Peter Thiel: ‘You don’t want to be the Harvard of North Dakota’ [Technical.ly Podcast]

Peter Thiel says what’s really going to define a technology ecosystem for a city is getting to a point where successful startups stick around and plant a flag.

That seems to be happening in Brooklyn.

Makerbot says it’s not going anywhere. Etsy signed a ten-year lease. Genius is moving into a bigger building in Gowanus and Kickstarter crossed the river from Manhattan to be here.

So, by Thiel’s standards, ours is a geography that has its defining corporate landmarks. Full speed ahead.

Thiel made his remarks on the latest episode of the Technical.ly Podcast. Thiel is the cofounder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, and an early investor behind Facebook and Airbnb. Thiel was in Philadelphia in late September talking about his new book, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future. He spoke to Technical.ly’s Zack Seward afterwards.

Other notes from the show:

• Jack Dorsey, cofounder and chairman of Twitter and cofounder and CEO of Square was in Philadelphia spreading the word about Square Capital. “If it’s growing our seller’s business, it also grows our business as well,” Dorsey said. “We have a nice virtuous cycle in that sense.”
• 21-year-old Thiel Fellow Maddy Maxey. The New York-based designer and technologist was recently interviewed by Venture for America Fellows Shilpi Kumar and Mike Wilner.
• McKeever Conwell, a Baltimore entrepreneur, delivers the conversational version of a talk he delivered at Baltimore Innovation Week’s #Failfest. His first startup came apart and he got a day job. Then he quit six weeks letter because his second one, RedBerrry, was accepted to DreamIt Ventures.

Listen below, download the episode or subscribe to the Technical.ly Podcast on iTunes or Stitcher.