Those of you who know me well have probably heard me try to pretend I’m still a New Yorker, even though I haven’t lived in New York for more than 2 years. And these days due to shifting focuses, I spend significantly more time in Silicon Valley / San Francisco then I do in Silicon Alley (New York). While I’m beginning to accept that Pittsburgh is home for me and I may never get back to Manhattan, I will always LOVE NYC.

That is why I took so much offense at Paul Graham’s post today on Cities and Ambition. In it, Paul explains:

Great cities attract ambitious people. You can sense it when you walk around one. In a hundred subtle ways, the city sends you a message …

So far I’m good and actually in agreement. However, he contrasts NYC, Silicon Valley and Cambridge as follows:

The surprising thing is how different these messages can be. New York tells you, above all: you should make more money … What I like about Boston (or rather Cambridge) is that the message there is: you should be smarter … As much as they respect brains in Silicon Valley, the message the Valley sends is: you should be more powerful.

This is flat out not true! I am well aware that Silicon Valley is special for tech / web startups. In fact, it’s so special that at some point my wife and I may move to the Bay Area. However, the contrast between New York, Boston and Silicon Valley is flat out wrong. To me the biggest difference is that you find true diversity in New York. A vibrant group of artists, financiers, dancers, marketing professionals, musicians, professors, models, and yes entrepreneurs in New York all interact together. It’s the group my former Carnegie Mellon colleague Richard Florida calls the ‘creative class.’

My buddy Charlie O’Donnell does a great job dissecting Paul’s arguments and offering perspective. Charlie is an entrepreneur in NYC and also the founder of NextNY. He points out:

By saying that “New York tells you, above all: you should make more money,” Paul Graham is basically admitting that he’s never been north of Central Park, on the Lower East Side, or out into the Boroughs. I grew up as a finance major in NYC and I made the same mistake that Paul makes. It wasn’t until I finished school and got about three years into my career that I soon realized that there was a lot more going on in NYC than just Wall Street.

Couldn’t agree more Charlie! I came to New York because my company was focused on selling our technology to asset managers. After arriving in Manhattan, I realized the city had much more to offer than I ever would have guessed. For the things I learned and experienced, I’ll always LOVE NYC!