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MHT's Julie Donnelly: Boston lines up tech events for fall calendar
MHT's Galen Moore: Nerds and geeks flock to Boston conventions
This morning I wrote how a 25-year-old coffee entrepreneur attracted venture-capital backers – who hope newly opened Voltage Coffee and Art will become a watering hole for VCs and startups in Kendall Square, Cambridge.
As I stood under some good-looking art at Voltage, I realized why Kendall might need a place like this. The place made me feel a little bit like a rock star: sparse interior, indie pop on the P.A. and lavish attention to my beverage. New York and San Francisco are full of places like this, where you go when you’re cultured and educated and you don’t mind spending $3 on your espresso and $300 on your jeans.
Boston? Boston has culture, and Boston has money. But in Boston, never the twain shall meet.
In Boston, culture pedals double-decker chopper bicycles at midnight and plays Ethiopian pop live on basement radio stations. Money wears a blue Oxford and a fleece vest, and drives to work from Hingham.
In Boston, culture and money might show up to the same party, but they rarely go to bed together.
People move to New York to work in media, and they make money doing it. They move to San Francisco to work for Google and get 10-percent raises. Boston’s bedrock industries are law, medicine, banking. Those industries are important, but they don’t bring the bo-bo’s (the bohemian bourgeoisie).
Why should we care? I think this gap between culture and money has something to do with our inferiority complex. We’re number-two market for venture capital investment in the world. People say Kendall Square has more startups per square feet than any other place on Earth. And we’re stuck on how San Francisco is far ahead, and New York is close behind.
It’s not because of the numbers. It’s because we think they’re having more fun than we are.
Voltage is already drawing a startup crowd to the watering hole: At the end of week one, it’s already impossible to go there without seeing someone I know. It’s not that Cambridge lacks places to get a good cup of coffee. It could be just the novelty of the place, but I think Voltage offers something a little different.
Here’s why: The face of Boston’s startup industry is changing. It’s moving from Route 128 to places like Cambridge and the South End. People in this changing industry are thirsty for a place that makes them feel awesome. Our Yankee blood is supposed to eschew vanity, but when it comes to attracting young entrepreneurs and building companies here in Boston, a little swagger may be exactly what we need.
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