New York City Wants to Build the Next Google
New York City’s Bloomberg administration wants to build the next Google in New York. Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, Robert Steel, gave his first policy speech on thursday at Google’s recently purchased New York City headquarters on Ninth Avenue. He said that the administration is seeking to attract a university to set up in New York and is issuing a formal request for expression of interest and will contribute a significant (undisclosed) sum to attract a new schools of applied engineering or applied science.
The city intends to attract engineers in order to be economically competitive in the 21st Century and reduce it’s dependence on the financial services industry.
This is great news for tech companies and the search industry based in New York City.
This move will particularly be welcomed by companies such as New York based search marketing technology firm, Conductor, who were named 13th Top Software Company on the Inc. 5000 earlier this year. In an interview with CEO, Seth Besmertnik, at that time he spoke of Conductor’s current success in attracting tech talent from Silicon Valley and of his hopes to contribute to “my inspiration” NYC and “shake off the Gordon Gekko image”.
“Let’s turn NYC into the next technology mecca for 21st century. I would love to see a day when people go from MIT to NYC” (rather than silicon valley), he said.
In conversation today, Besmertnik commented on the administration’s plans:
“The growth of NYC Technology is far outpacing any other major city in the United States. As the business mecca of the world, surrounded by many of the world best school’s, it only makes sense NYC emerges at the leader in innovation and emerging technology in the 21st century. Conductor is one of many companies building cutting edge software and technology – it’s an exciting time and we’re very happy Mayor Bloomberg and The City are embracing this evolution.”
With Google investment in their NYC offices – an east coast tech mecca is starting to look like a very real possibility.