New York Gets Googled 2

Complaint Department
Later this year, the NYSIA plans to recast itself as the New York High-Tech Coalition and open membership to biotech, robotics, and telecom companies. That's one thing the New York tech scene is missing -- a place where all kinds of techies and power brokers can hang out together.

About 60 NYSIA members last week gathered after work at JPMorgan Chase's Park Avenue headquarters for their monthly meeting. Attendees spent the first half hour in casual conversation, but the tone then turned ugly. It was time for the group's annual year-ahead predictions panel, and the prognosticators had bones to pick with some of the largest software companies that weren't there. "The CEO of Microsoft is an embarrassment in my opinion," huffed IT consultant Aron Trauring, arguing that Steve Ballmer has fallen out of touch with Microsoft's customers.

Google doesn't escape the criticism. It has a "cultish" culture and collects too much user data, some complained. Others are envious. Google has been "so successful and gotten so big, it's going to be an almost impossible act to follow," said Erik Grimmelmann, chief technology officer of Send Word Now Communications and a veteran of AT&T and Bell Labs.

No one said this would be an easy crowd. It is, after all, New York, and you know what they say about New Yorkers. Which raises the question: To what extent might Google become a New York company? Or is it merely a Bay Area company with a New York address?

Denis O'Leary, former CIO of Chase Manhattan Bank, a private investor, and a New Yorker, thinks you can take Google out of Silicon Valley, but you can't take Silicon Valley out of Google. "The biggest impact of Google having a New York presence is a likely rise in their employees' cholesterol levels," he quips in an e-mail exchange. "Sparks, Jordan's, Morton's, The Palm will impact them more than their physical presence will impact New York. Though something tells me they are not big steak eaters, so maybe it's Nobu instead."

Welcome to New York, Google. It isn't Silicon Valley, but it can be pretty much anything you want it to be.

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