Is Boston Doing Enough To Hold On To Its Entrepreneurs?

September 7, 2012

Facebook may be one of the most notable examples of a startup leaving Boston for Silicon Valley. (AP)

Facebook and Dropbox are all multi-million dollar companies with Boston roots that eventually headed out west to the “promise land” of startups and innovation: Silicon Valley.

Boston’s record for attracting and keeping big-time innovators and entrepreneurs is not the greatest. Few people have lamented this fact with more sincerity than Scott Kirsner, the innovation columnist for The Boston Globe.

In a recent column, Kirsner wrote:

Like a left-behind lover, I sometimes get a little obsessed with the entrepreneurs who start their companies in Boston and then pack their bags for California.

But, in fact, he says there are plenty of entrepreneurs and hi-tech innovators who’ve set up shop in Boston and made the decision to stay. Kirsner believes there are seven factors that lead companies to make the decision to stay that range from education and networking to access to capital.

WEIGH IN:

Do you think Boston does enough to attract and keep innovative startups? Do you work for a company that has planted their flag in Greater Boston? Or are you about to take your ideas and head out west?

Guests:

Scott Kirsner, columnist, The Boston Globe
Nick Francis, co-founder and CEO of Help Scout, a Boston-based startup

More:

Other stories from this show:

http://www.fibrowitch.net Jan Dumas

Well I stayed on hold for the entire segment, sadly I’m not surprised you never took my call. It was nice that two separate people came on asking me to stay on hold and that I was up next. Then you went to a different caller, a college student who is here to attend college.

I am after all 7th generation Bostonian and not the kind of person you want to keep in Boston. So guys I know your BU and students coming from outside of Boston are your bread and butter. I also know that you would like nothing more than to have BU graduates stay in Boston and start businesses that you could then fast track new BU graduates into jobs there. How about if we stop worrying about keeping college students here after they graduate and start looking for a way to help our own students become the big-time innovators and entrepreneurs Boston really needs.

It’s insulting that you don’t even think people who are from here are a resource, that all your efforts are to keep people with no Boston history – Facebook– in Boston and ignore those of us who were born here.

I doubt current attitudes would have allowed a program like Car Talk on the air.

Hosts Meghna Chakrabarti and Anthony Brooks introduce us to newsmakers, big thinkers and artists and bring us stories of relevance to Bostonians here and around the region. Live every weekday at 3.

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Is Boston Doing Enough To Hold On To Its Entrepreneurs?