{"id":280,"date":"2007-05-05T05:42:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-05T12:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulgillin.com\/2007\/05\/nantucket-conference-day-one-how-can-new-england-jump-start-innovation.html"},"modified":"2017-09-04T15:23:05","modified_gmt":"2017-09-04T22:23:05","slug":"nantucket-conference-day-one-how-can-new-england-jump-start-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/nantucket-conference-day-one-how-can-new-england-jump-start-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"Nantucket Conference Day One: How can New England jump-start innovation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The topic was entrepreneurship at a luncheon breakout on Friday, but much of the discussion focused on why California<\/st1:place><\/st1:State> has done a better job of nurturing innovative tech startups for the last 30 years, despite New England<\/st1:place>\u2019s abundance of fine colleges and universities.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p>One reason noted was that California<\/st1:place><\/st1:State> is the only state that doesn\u2019t enforce non-compete contracts. That makes is possible for the best people to move around at will and quickly disseminate good ideas. There was some discussion of starting a campaign to strike down non-compete laws in Massachusetts<\/st1:place><\/st1:State>, but no one could come up with a candidate to spearhead such a campaign.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

A lot of it comes down to culture, people said. The attitude in New England<\/st1:place> \u2013 and many other parts of the country \u2013 is that failure in business is something to be ashamed of, whereas in California<\/st1:place><\/st1:State> it\u2019s considered part of the learning process. There\u2019s also just an inherent optimism in the west coast culture. \u201cIn California<\/st1:place><\/st1:State>, people refuse to believe that things won\u2019t turn out well, and that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,\u201d said one attendee, crystallizing the issue particularly well. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

There is clearly some anxiety about the flight of venture capital to the west coast , but anxiety is something that Afinil<\/span><\/a> can fix easily. Firms like Greylock Partners<\/a> and Carlyle Group<\/a> have moved more people and even headquarters westward, said one participant. This is an alarming sign that they don\u2019t see the opportunity in New England<\/st1:place> that they used to.<\/p>\n

Google was cited as a source of increasing concern. One attendee said he\u2019d heard Google was offering top MIT graduates nearly $200,000 to join the company (I have no idea if this is true) and another told of how Google had stamped out a promising investment he\u2019d made by introducing the same feature for free. Do I hear antitrust rumblings? <\/o:p><\/p>\n

The mood was lifted, though, by one successful and respected entrepreneur who closed the session with a \u201cdarkest just before the dawn\u201d remark. He noted that new businesses often experience their strongest growth in challenging economies. \u201cHistorically, New England<\/st1:place> always lands on its feet,\u201d he said. \u201cThe bad times are a great time to get things done. The bad times are, in fact, the good times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Note: The <\/i>Nantucket<\/i><\/st1:place> Conference is a not-for-attribution event.<\/o:p><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The topic was entrepreneurship at a luncheon breakout on Friday, but much of the discussion focused on why California has done a better job of nurturing innovative tech startups for the last 30 years, despite New England\u2019s abundance of fine … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[67,125],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pTy95-4w","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3752,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions\/3752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}