What is it that makes New York competitive and appealing at a global level when you are somebody who has to make that decision and there’s some really compelling reasons that New York is the place to invest in number one is its diversity HumAIn, a weekly podcast focused on bridging the gap between humans and machines in this age of acceleration.

David Yakobovitch

My name is David Yakobovitch and on this podcast, I interview experts in sociology, psychology, artificial intelligence researchers on consumer facing products and consumer facing companies to help audiences better understand AI and its many capabilities. If you liked the show, remember to subscribe and leave a review.

Welcome back everyone. My name is David Yakobovitch. This is the HumAIn Podcast bridging the gap between humans and machines in the age of acceleration. Today, our feature guest is John Lynn of the Studio Project in New York. John has been involved with many innovation and acceleration and incubator programs, helping startups become successful and finding that secret sauce for technology. John, thanks for being with us today.

John Lynn

Thanks for having me David

David Yakobovitch

2019 is shaping up to be a very exciting year. It’s on the heels of CEES and a lot of new innovation technology, any trends or signals that you’ve started to see that our viewers should be entering?

John Lynn

The trends and patterns and trajectories that I’m closest to have a lot to do with number one, the accelerator world, but number two, the relationship between innovation programs and the growth of tech in New York city as a now predominant tech capital and I see really awesome opportunities in both directions in 2019.

David Yakobovitch

Because a lot of my works also in that space I do a lot with galvanized and we’re one of the programs that works with Techstars but beyond that, I’ve had the chance to see that New York has a lot going on.

We have the tech talent pipeline launching, we have cyber NYC, see launching, we have our lab launching. There’s so many, I probably just named a handful of the programs that are launching. What do you think this means for someone like yourself? Who’s an innovator in New York. 

John Lynn

It means something very similar to you or to anybody. Who’s been a part of the growth of the New York City tech ecosystem over the past five, seven years there’s been a dramatic stage of growth for New York City as a tech ecosystem in the last two years and particularly in the last nine months or so where you have Google is almost tripling their employee count in New York City after acquiring the entire Chelsea market building for more than a million dollars in cash and 2017, which is the largest real estate deal in New York City history.

At the same time we have the core Cornell Tech beginning to gain a lot of momentum and the Hudson Yards technology development park is opening on March 19th of this year, that is the largest development of New York City history, it is the largest development in the world. It will have 16 skyscrapers and less than a six block radius and we’ll have more commercial square footage thAn Portland, Oregon, when it’s all said and done. 

So when you think about all the larger investments that are coming into New York City, alongside some of the specific initiatives that you just mentioned in terms of the Cyber NYC, Oral Labs, and some of the other great programs that the EDC is getting behind, but also the mayor’s office is kicking off with NYCx, which has a focus on making New York City, the most diverse tech ecosystem in the world, as you may already be, but you never have enough of that then you can, you’re absolutely right.

There are some incredible trends that are converging and that are going to have a tremendous impact on what the opportunities are for anybody who’s interested in tech and has NYC in their reach. 

David Yakobovitch

Hudson yards is something that’s been on many people’s minds for many years and now it’s coming to fruition. It’s as you mentioned, a couple of buildings already live, the other ones are coming live. The retail space, the tech from someone who’s lived in New York and you’ve seen it and for people who traveled to New York do you think Hudson yards is the next big thing or is it a little bit over-hyped.

John Lynn

Sort of geographical point of view there’s a potentially accidental fortune growing along the seven line, which terminates at the Hudson Yards development because what’s there is you have Hudson Yards, which is, where the, where that’s, what we line begins and ends you have Cornell tech, Roosevelt Island that are, that is right along that line and then you have what else? Long Island City. 

So there is legitimacy to do the impact that the Hudson yards development can bring to inviting more participation in technology into New York but that it is also just part of a constellation of greater things that are also really well time to given where the ecosystem is going right now and again that is not just Cornell tech, but many of the different policies that are going on at a government and private level as well. 

David Yakobovitch

A lot of people don’t have the pleasure to live in New York to be in tech hubs and see the fast pace of innovation here so to give people a little appreciation of New York and the rapid scale of what’s occurring what does it mean? Like if someone was a consumer and they wanted to check out New York tech or move to New York.

John Lynn

In addition to being an entrepreneur and a community member of other New York city tech ecosystem here, I also really believe in and love being a New Yorker and living and working in New York and so it’s a big part of the reason that I’m so excited that all these great things are coming into our community that should be rewarding for anybody who’s been there, been here as long as people like you and I have, but for the growing number of individuals and organizations that are looking at where they should find their partners and their opportunities in innovation and in technology, the question is still a difficult one because you’re not just thinking about Silicon Valley, you could be thinking about Austin and Boulder.

You can be thinking about other growing tech hubs and other countries. There are obviously amazing things happening in China and interruptions in regards to their tech ecosystems so what is it? That makes New York competitive and appealing at a global level when you are somebody who has to make that decision and there’s some really compelling reasons that New York is the place to invest in number one is its diversity and that is something demographically, but that I also mean economically New York city has the most sort of diverse business environment.

There are more kinds of businesses here and more states, more businesses active at different stages here that are financed by different kinds of capital year than almost anywhere in the world. So if you want to have the opportunity to come in and test the application of a technology built in a number of different business settings and there is no better place to go then than New York City the second piece that’s super important that is underappreciated is the talent piece New York City has more undergraduate college students than Boston has people are almost 3 million. 

So when you think about the opportunity to create, to get involved with an ecosystem, that can be a constant source for talent development as universities themselves are innovating towards and stepping up towards what the new economy needs then things get even more exciting and then last and I touched on this was sort of the diversity point, but this is an ecosystem capital. This is not a venture capital, so there are great investors here and there are great investor groups that are active in New York City but this is not an ecosystem that is owned by venture capital in the same way that maybe Silicon Valley here in New York some of the most important crypto organizations that have been born in our interactive consensus, obviously chief among but you’ve also got great.

This is sort of the capital for crowdfunding we have both Kickstarter and Indiegogo and we are the one of the primary markets for Republic, a credit equity sharing platform and the last there’s interesting alternatives to both two to two private investment and venture funding that are developing here as well there are funds that are now built around taking a revenue share of your company as long as you have a certain amount and have achieved certain milestones of growth and we’ll take any equity at all so investment, what investment looks like here is changing at an innovative scale as well. So that’s an important thing to be aware of is for anybody who is thinking about whether they should come to New York.

David Yakobovitch

The revenue share is a very interesting part on the scale of ecosystems also in education, we’re seeing a lot of that with the bootcamps and no longer is it pay for your program, but pay for a percentage of your salary for one to two years to support you through that so the business models has always been secret sauce for New York, it’s not necessarily just the technology, but how do we bridge the gap of technology and people in essence, like humans and machines bridging them together. 

John Lynn

That’s really true and what a great point. I hadn’t thought about that, but the opportunity to innovate in business models themselves certainly is something that’s very unique here, but also thinking about the transactions behind education right in the way that alters what people can expect and what they can invest in certain opportunities so boot camps are a great example some of them are tuition fees some of them are free and get paid on that as a recruitment fee. Once you have a job and some of them take a piece of your salary on an ongoing basis, but it’s showing that there is a closer and closer relationship between some of the systems that we exist. Within and some of the resources that we need in order to move forward, like education so what a great point.

David Yakobovitch

I appreciate that and New York is seen again as a hub of many things for those  not in New York, they look upon New York for what’s going on is the health of the condoms and the country one of the contrarian views. It’s often expressed in New York by looking at your retail shops. Your retail shops are empty, there’s no longer any business. 

The storefronts are empty and yes, you do go on Fifth Avenue you do go the West Soho you do go to the Lower East Side and there are empty Storefronts, but the interesting perspective to speak against the New York daily news and curb and all these platforms that say New York’s retails empty is how is the tech economy, revitalizing retail there are startups now like Casper and Warby Parker and bigger ones like Microsoft and Amazon moving into retail. I’m just curious again, from your thought point with people and tech. How is that looking from a human movement perspective with the companies that you work with right in New York

John Lynn

It speaks to a greater theme of the changing and increasing importance of experience in human direct in real life IRL experience in creating a business or a brand of any kind and retail businesses are front and center of that question but as you probably observed in this ecosystem as well, more and more companies are doing events and are creating experiences and activations that bring people in to their, into their mission directly and physical experiences, whether it’s a community event or something else and that when you think about those two points at the same time you can sort of see that the challenge is how do we. How do we gain attention? And then how do we build on it in a way that is coherent and that can result in business. 

There are so many different demands of anyone’s time, attention, energy, effort on and offline these days that there’s a sort of new difficulty in understanding what part experience plays in solving that challenge so I know that there are interesting ways that real estate is being leveraged in New York in creative ways notel is using real estate spaces to create showrooms that people potential clients and customers know, tell for anybody listening.

That’s not sure about that company as we were as big as competitors in New York City and maybe in the world and they focus on creating sort of innovative work spaces for larger companies, not necessarily startups and so their showroom helps potential clients. 

Imagine what that might look like for them, but you can look at something as simple as food stance and the way that they’ve evolved past sort of trailers on vans with hotdogs and skewers and into almost classy experiences in some instances and so it is probably one of the other great reasons to look to New York because of how much the city itself has changing due to the rise of technology. 

David Yakobovitch

When you look at the technology and the experiences they are shifting Startups that are in the retail space are no longer, very have this scrappy bootstrap mentality, but how do we embody the professionalism, the glits and glam of what could be New York when we had the greatest showman and the Ringling Brothers bringing it all back to life and tells is a classic example I work a lot today with Galvanize and we have a partnership as well when Notel where we support an enterprises in that level and it’s so fascinating when you step into their space versus when you step into we work, it’s a whole different world. 

It is completely apples and oranges and so really what is interesting is how you can leverage technology and leverage it to design spaces or design apps or design innovations for humans to still be a part of that conversation and you see that at Notel and perhaps you see that with a lot of the innovation centers and accelerators that you’re working with this year there’s always new startups and are you seeing any trends or signals in this space that are maybe moving away from the fringe technology, but more to mainstream that consumers should be considering or setting their eyes on. 

John Lynn

If you consider the accelerators and incubators as good platforms for accessing what’s up and coming and what is to what should be paid attention to then one of the biggest changes and shifts that I see in that space is in the format of the accelerators themselves and there would’ve been away from being strictly educational experiences that can help a founder. I set up their corporation, create a plan, get ready to fundraise, project cash flows, and more towards getting connected and getting real opportunities with individuals and organizations that can move the business forward for the participant and now it’s taking another step forward and they’re becoming virtual experiences. 

So many of the programs that have been successful and you can see this most notably with Y Combinator is that they are experimenting heavily with creating online platforms, creating a mood, creating content that can, I can scale the knowledge and expertise that they have as well as the access that they have to a larger audience. 

That’s not just inside of Silicon Valley and it’s indicative of what’s happening with accelerators generally is that they under, they are beginning to understand they have a greater opportunity to provide access to individuals of any kind that want to get into tech and part of a big part of the way that that’s changing is how they are investing in virtual touch points, virtual curriculum, whether it’s in doing a webinar or a Q and a in the promotion process, or if it’s for running an entirely virtual experience that still brings together individuals into networking opportunities, the way that an IRL accelerator. 

So the virtualization of education and of access to opportunities in tech specifically is something that there’s a lot happening within that is not being highlighted in the same way that blockchain and crypto are at the moment.

David Yakobovitch

There’s definitely a lot of parallels with education and accelerators and as an individual in the New York education space, I’ve had the opportunity to also teach both IRL in real life type education and the digital remote learning and that, and the experience is completely different still, I would say in 2018, 2019, but it is improving, I’ve experienced challenges and I’m sure listeners on this call who are in college and students will potentially agree that sometimes having the attention and the focus in that remote environment requires a lot more discipline and so I’m just curious about is it a best practice that Y Combinator in these programs are distributing one aspect of is accessibility and the accessibility of knowledge and accessibility of you can do it but to what extent is that value being diluted? 

John Lynn

So how does the virtualization of collaboration actually affect efficiency and the ability of a team to be highly impactful? Because it is not necessarily harder to manage, but it is newer to manage and there are more questions where I was running, how to do it really well and so this is something that a lot of the founders of one of the one of the original accelerator brands is pneuma based in New York.

They’re one of the programs that we work with they focus specifically on bringing in international founders so a lot of these founders have achieved product market fit in another, in another market and an origin market in another country, uh, and are leaving their teams to come to the United States to come to New York City and try to establish activities here and one of their, one of the biggest continuous challenges is how they can, how they can expand while at the same time sort of continue to manage and engage, engage with our team and keep, keep everybody productive so it’s something that we’re exploring as we figure out the best answers to that question but it’s certainly a point of curiosity and concern on all levels, not just education, but team management itself.

David Yakobovitch

Naturally in New York being that center ecosystem, there’s a lot of cross border opportunities and now there’s a lot of these cross border sure funds innovation centers occurring in the lab last few years do you think it’s Meredith that some of this cross border is going to both add benefit to the New York and U.S ecosystem as well as international is a two way street.

The reason I ask this question all around the border is well this year, there’s a lot going on with China, a very large number two world economy and with the trade wars and a lot of these over-hyped or maybe not over-hype things going on. The question is how is us IP? Should that be staying here? Should it go overseas? So just trying to ask a little bit, your thoughts on cross border innovation. 

John Lynn

Like I said that’s going to be part of the rush to New York that is going to happen and the next and the next few years, given our new really global leadership and as a tech capital, I have just in the past two years and spend time on a few speaking tours in China and in Japan, and have obviously worked with founders from, for many other countries as a result of my participation with Nula and what is happening and what is changing is that there’s always admiration and interest in the U.S market because we have more volume. 

Their price points are higher any business that might have a shot would want to come here, the bigger change is why they’re coming to New York and to your question is that merited is that morning in the past, of course it would be right. New York has everything ir has the financial is the financial capital of the world it has some of the biggest corporate headquarters in the world as well but to our earlier point, it’s diversifying and not just as a demographic, but as a business community and so it’s becoming a place that the world founders all over are looking to, in order to really get access to everything they need in order to be successful, the talent, the customers, the investors, the service providers, all of it is here and that’s really something that is definitive for New York that’s distinctive for New York, that can be built upon as a unique and making ourselves a unique tech capital and that is for real. 

David Yakobovitch

As an innovator in New York and seeing a lot of the cutting edge technology going on with an outsider looked down at New York and say it’s all hype and if they were to ask that question, what would be the myths that you would like to dispel for someone looking down at New York to say, it’s actually, when you take a closer look, things are happening here you want to be in New York.

John Lynn

So the first things I would go to are the sort of three points I made earlier, diversity of opportunity here, and the kinds of businesses that are available to partner with it’s like no other in the world, the access to talent is like nothing else and again, there’s more undergraduate students in New York than there are people in Boston, which was up until recently really regard as the number two tech ecosystem in the United States and then number three, the different kinds of capital that are available for businesses in New York.

This is yes, there is venture capital, but there’s also a lot more customer capital you can make money from potential customers here in a way that isn’t necessarily available everywhere so those are still key to why this is New York really isn’t a good position, but the most important is timing.

It is great that there’s international interest. It is great that the mayor’s office has initiatives that are supportive of tech. It is great that Hudson yards, Cornell tech and LIC are happening at the same time but the important thing is that all of those things are happening at the same time and that’s where the watershed is that that’s why this is a really unique opportunity to get involved right now.

David Yakobovitch

In an economic class, in college, we learn about agglomeration effects about bringing everything together and as you keep adding more and more, it’s just one plus one is more than two so it’s adding more value and that’s what’s occurring in New York and that’s what’s going to occur with both the technology and the humans we like to call humans and machines we’d like to call this age of acceleration, but it is, how do you define these experiences where humans are augmented but spaces, you live in the spaces you work in, and I’m sure you’ve seen a lot with those accelerators and a lot of new things are gonna happen this year. 

John Lynn

For sure. Absolutely. 

David Yakobovitch

Is there anything for the audience that’s exciting that you’re working on maybe you’d like to share any cool new technology that you’re getting to be a part of this. 

John Lynn

Sure so my one of my big efforts this year will be resuming the accelerator, the global accelerator summit that we set up last year it was the first time it’s been done in the history of the industry and we set it up and kicked it off last year and we’re going to continue it in New York City this year so keep an eye out for that announcement and how you can get involved and be there day of. 

David Yakobovitch

Thanks so much for being with us today, John. This is the HumAIn podcast bridging the gap of humans and machines today all about New York’s that’s it for this episode of HumAIn I’m David Yakobovitch and if you enjoyed the show, don’t forget to click subscribe on Apple Podcast or wherever you’re listening to this. 

Thanks so much for listening and I’ll talk to you in the next one.