In the February/March 1997 edition of Fast Company Fred Moody wrote and article about the Seattle flavor of the “New Economy”, this is the first paragraph:
“The Seattle night is a mix of madness and money – the stuff that startups are made of. At night in a Seattle bar everyone is a genius, every idea is brilliant, and even the most outrageous bullshit glistens like spun gold. At night in a Seattle bar, the world is alive with possibilities: dreamers and schemers fill the rain-stained air with hyper-talk of revolutionary business models, mind-bending techno-capabilities, and industry-reinventing breakthroughs.”
Some thoughts…
When was the last time someone waxed William Gibson about anything in Spokane? How many of the movers in the Spokane economy even know who William Gibson is?
When was the last time the world was alive with possibilities in the daylight of a Spokane business meeting, much less at night in a Spokane bar?
What does it take to make the nightlife of a city the domain of the business revolutionary, the industry reinventor, and the mind bending technologist? My gut says it isn’t by being an All-American City, it isn’t by being a great place for families, it isn’t by being a conservative society and embracing a narrow set of ideological beliefs, and it isn’t by being in control of anything.
Where does the stuff that startups are made of come from? Madness comes from willingness to eschew the status quo and fly in the face of conventional wisdom. Places like that aren’t hocking themselves at “A Great Place to Live”, “Near Nature, Near Perfect”, or a “Great Place to Raise a Family”. Madness comes from madmen. Madmen aren’t generally pleasant to look at, they aren’t concerned with how you feel, and they aren’t out to make it to the top of the popularity lists. Madmen are out to change the world. Changing the world often costs money, and the financiers of madmen are madmen themselves. They take risks, they think too big, and they are equally unconcerned about what people think of them.