Today in Tech: Does location matter; Apple Maps

Does location matter? One of the biggest success stories in American entrepreneuralism is a business called Y Combinator. It was set up in March 2005 – and the name most people tend to associate it with is Paul Graham, one of its co-founders. His first claim to fame was Viaweb. Long before many technology entrepreneurs even thought about web-based applications, Graham (along with Robert Morris) launched Viaweb, which allowed users to develop their own online stores. It was acquired by Yahoo! and is now called Yahoo Stores. He also writes very well. But he will be most remembered for YCombinator, a for-profit start-up incubator. Some of the most exciting names in technology/internet today – Dropbox, Airbnb and reddit were from there. When Forbes ranked start up incubators and accelerators in US earlier this year, Y Combinator was right at the top. At that time, its companies – 172 of them – were worth $7.78 billion or $45.2 million a company. And the time it took to achieve it: 7 years.

Today’s Mint has a story on Startup Village, a Kerala based firm which is modelling itself on Y Combinator. It has big ambitions too. 1000 software products in the next 10 years. And to look for the next billion dollar firm from India.

Startup Village has some of the elements of Y Combinator. It seems to be having a really enthusiastic team. It has brought togther some accomplished technology managers / venture capitalists to play the role of mentors. They have a fund, and seem to open for outside investment too.

But there are some differences too, but the biggest is the location. And that’s something I can’t make sense of. Going through some of the reports and the website, I got a sense that Startup Village was also set up to promote Kerala as a IT destination, which one can argue, dilutes the purpose of a start up venture.

Earlier this year, Paul Graham wrote a short essay to explain what really happens at Y Combinator. And it has this revealing paragraph.

The outer ring of support is Silicon Valley itself, and the value it adds is significant. There’s no question you can start a successful startup elsewhere. There are plenty of examples to prove that. But even the most ardent boosters of other cities wouldn’t claim they’re at parity with the Bay Area. All other things being equal, Silicon Valley is the best place to start a startup.Most of the YC-like organizations that have appeared in recent years have been created with the goal of enriching the startup community in some particular town. That’s a significant difference, because that was never our goal with Y Combinator. When we started it, in Boston, our goal was to help founders, not to help Boston.

Apple Maps
In Inside Apple: How America’s Most Admired–and Secretive–Company Really Works, Adam Lashinsky writes about how Steve Jobs used to react to criticism.

If Mossberg disapproved of an Apple product, there was no question whose side Jobs would take. In 2008, when Mossberg, along with many other critics, panned MobileMe, an email synchronization service that was supposed to mimic the functionality offered by the popular BlackBerry smartphone, Jobs erupted. He called a meeting of the MobileMe team and berated them for having disappointed him, themselves, and one another. Worst of all, they had embarrassed Apple publicly. “You’ve tarnished Apple’s reputation,” he told them. “You should hate each other for having let each other down. Walt Mossberg, our friend, is no longer writing good things about us.”

I wonder what his reaction would have been for Apple’s much criticized venture into maps – an app that has replaced Google Maps in its latest OS. Critics have been mocking it ever since Apple released its iOS 6 upgrade yesterday.

I upgraded my iPad and iPod Touch early morning yesterday, and even as I was admiring how easy it was – it didn’t require more than a few taps – the upgrade was over – almost. I had a few glitches with wifi, which got quickly sorted out once I reconnected it (a trick we all learnt from using Microsoft products). I checked out maps too. It was not as neat as Google Maps, but I enjoyed seeing some Manhattan landmarks in 3D. My big disappointment came when I searched for my part of the town in Bangalore. It couldn’t even find Frazer Town.

Bring back the Google Maps, Apple.

Also of interest

• Infosys mulling salary hike for employees? – Economic Times
• The Apple/Google Map Wars: What Comes Next?  - WSJ
• iPhone 5 teardown from iFixit – Video
• How can we make devices better? By studying what people actually do – GigaOm
• Retail: Dumped by Walmart, Amazon Should Fear Other Frenemies – Wired

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.