Last night I read on news.yc that Paul and Jessica from ycombinator are moving to Palo Alto full time. As many of you know Y Combinator is a seed program investing in early stage companies in Cambridge and the bay area. (We are investors in one YC company – iminlikewithyou.com. And I’m a big fan of other yc companies like disqus and dropbox.
Paul and Jessica are moving for family reasons. They are expecting the arrival of their new first baby. First and foremost, I want to with them congrats and best wishes. That’s wonderful news and I’m happy for them.
I know what its like to move cross country for family reasons. My wife and I moved the opposite direction. After nearly 10years in the bay area we moved to the boston area in 2001. For a variety of reasons we wanted to be closer to our family.
On a professional note, this yc move is a loss to the northeast startup ecosystem. Its especially significant in the current market as many angel investors locally aren’t as active as they were in 05-08 due to the recession.
I very much believe in this northeast region (I include nyc when I say northeast). We’ve made 13 investments in the northeast and will continue to do more here. But as a tech community, we need more early stage efforts. We need to do more for our ecosystem.
I’m going to miss yc cambridge. You definately left a mark.
(Disclaimer: I wrote this post on my blackberry so excuse typos and lack of links)