Brad Feld

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Bury The Name Silicon Alley

Sep 25, 2008
Category Technology

Fred Wilson gave a phenomenal speech at Web 2.0 Expo NY titled New York’s Web Industry From 1995 to 2008: From Nascent to Ascendent.  It’s about 25 minutes long – worth watching from beginning to end.  It’s a fantastic history lesson that details the rise, fall, and re-emergence of the Web industry in New York.

As part of this, Fred makes a plea to "bury the name Silicon Alley."  He hates it in the same way I’ve always hated the names "Silicon Flatirons" and "Silicon (whatever)" to describe the tech communities in other geographies than Silicon Valley.  Fred appropriately suggests that we should call "New York" simply "New York" – which I completely agree with.