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Business Insider
17-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
New York's tech elite give Mamdani points for 'charisma' — and engaging with them at closed-door meet
Zohran Mamdani had no deck, but plenty of pitch when he met with New York City's tech community on Wednesday night. At an invite-only fireside chat with venture capitalist Kevin Ryan, the New York City Democratic mayoral candidate tried to sell a room of tech workers and startup investors on his vision for a city that works for the working class. And he mostly avoided the controversy surrounding his views on Israel and tax hikes for the city's millionaires and billionaires, according to multiple people who attended the event. Fresh off a primary win powered by the blunt message that New York is too expensive, Mamdani spent about an hour taking questions from New York's tech workers at an event hosted by the Partnership for New York City, Tech:NYC, and AlleyCorp, Ryan's venture capital firm that incubates and invests in startups. The crowd of some 200 people included startup founders, angel investors, and general partners from venture capital funds. The event, held at a gleaming skyscraper in Midtown, offered a stark contrast to the candidate's grassroots campaign, which was built around free city buses, a freeze on New York rents, and tax hikes for millionaires. Mamdani leaned in, fielding questions with a mix of what attendees who spoke to Business Insider characterized as "charisma" and pragmatism. Ryan told Business Insider that when someone in the audience raised President Donald Trump's social media post about Mamdani, which referred to him as "a 100% Communist Lunatic" who "looks TERRIBLE," he joked that it must have hurt Mamdani to hear he looked terrible, drawing scattered laughs. During their discussion, Mamdani and Ryan pinballed from the state of affairs in New York's tech scene to initiatives across housing, childcare, transportation, healthcare, and government efficiency, attendees said. Last week, Mamdani collided with tech's more conservative wing on social media after a Sequoia Capital investor's viral comments referring to the candidate as an "Islamist." Ryan said the post didn't come up during the chat, but one audience member did ask Mamdani about his past comments on Israel. Mamdani deflected, Ryan said. "He was trying to focus on being mayor of New York," Ryan said, "not mayor of the Middle East." Mamdani was somewhat vague, Ryan and other attendees said, when asked about his previous comments about billionaires. "I don't think that we should have billionaires because, frankly, it is so much money in a moment of such inequality," Mamdani said in a TV interview in June. He seemed to be reaching out to the business community, nonetheless. "He didn't have to meet with the CEOs," said Ryan, referring to a Tuesday meeting with New York's business leaders. In that meeting, Mamdani reportedly said that he would not use the phrase "globalize the intifada" and that he would "discourage" others from doing so, after months of declining to condemn the phrase that some interpret as a call to violence against the Jewish people. At Wednesday's event, one attendee, who works at an artificial intelligence company, said he saw the candidate's rhetoric soften into a more pragmatic approach. The person said that when someone asked Mamdani what he hoped to achieve in his first hundred days in office, the candidate referenced a 2009 proposal by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg to make cross-town buses free. Mamdani has said that he plans to make every bus in New York free. "I was glad to see him being open to new ideas and working with people outside his base," said Yoni Rechtman, a Brooklyn venture capitalist who attended the event. "Over the last few months, he's done a good job moderating on issues that matter to New York." Rechtman questioned if that was because of "an authentic commitment to pragmatism" or "just typical politicking." "He's engaging," Ryan said, "even though he knows that many people in the room don't agree with a number of his positions. I will give him credit for reaching out." As an organizer, Ryan played both host and ambassador. He's among the early architects of New York's startup scene, the original " Silicon Alley insider." His hands were on many of its flagship tech companies: Gilt Groupe, MongoDB, and even Business Insider, which he started along with Henry Blodget and Dwight Merriman in 2007. Ryan, who has previously cohosted events with Mamdani rivals Mayor Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo, and other New York politicians, said he hasn't endorsed a candidate. This event, he said, came together after Mamdani's primary win and offered a chance to introduce the candidate to the tech ecosystem — and for the ecosystem to size him up. A spokesperson for Mamdani didn't return a request for comment. Mamdani's campaign has proposed a 2% income tax hike on New Yorkers earning more than $1 million a year — a bracket that likely doesn't include most of the city's early-stage founders and startup employees, and might only graze a few of the investors in the room. Zach Weinberg, a New York tech founder who notched one of the city's biggest startup exits with the $2.1 billion sale of Flatiron Health in 2018, didn't attend the fireside chat, but he didn't mince words when asked about Mamdani's platform. While the candidate "seems like a perfectly nice guy," Weinberg told Business Insider, he believes many of Mamdani's policies, especially rent freezes and higher taxes, "will not work" and could do more harm than good. "If he pushes tax rates higher on residents, you will see people move out of the city, which actually decreases tax revenue," he said. "Super wealthy people have flexibility where they live." He pointed to hedge fund manager David Tepper's departure from New Jersey — a move that caused a drop in the state's annual tax revenue — as a cautionary tale for what happens when tax policy collides with high-net-worth mobility. Mamdani sits further to the left than most in a room full of card-carrying capitalists, said Ryan. But he tried to show on Wednesday that he's willing to engage with a spectrum of viewpoints ahead of the general election, where he will face a Republican and several independent candidates, he added. When asked about technology's role in the government, Mamdani lamented that while he can track a food delivery order on his phone, he can't monitor a complaint he's logged in NYC311, the city's information and service hotline, as easily. The public sector, he told the group, could learn from the private sector in how it applies technology. "He's a good politician and understands that we need to create jobs in the city if people want to pay for anything," Ryan said.
Business Insider
11-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
New York tech leaders are trying to unseat San Francisco for the future of the industry
If Silicon Valley is where tech companies are born, New York is where they go to mature, says a growing ecosystem of NY tech founders and venture capitalists. This community says the Big Apple can unseat the Bay Area in tech dominance. New York, a bona fide destination for tech companies, is further catching up to San Francisco as a tech hub as the importance of having an East Coast presence grows. The city benefits from a diverse culture, has multiple developed industries, and is seen as a gateway to international markets. The state isn't just counting on this happening; it's actively funding the effort. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has spearheaded a $40 million Empire AI program to supercharge artificial intelligence research in the state. California still beats NY for funding. In the first quarter of 2025, the Bay Area boasted 658 VC deals totaling $58.7 billion, compared with 441 deals totaling $7.1 billion in New York City, according to a report by PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association. Still, as investment volume picks up, a steady stream of VC firms has set up shop in New York. In recent years, Lightspeed Venture Partners joined a list of firms, including Index Ventures, Thrive Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz, by opening or expanding offices in New York. "We were really fortunate to have some New York-based investors, but fundraising as an exercise was always one that felt we had to do mostly on the West Coast," Mike Mignano, partner at Lightspeed, told Business Insider. "When you're trying to build a team in New York, those trips can be super distracting, time-consuming, and exhausting. I know firsthand that founders relate to this experience," he added. "We feel like having a firm in New York City gives us the ability to meet founders where they are and hopefully make the fundraising process a lot easier." Just don't call it 'Silicon Alley' Tech:NYC, an organization that aims to foster a stronger tech industry in the city, recently secured $350,000 of Empire AI funding. "If you want to go live in a group house and go build an app from the second you wake up to the second you go to sleep and not really see anyone except for your cofounders, then New York is probably not the place for you. And that's OK," Julie Samuels, founder and CEO of Tech:NYC, told BI. Samuels said New York matters most once companies begin to address questions of scale and late-stage considerations. The city has several developed industries, such as finance, professional services, and the arts. It also has a diverse populace, which Samuels says creates a network effect where founders can more easily access customers and clients in one market. She said that New York's tech scene, classically called "Silicon Alley," is not a diminutive of Silicon Valley, but very much its own thing. "Once you build that technology and you're ready to figure out who you're going to sell it to, who's going to pay you for it and use it in practice, and how someone who might not be deeply technical will interact with it, what some of the regulatory concerns are — I feel all of those questions will be answered here in New York," Samuels said. In particular, consumer tech companies like Partiful and Kalshi have found a foothold in New York, which boasts a colorful petri dish of consumer segments. Teddy Solomon, the 23-year-old cofounder and CEO of social media company Fizz, relocated his entire 25-plus-person company to New York from Palo Alto earlier this year. He says NY has a "really tight-knit community" of growth-stage and public company tech founders and executives. "People in New York care more about their companies than themselves, and I love that," Solomon told BI. "In the Bay Area, there are a lot of founders who care more about themselves than their companies." What about the Midwest? As well-trodden as the East Coast versus West Coast arguments have become, a VC who focuses on neither coastal market and is based in Ohio takes a different view. "It's not about New England or the West Coast or whatever. I think this is a more exciting time from an American innovation standpoint than we've ever seen before," Chris Olsen, Drive Capital cofounder and partner, told BI. The firm, which says it makes investments from "east of the Rockies and west of the Hudson River," takes an America-first view on the competition for venture dollars and technological dominance. In the future, Olsen doesn't see a win-or-lose scenario between New York and San Francisco tech companies. "We've got this new thing called artificial intelligence that's shaking up the snowglobe, and this time, when all the snow settles, where is it going to land?" Olsen said. "I'm betting there's more that's going to settle in America as a whole. I don't think it will be nearly as much in California as was concentrated in the past."
Business Insider
06-06-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
'SF, we're coming for you:' We went to NYC Tech Week, where everyone is saying the city is the land of opportunity
One of the clearest takeaways from New York's Andreessen Horowitz-sponsored Tech Week — a decentralized sprawl of happy hours with panoramic rooftop views, panels, and, this year, pickleball matches — was this: When it comes to building startups from AI to consumer to deep tech, New York is no longer playing catch up to attract startup interest. It might just be pulling ahead. "People don't come to New York to live in a group house and code all night and never see anyone else," said Julie Samuels, the president and CEO of Tech:NYC, an organization that promotes tech founders and entrepreneurship in the city, at a panel on Monday focused on AI startup innovation. Samules added that New York is the place to be for any founders eager to move fast on product and head count. "New Yorkers hire," she said. "People want to live here, have always wanted and will continue to want to live here." Getting into Tech Week wasn't exactly easy: Many events were full or required pre-approval on Partiful, the Andreessen-backed invite platform of choice. Still, Business Insider managed to drop in on a few of the week's activities, like a boozy happy hour on the rooftop of IBM's sleek Manhattan headquarters and Gen Z founders hobnobbing at a cosmetics store, to see what all the hype was about. NY is going all in on AI San Francisco has long reigned supreme as home to the industry's hottest AI startups: big-name LLM developers like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Claude are all headquartered there, along with numerous other young companies at the app and infrastructure layer. One of the biggest themes at New York's tech week events, however, is that the Big Apple isn't just ready to welcome an AI startup here and there. The city's tech community is pushing to become a destination for all things AI. "The entire AI stack is in New York — you have ecosystems, agents, apps," said Emily Fontaine, IBM's global head of venture capital, during a panel discussion at the company's Madison Avenue headquarters early in the week. "When you come to New York, you have the whole spectrum to invest in," she said. "These are all companies that are well developed, have a product, and are starting to get revenue." Fontaine added that in New York, "compared to SF, you have strong founders who are actually driving revenue who are excited to go to market with us." At a power walk to kick off the event, most founders couldn't stop talking about AI. They spanned industries and geographies, but one told BI he was determined to make New York City the country's startup capital. "It's the second best. I want to make it the biggest startup ecosystem in the world," Somya Gupta, who cofounded an AI education startup, said. "SF, we're coming for you!" Founder Ben Spray said his next venture is an AI-powered IT department, but that the AI component is a marketing strategy, given how hot the technology is. "It's a little bit of a branding move," he told BI. "I mean, take my AI IT department — it's really just an IT department built from the ground up to fit into the AI world." Even local and state politicians are getting in on the AI push. At an Axios panel on Tuesday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said she's keen on using AI to train 100,000 state employees in offices like the DMV. "I'm not looking to eliminate their jobs," she said. "I see great potential here, and I leaned hard into this." Defense and hardware head East Science, defense, and hardware-oriented startups, known as deep tech companies, are a red-hot sector on the West Coast, though the New York scene is finally heating up. One standout was the rooftop party in SoHo hosted by Haus, a deep tech public relations and communications firm, and Stonegardens Advisory, a consultancy that advises startups breaking into defense. With swanky cocktails and cheese boards piled high, panelists dished out how to win key government contracts early. "The end goal was ultimately to help people who are building the space understand what it means to work with the Department of Defense, which is increasingly opening itself up to startups and learning how to work with these more early-stage companies," Daniel Oberhaus, who founded Haus, told BI in an interview. (Last week, the Pentagon launched a program to back college-founded startups that serve both commercial and government customers.) Deep tech may not be as big of a thing in New York as it is in El Segundo, Calif., a nucleus of aerospace, defense, and energy companies, Oberhaus admitted. But Newlab, a warehouse and startup space in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, thinks that New York's software chops and engineering talent will make the city's hardware companies rival the West Coast. Newlab is tricked out with offices and labs, which have attracted early-stage deep tech startups. A hub for consumer apps and Gen Z founders Consumer startups — especially those built for or by Gen Z — are also having a moment in the city that never sleeps. At one happy hour on Wednesday, founders of consumer startups mingled over drinks to talk about the apps they're building. Naturally, the event (which was cohosted by Consumer Club, a Discord community for consumer founders, and Superwall, a paywall tool for apps) took place at coworking space and consumer startup hub Verci. Some startups in the crowd included BePresent, a screen time control app that works out of the Verci space. A16z's Speedrun startup school also had a presence there, with an investor and recent alumni, like Waveful, a social network that was part of the most recent Speedrun cohort. Lekondo, a visual search engine for fashion, told us they were recently accepted into Speedrun's upcoming cohort. That same night, we also stopped by another mixer for Gen Z founders and creators, put together by Natalie Neptune, founder of GenZtea, an IRL events business that aims to connect brands with Gen Z, at skincare brand Kiehl's. Nathaneo Johnson, a Yale student who cofounded the buzzy professional networking startup Series, was among the Gen Z founders in the crowd. "You're seeing an increase of these AI-powered social networks," said Neptune. The NY vs. SF debate rages on Wherever we went, the techies were ready to socialize — perhaps markedly different from the builder culture vibe in San Francisco. Loosened up by seemingly endless trays of spicy margaritas and champagne at yet another rooftop party, this one at IBM, the crowd was lively and relaxed. Attendees, wearing button-downs rumpled from a day's work, didn't just talk business: Conversations evolved into debates on everything from global politics to the misfortunes of dating in New York City. "Tech Week has proven NYC is a mainstay and a competitive market for tech," Molly O'Shea, founder of venture-focused newsletter Sourcery, told BI in a text. O'Shea moderated two panels at Tech Week. "I'm sure many visitors (like me) are contemplating moving here to get some of this energy."
New York Post
05-06-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Inside NYNext groundbreaking AI event at New York Tech Week
On Tuesday night as part of New York Tech Week, NYNext joined forces with Tech:NYC and PensarAI to host our first-ever event. The night celebrated the key players — from scrappy startups to giants such as Google and IBM — that are making big moves in artificial intelligence. Nearly 150 people took part in NY AI Demo Night. Founders and venture capitalists snacked on figs and tuna tartar and sipped rosé — as well as our new favorite non-alcoholic beverage Töst — at the Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg. The factory has gotten a major facelift and now houses a number of startups as well as a sweeping view of Manhattan. Eight AI companies presented their newest ideas to the audience with the goal of getting people to download their apps and invest in their companies 4 Julie Samuels, who runs Tech: NYC — which plays a major role in hosting Tech Week — addressed attendees. Emmy Park 'One of the most unique aspects of the NY tech scene is the ability to bring together and showcase tech heavyweights implementing AI at scale alongside startups in deep builder mode,' Caroline McKechnie, Director of Platform at Tech:NYC, told me. 'We saw a real need for an event that gives founders and engineers a window into what's being built across the city's AI landscape — all against the iconic skyline. The energy of having established players and emerging talent demo side by side is something you can only capture in a city like New York.' Reality Defender, which detects deepfakes, showed just how effective it is in finding AI-generated images among a slew of photos. Founder Ben Colman told me it would have made the plot of HBO's 'Mountainhead' — a film based on the premise that deep fakes are destroying the world — completely null. 4 More than 150 guests came to our New York Tech Week event. Tech Week has ballooned to more than 1,000 events this year. Emmy Park PromptLayer, which aims to empower lay people to create their own apps with AI, demonstrated how seamless it is for anyone to prompt AI to build a product. Founder Jared Zoneraich said, 'The best AI builders, the best prompt engineers are not machine learning engineers … they're subject matter experts.' Representatives from IBM presented their newest insights into AI. But the company also made headlines this week with its newly unveiled watsonx AI Labs in NYC. 'This isn't your typical corporate lab. watsonx AI Labs is where the best AI developers gain access to world-class engineers and resources and build new businesses and applications that will reshape AI for the enterprise,' Ritika Gunnar, General Manager, Data & AI, IBM, told me. 'By anchoring this mission in New York City, we are investing in a diverse, world‑class talent pool and a vibrant community whose innovations have long shaped the tech landscape.' 4 NYNext co-hosted the evening with PensarAI, Two Trees, and Tech: NYC. Emmy Park Other presenters included Flora, an AI tool for creatives; a podcast and newsletter network powered by AI; Superblocks, an AI platform building software; Run Loop AI, which helps companies scale coding; and Google's Deepmind. This story is part of NYNext, an indispensable insider insight into the innovations, moonshots and political chess moves that matter most to NYC's power players (and those who aspire to be). The event was just one piece of what has become a sprawling and celebratory week for anyone in technology. 4 The event was hosted in Williamsburg where the Domino Sugar Refinery has gotten a major facelift — and now houses dozens of tech startups. Emmy Park The idea for a tech week came from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). The firm launched with a Tech Week in Los Angeles in 2022. In 2023, they expanded to San Francisco and New York City. Since the first New York Tech Week in 2023, the seven-day conference has ballooned to more than 1,000 events with 60,000 RSVPs. This year, over half of the events focused on AI. 'The energy that is in this room, the startups that we're going to hear from, these are the ideas that are going to propel New York's economy for generations to come,' Tech:NYC CEO Julie Samuels told me. 'These are the idea that are gonna change the way we all live, we all work, we all do business, we communicate. We are on the cusp of such an exciting time for New York, and tonight is just a little bit of a flavor of that.' Send NYNext a tip: nynextlydia@
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
IBM Unveils watsonx AI Labs: The Ultimate Accelerator for AI Builders, Startups and Enterprises in New York City
New AI initiative will co-create gen AI solutions with IBM clients, nurture NYC talent, advance enterprise AI implementations NEW YORK, June 2, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced watsonx AI Labs, a new, developer-first innovation hub in New York City, designed to supercharge AI builders and accelerate AI adoption at scale. watsonx AI Labs connects IBM's enterprise resources and expertise with the next generation of AI developers in order to build breakthrough AI applications for business. Located in the heart of Manhattan at IBM's new offices at One Madison, watsonx AI Labs extends IBM's global network of engineering labs, bringing together IBM researchers and engineers in a collaborative hub dedicated to co-creating and advancing meaningful, agentic AI solutions. The lab will work side-by-side with startups, scale-ups, and the world's largest enterprises to help clients unlock real-world value from their AI. The lab benefits from – and helps fuel – New York City's status as a global AI hub. New York City has more than 2,000 AI startups, and its AI workforce grew by nearly 25% from 2022 to 2023, according to Tech:NYC. Since 2019, more than 1,000 AI-related companies in New York City have raised $27 billion in funding. Also today, continuing its commitment to the local startup ecosystem, IBM announced it will acquire expertise and license technology from Seek AI, the New York City-based startup building AI agents to harness enterprise data. Seek AI helps businesses leverage agentic AI to mine value from enterprise data, and their expertise will serve as a foundational part of watsonx AI Labs. "This isn't your typical corporate lab. watsonx AI Labs is where the best AI developers gain access to world-class engineers and resources and build new businesses and applications that will reshape AI for the enterprise," said Ritika Gunnar, General Manager, Data & AI, IBM. "By anchoring this mission in New York City, we are investing in a diverse, world‑class talent pool and a vibrant community whose innovations have long shaped the tech landscape." "IBM's launch of watsonx AI Labs signals a transformative investment in New York's innovation ecosystem. By bringing together world-class engineering talent, emerging startups, and deep enterprise expertise right here in the heart of the city, this initiative strengthens New York's position as a global hub for responsible and cutting-edge AI development," said Julie Samuels, President and CEO of Tech:NYC. "It's a win for our tech sector, communities, workforce, and economy. We're thrilled to see IBM betting big on the extraordinary talent and entrepreneurial spirit that make this city so unique." The lab seeks to tap into New York City's rich technology landscape by attracting local talent, pursuing collaborations with local universities and research institutions, and supporting local entrepreneurs. Consistent with IBM's long-standing investment in New York State, over the next five years, local startups that successfully launch AI enterprise solutions at the lab will have access to technical experts, mentorship and amplification, as well as potential investment from IBM Ventures and its global $500M Enterprise AI Venture Fund. "Building a foundational part of watsonx AI Labs allows us to pair our expertise building data agents with IBM's engineering depth to solve clients' toughest AI challenges," said Sarah Nagy, CEO of Seek AI. "We're excited to tackle these challenges here in New York City, where Seek AI was founded and the AI talent and innovation ecosystem is thriving." watsonx AI Labs will focus on co-creation of domain‑specific AI solutions to solve enterprises' most complex challenges – from customer service and supply‑chain optimization to cybersecurity, responsible AI governance, and open-source AI. To learn more about participating in the watsonx AI Labs, visit About IBMIBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs, and gain a competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently, and securely. IBM's breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity, and service. Visit for more information. 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