Here at Built In NYC, we regularly report on the accolades received by the New York City tech scene. It’s difficult not to brag, though, when you’re awarded the title of “second city of tech,” and “the best U.S. city for female founders.” While unofficial, these kudos prove just how far the city has come, and just how much growing we will continue to do.
Flash back to 2008: A handful of neighborhoods in Northern California were rapidly congealing into what we know today as Silicon Valley. While companies like Google and Microsoft already loomed large as tech giants, with cool office spaces and handfuls of employee perks, many young innovators were getting the idea to form companies of their own.
Despite the West Coast building up its own tech culture, it wasn’t long before NYC became an essential piece of the U.S. tech ecosystem. Companies realized New York City served not only to connect them with the East Coast, but important markets in Europe. Furthermore, New York was already home to a wealth of flourishing industries: food, fashion, real estate and more.
By the time the 2010s rolled around, big tech was making its move on the Big Apple. In 2010, Google purchased one of the largest tech office properties in all of New York City. In 2012, Facebook opened their first engineering office outside of California in Downtown Manhattan.
Still, these companies were only getting a piece of the magic established by NYC-based tech companies like Etsy, Bloomberg, BuzzFeed and more. Many of tech offices concentrated themselves in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, establishing the nickname “Silicon Alley.”
In the last five years, New York City has emerged from the shadow of other tech capitals and established a tech style all its own. Innovation flourishes at City Hall, which has helped bring WiFi to all MTA train stations, and installed smart LinkNYC kiosks throughout the city. The many prestigious colleges and universities scattered throughout the five boroughs have re-emphasized their computer science and engineering programs to produce top talent for the booming workforce — a 2015 donation of $100 million helped put NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering back on the map, for example. Academic incubators like Columbia’s Startup Lab have also helped foster new enterprise.
Now, new tech companies don’t see New York as an offsite for their businesses, but as a headquarters. According to statistics gathered by the city, New York has added a staggering 76,000 tech jobs in the last ten years alone. Comparatively, New York completely blows other blooming tech scenes out of the water (Boston, the East Coast city with the second most jobs added, only saw an addition of 36,000 jobs). These numbers are staggering even by citywide standards — while NYC’s overall job economy grew 16 percent in the last ten years, tech alone boomed at more than 30 percent growth.
Even more exciting is the fact that New York has added a wealth of tech jobs in both technology and non-technology sectors. B2B, e-commerce, and healthtech proved to be some of the biggest growth sectors for tech companies in the city. This points to the growing pattern of New York City emerging from the shadow of Silicon Valley and becoming a smart city all its own.
Looking ahead, New York City is poised to continue its technological growth from both a business and cultural standpoint. New jobs continue to be added, and new companies look to the city as a home for their future businesses. Ten years from now, one can only assume New York City’s tech scene will be even bigger and brighter than it is today.
