Route 128 / Wanted: A new identity | Hacker News Reader

Route 128 / Wanted: A new identity

boston.com

16 pointsrbc22 comments

I live and work in the route 128 tech sector or the "Route 128 Technomafia" as we like to call it.

The biggest problem is it's image - it's full of large stuffy software / tech companies that cater to business and not the end consumer. These types of businesses are not likely to attract young hackers that will truly innovate. I get the feeling that (for the most part) route 128 is where good hackers go to settle down and live a "normal" life.

Another reason 128 doesn't attract the hacker crowd is the availability of public transportation. Its a pain in the ass to get to any of the major office parks / buildings out there without catching multiple busses or trains. Most young innovators don't have the desire or the money to pay for a car in Boston which is necessary to make it to the area.

So - fix public transportation first, and maybe some startups will decide to make a home out there. Hopefully that can slowly build the hacker brand east coast style :)

The problem isn't image, it's the actual location. Building a technology center along a ring road leads to a sterile and depressing office park wasteland. (I lived there for 5 years.) Cambridge or Somerville or even downtown Boston are good places to have tech companies, because you're part of an intellectual community. In a Route 128 office park there's nowhere you can walk to, so you never interact with people except in your building.

@robg: reconsider? Your life and work would be better if you were within walking distance of a university and other startups. Yes, it's cheaper in Lincoln, but you would be happier and more connected with half as much space in Central Square.

> Building a technology center along a ring road leads to a sterile and depressing office park wasteland.

You mean like the Shoreline/Charleston/Rengstorff loop in Mountain View?

Silicon Valley has its share of sterile office parks. Actually, Silicon Valley seems more like a suburban wasteland than the Route 128 belt - at least the streets are crooked in Massachusetts, and most of the towns have walkable town centers, and housing tends to follow old cowpaths instead of tract subdivisions.

BTW, I think the Sun/MITRE/Middlesex Turnpike/Burlington Mall area has a lot more going for it than the Google/Mozilla/Microsoft/Charleston area in Mountain View, except for the companies themselves. You've got like 5 restaurants just across the creek from Sun in Burlington, and the mall is a half mile away. The Mountain View office park has nothing but offices, movies, and marsh trails.

I like the Shoreline/Charleston/Rengstorff loop. I live and work there so I often walk in to work. I pass 3 coffee shops on the way all of which are popular with startuppy people. I frequently bump into people I know. It's not as good as Cambridge for intellectual stimulation, but I do end having a lot of spontaneous meetings with relevant people.

Route 128 architecture reflects the Mercantilist view of companies. They all build big self-contained campuses to try to discourage their employees from fraternizing with other companies, lest information be exchanged. I think it's far more productive to have companies interact & share.

I'll take marsh trails over malls any day. A ride on the trail makes a wonderful mental break in the mid-afternoon. IMHO. YMMV.

I love those marsh trails. They're saving my life right now.

Oh yeah, make sure you come say hi next time you're visiting Mozilla.

We found a small cottage on 22 acres (and surrounded by conservation land) that's 2 miles from the commuter station. Know anywhere like that less than 12 miles from Cambridge (or Silicon Valley)?

That was actually the part about the Bedford/Lexington/Lincoln/Concord area that I loved best: there's abundant open space that's still close to the downtown areas. My parents' house is on an acre of land, with maybe 5 acres of woods behind it, and is only a half mile walk from library/postoffice/bank/supermarket/schools.

Still, I feel obligated to point out that some of the foothill communities (Los Altos, Cupertino, Saratoga, Los Gatos) have houses that back up against the mountains, where I imagine you'd get lots of (vertical) open space. The difference is that houses like that go for $5M+ here, while in Lincoln you might be looking at the high hundred-Ks.

Yeah, that quality was really surprising to us. We weren't expecting to move so quickly, but when we found a place we could rent it moved very quickly.

We've wondered what it's like to live in the foothills. How long does it take to get to Palo Alto/Mountain View?

Depends a lot on traffic. With no traffic, it's 5 minutes down 85 to get from Mountain View to Cupertino, maybe 15 or 20 to Saratoga or Los Gatos. With traffic, you're looking at 15ish to Cupertino, maybe half an hour to Saratoga.

We're excited about moving that way at the end of the month. We followed the commuter rail out to Lincoln and Cambridge is only 12 miles away. By contrast, Silicon Valley is 30 miles long. There, cultures built and branched out. Hopefully we can all help Boston do the same! It's cheaper and the state government is semi-functional. :)

There's also a bikepath that runs through the downtowns of Bedford, Lexington, Arlington, and stops at Alewife. If you're pretty in-shape it can be a decent transportation route, though at 9 miles from Bedford to Alewife, it's quite a hike.

I worked for a couple startups in the Boston area, then moved out to Google in Silicon Valley.

In my experience, the difference is culture. In Boston startups, the message is "Pay your dues." In Google, the message - from the start - is "Change the world." Which one is more appealing to a hacker fresh out of college?

It also doesn't help that Boston startups tend to focus on B2B areas with predictable revenue streams. There's no brand consciousness about Boston startups, because they generally don't sell to the public. So when you're out with friends and they ask what you do, you have to answer "I work at some startup you've probably never heard of" instead of "I work at Google."

Rarely a month goes by that someone I know moves to a startup I've never previously heard of.

I'm very surprised to hear that culture difference... are you sure it's not just a per company thing?

It's possible, but I've heard it from several other people too. Several YC founders I knew said that it's much harder to get VCs in Boston to take you seriously if you don't have 15-20 years experience. And my former boss also remarked on the cultural difference (his son goes to Stanford), but for him that was a positive thing about Boston.

I think it's also telling that nearly all the company founders I know in Boston are at least in their 40s, sometimes up to their 70s, while most of the company founders I know in the Bay Area are in their 20s. (Actually, most of the latter group started out as Boston founders in their 20s and then moved.)

From the article: "Some doubt the effectiveness of a marketing slogan, as opposed to a name arising organically, the way Route 128 or Silicon Valley seemed to do. And they question whether a campaign to come up with a catch phrase that captures today's amorphous industry will distract from the more important work of building new technology businesses."

Anyone remember "Silicon Gulch", or "Silicon Forest"?

Anyone really interested in why Silicon Valley triumphed over Route 128 should read AnnaLee Saxenian's Regional Advantage. Hint: it was in great part due to the differences in personalities and business philosophies of William Hewlett-David Packard and Ken Olsen.

The comments on the article (on boston.com) are absolutely ridiculous.

I think that Massachusetts could rival California as a startup hub; there just needs to be some better foreign corporation laws and less taxes.

Did any startup founders here consider Massachussett's foreign corporation laws and tax structure when deciding where to start their startup?

Or was it more about the intellectual community, weather, coffee, social scene, presence of other startups, availability of talent, venture or angel capital, customers, partners, and potential acquirers?

I have no knowledge on corporate taxes, but having lived in both CA and MA, my income taxes and car insurance was noticeably lower in MA than CA. Aside from heat/power, the rest of the household budget stretched farther on the right coast.

I thought there were problems in MA re: non-compete and other management vs. worker rules?

Tech needs to expand beyond Rte.128. Rte's 95, 90, 495, and 146 make working in tech more viable for those of us south of the pike. Having more tech clustered in Boston around Back Bay and South Stations would be a huge boon given the commuter lines.

128 has been where all the really good work is, relative to RI, but the 3 hour per day average commute is unbearable.

Perhaps the problem is that the mass transit and highways spread out in too many directions? In Silicon Valley, it's not one line, but it is mainly north-south and a bit east-west.

Spreading further down Rte. 95 is desirable from my perspective as it connects Providence, RI with Boston and 128.

The mass transit system is setup as a wagon wheel with everything south of Boston going into Back Bay and South Stations. (I believe every line north goes into North Station but I've never gone from that direction.) Frankly I can't see a better approach for mass transit. The problem I think is that the high tech jobs tend to be up in Cambridge or parts of Boston that require transfers from the major commuter line stations.

Rte. 128 is an old highway that wasn't intended for the traffic on it and I'm not sure if property lines and such prevent further expansion of it. From my perspective, I wouldn't put a company there unless I was prepared to give the employees 100% telecommuting. Having people lose 3 hours of their lives daily to breathing in fumes and looking at other cars' bumpers is an almost criminal waste of their time.

Sorry robg, I didn't mean to evade your question. I tried giving some background that makes the answer more obvious.

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