For many years when New York City startups were bought by West Coast firms they were forced to relocate (Yahoo and Microsoft being the biggest offenders here), because the acquirers did not have a sufficient New York presence and almost certainly had no engineering presence here. Google changed this dramatically by building a large engineering team and overall presence here in Manhattan. Demonstrating that this is not only possible for a West Coast firm but a competitive advantage for recruiting (there are extremely capable engineers who want to live in New York!) is a real gift for us. I believe others will follow suit and as a result many more startups will be allowed to stay here after an acquisition.

But Google’s gift goes far beyond that due to the immense wealth creation for the early Google employees. There is now a whole new group of angel investors in New York, many of whom have an engineering backgrounds. That’s a crucial strengthening of the startup ecosystem in New York and I
believe the impact will be felt for many years. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.