After spending most of the summer in SF, I came back optimistic about building in Boston. I also came back with a different expectation of how quickly a startup can move.
Brian Halligan’s January posts started a debate about why Boston loses founders. Through TNT, I hear from students, alumni, founders, investors, and many different classes of sponsors. I've questioned founders at length to better understand where they choose to build and why. For founders who are free to go anywhere, customers, capital, and access to talent often draw them to SF and, increasingly, New York. Quality of life comes up repeatedly as a reason to stay in Boston.
Boston combines university talent, years of research on hard problems, and industry experience. You can find a cofounder and hire a small group of exceptional people here.
Natan Linder’s February response emphasized Boston’s strengths in robotics, manufacturing, life sciences, and software that works with the physical world. Those strengths give Boston opportunities in physical AI and techbio, alongside software and AI infrastructure.
AI could make the talent advantage even more valuable. If you only need a small, concentrated set of people to build a company, Boston is well suited for that. There may be enough people coming out of the schools to support growth that previously required a much larger hiring market.
Senior talent is harder in certain roles, particularly leaders who have scaled sales, marketing, or engineering at a comparable company. Smaller teams will still need that experience, but needing fewer hires could make the overall challenge more manageable.
In SF, you see other teams moving quickly, and it changes what you think is possible.
The success stories are around you. You meet people who have built the kind of company you want to build, and you can actually talk to them. In Boston, those conversations take more effort to arrange. The people are here, but they often do not meet.
Boston’s scientific culture puts a lot of emphasis on getting the technology right. Teams can spend too long on that before engaging with customers. Some of the science takes time, but customer conversations can happen alongside it.
SF’s default is to be a builder. That brings collaboration and experimentation, but also people role-playing as founders. In Boston, starting a company often feels more intentional because it is less of the default.
Across my network, undergrads gravitate toward SF, MBAs toward New York, and PhDs and postdocs toward Boston. Part of that is how much of a life they have built here. PhDs spend years in Boston. By the time they start a company, many have settled down and want to stay. Undergrads are younger, MBA programs are shorter, and those graduates often have fewer ties keeping them here. They can move wherever they see the most opportunity.
Some of the same people drawn to SF’s pace are turned off by its culture. Boston’s quality of life is an advantage, but founders also need to believe staying is the right decision for their company.
Even many Boston investors encourage their teams to move to SF to maximize their chances of success. Boston needs to make customers, capital, and experienced help easier to get here.
Customers are the first place I would start. It is too difficult for startups to get pilots with Boston’s larger companies. A flagship customer gives a team revenue, credibility, and a reason to stay nearby. Boston is not providing that advantage consistently enough.
More established companies need to pay for pilots and become real customers when they work. A pilot without a budget or a path to a contract does little to help a startup build a business.
Boston needs more investors willing to back an idea and a team early. Too often, founders get caught in a long process of being asked for more proof, while conversations with SF investors move much faster. A timely decision, including a no, lets founders get back to the business.
I have also heard people describe a Boston valuation discount. I don't have the exact numbers for it, but founders have reason to explore their options. You can raise in SF and build in Boston.
The best founders are working. If they come to an event and do not meet people who make it worth their time, they stop coming. That makes the room less useful to the next founder who shows up.
You need recurring conversations with people building at the same stage, people a step or two ahead, and people who have been there and done it. Otherwise, founders can be surrounded by talent and still feel isolated.
This is why I keep talking about Silicon Valley speed in Cambridge. Through TNT, we connect founders with peers and experienced people in Boston, SF, and beyond. Those relationships help teams find customers, make decisions, and learn from people who have already solved the next problem.
The Massachusetts AI Coalition and Massachusetts AI Hub are among the efforts putting resources behind Boston’s AI founders. What Boston needs is more paying customers, faster investment decisions, and easier access to both peers and experienced people.
I want Boston to thrive. Better access to customers, capital, and experienced people would make staying a stronger choice for founders who want to build here.