie Samuels, president and CEO of Tech:NYC, told me. “Every industry that thrives in NYC needs tech to take it to the next level — fashion, life sciences, finance, healthcare, biotechnology, media, entertainment.”
John Borthwick, founder of Betaworks, a venture fund that has backed companies like Tumblr and Giphy, sees AI as New York’s next big opportunity.
“AI makes it so cheap and easy for anyone to be an entrepreneur,” he said. “New York can lead here.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said that, in the future, someone can build a billion-dollar company single-handedly. That dynamic, Kevin Ryan believes, plays directly to New York’s advantage.
“We’re uniquely able to succeed because we have smart people,” Ryan, who has been called the godfather of NYC tech for co-founding MongoDB, Gilt Group and Zola, told me. “All you need is a computer and smart people … and now there are all kinds of big firms (like Thrive) that can compete with Silicon Valley’s established players and fund these ideas.”
It’s a remarkable reversal for a city that seemed poised to lose a significant portion of its workforce during the pandemic, particularly as remote work took hold. Instead, New York is now outpacing would-be rivals like Miami.
Last quarter, New York pulled in 10 times the venture capital funding of Miami, Ryan noted.
The shift shows how major Silicon Valley firms have committed to the city. “Fifteen years ago a16z didn’t invest [in New York] and now they have 100 people here… every big firm has to be here,” Ryan told me.
Other supposed hotspots are also cooling, he notes. “Apartment prices are down 20% in Austin but they’re up here,” Ryan enthused. “What does that tell you? People want to be here.” Since 2022, the average price of rent in Austin has fallen 17.1%
VCs are clear that the Bay Area and Los Angeles aren’t directly comparable to NYC, since their vast geography allows them to dominate sectors like energy and defense tech that require physical infrastructure. New York’s edge, they argue, is in the density of industries that intersect with technology.
But the optimism comes with a caveat: Whether Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s progressive politics will chill the ecosystem remains an open question — one with potentially trillion-dollar stakes, if California’s proposed wealth tax and the resulting exodus of founders is any indication.
Bradley Tusk, an early Uber investor and political strategist, argues that what determines whether talent stays or finally takes remote work seriously isn’t tax policy or housing regulation, but quality of life.
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“Making the city a place where people want to be will mean saying no to the orthodoxy of the far left which holds that you can’t enforce quality of life crimes or hold people accountable for their actions because it is somehow racist,” he says. “If Mamdani kowtows to that ideology, we’re in trouble. If he holds firm on public safety, we should be okay.”
From a city management perspective, Tusk added, “the main job is still just letting New York be a place where people want to be. If you do that and you make the effort to ensure these industries feel welcome, the rest will take care of itself.”
Some investors, like Ben Lerer, managing partner at Lerer Hippeau, dismiss the concern entirely. He told me, “New York’s New York, and the city’s most serious and talented business people will never leave it behind.”
