"I don't know what I do next," a mid-career Lehman Brothers worker told me last week. "Barclays doesn't want my unit. Maybe I should start up a business."
Nearly 30 years ago, Mayor Bloomberg did just that. He left Salomon Brothers in 1981, during the recession of 1981-82, and he turned his $10 million severance check and Salomon shares and his insights into the value of technology to Wall Street into a giant company with more than 9,000 employees concentrated in the New York City area.
Now, to replace jobs being lost in financial services, New York City needs to repeat that many times. Mayor Bloomberg's record as a successful business leader helped reverse the 9/11 diaspora by convincing displaced businesses to return from their temporary suburban sites. His economic challenge today is greater, as credit problems have intensified and the likelihood fades of large new commitments from Washington, Albany or insurance companies. The latest estimate from Albany of the imminent loss of New York's financial services jobs is 40,000-and that may be too low.
A shift is needed in the emphasis of the city's economic development efforts forged after the loss of the World Trade Center, which were preoccupied with real estate-just visit the City's Economic Development Corporation (EDC) website (www.nycedc.com) and count how many of the "Success Stories" are tied to finding space, creating space, filling space.
Today, the city has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to harness the energy of Wall Street entrepreneurs bursting with ideas as grand as Bloomberg's was in 1981, but who need partners to make their ideas a reality.
Layoffs from the downsizing of Wall Street create a unique opportunity for talented displaced workers to start or partner in new businesses or social ventures. The displacement could help advance the Mayor's PlaNYC 2030 agenda by encouraging green entrepreneurs-profit-oriented or nonprofit, like Solar One and GreenEdge NYC-to make the Big Apple into the Green Apple.
The growth of the knowledge industry on Route 128 and in Silicon Valley was based on the MIT-Stanford model of a three-way fusion of energy from business, government and university sources. Sociology Professor Henry Etzkowitz calls this the "triple helix" of innovation. How can the mayor spur such growth?
The elements of such an approach lie in the nine EDC sectors based on industry groups-bioscience, emerging technology (software, etc.), fashion, green industry, manufacturing/industrial, media/entertainment, not-for-profit, professional services and real estate. Each has an EDC website page under NYC Business Climate/Industry Overviews.
A wannabe entrepreneur could usefully spend time on this site. But how to fast-track partnerships? What about overlaps such as a green fashion company or a digital-media startup?
More broadly, how do wannabe entrepreneurs meet one other? Mr. Merrill and Mr. Lynch serendipitously met at the (former) 23rd Street YMCA. They had adjoining lockers. Isn't this a major edge for NYC? Can the process be intensified?
Mayor Giuliani's EDC sponsored full-blown venture-capital conferences for dot-coms. The startups would write up their ideas and submit a one-page summary of their business plans. Angel investors and VCs would walk through the equivalent of a camp fair with each startup at a separate table. It was speed-dating to introduce Finance to Technology.
Might the EDC or the Mayor's Department of Small Business Services try to replicate the synergy generated by the dot-com conferences? EDC staff members are themselves familiar with the professional infrastructure of each industry. What is needed is a way to bring someone with an idea in touch with other people who could help test and realize it.
For example, the city could announce a New-Opportunity Fair at which industry membership associations, like the NY Software Industry Association for emerging technology, would be invited to send representatives.
At such a fair, citywide passes could be given away or sold. The passes would allow the bearer to attend certain open meetings, times and places to be posted on dedicated website pages, with the URL listed on the pass. The pass might also be promoted in upscale publications like City Hall.
Such initiatives would make it easier for people with business ideas to connect with partners. They would strengthen the people-oriented component of the city's economic development programs. And they would help to create a climate for a multiplied replication of the kind of job-creating innovation that the Mayor launched in 1981.
John Tepper Marlin, principal at CityEconomist (www.cityeconomist.com) and adjunct professor at NYU's Stern School of Business, served three city comptrollers as chief economist and senior policy adviser from 1992-2006.
Nearly 30 years ago, Mayor Bloomberg did just that. He left Salomon Brothers in 1981, during the recession of 1981-82, and he turned his $10 million severance check and Salomon shares and his insights into the value of technology to Wall Street into a giant company with more than 9,000 employees concentrated in the New York City area.
Now, to replace jobs being lost in financial services, New York City needs to repeat that many times. Mayor Bloomberg's record as a successful business leader helped reverse the 9/11 diaspora by convincing displaced businesses to return from their temporary suburban sites. His economic challenge today is greater, as credit problems have intensified and the likelihood fades of large new commitments from Washington, Albany or insurance companies. The latest estimate from Albany of the imminent loss of New York's financial services jobs is 40,000-and that may be too low.
A shift is needed in the emphasis of the city's economic development efforts forged after the loss of the World Trade Center, which were preoccupied with real estate-just visit the City's Economic Development Corporation (EDC) website (www.nycedc.com) and count how many of the "Success Stories" are tied to finding space, creating space, filling space.
Today, the city has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to harness the energy of Wall Street entrepreneurs bursting with ideas as grand as Bloomberg's was in 1981, but who need partners to make their ideas a reality.
Layoffs from the downsizing of Wall Street create a unique opportunity for talented displaced workers to start or partner in new businesses or social ventures. The displacement could help advance the Mayor's PlaNYC 2030 agenda by encouraging green entrepreneurs-profit-oriented or nonprofit, like Solar One and GreenEdge NYC-to make the Big Apple into the Green Apple.
The growth of the knowledge industry on Route 128 and in Silicon Valley was based on the MIT-Stanford model of a three-way fusion of energy from business, government and university sources. Sociology Professor Henry Etzkowitz calls this the "triple helix" of innovation. How can the mayor spur such growth?
The elements of such an approach lie in the nine EDC sectors based on industry groups-bioscience, emerging technology (software, etc.), fashion, green industry, manufacturing/industrial, media/entertainment, not-for-profit, professional services and real estate. Each has an EDC website page under NYC Business Climate/Industry Overviews.
A wannabe entrepreneur could usefully spend time on this site. But how to fast-track partnerships? What about overlaps such as a green fashion company or a digital-media startup?
More broadly, how do wannabe entrepreneurs meet one other? Mr. Merrill and Mr. Lynch serendipitously met at the (former) 23rd Street YMCA. They had adjoining lockers. Isn't this a major edge for NYC? Can the process be intensified?
Mayor Giuliani's EDC sponsored full-blown venture-capital conferences for dot-coms. The startups would write up their ideas and submit a one-page summary of their business plans. Angel investors and VCs would walk through the equivalent of a camp fair with each startup at a separate table. It was speed-dating to introduce Finance to Technology.
Might the EDC or the Mayor's Department of Small Business Services try to replicate the synergy generated by the dot-com conferences? EDC staff members are themselves familiar with the professional infrastructure of each industry. What is needed is a way to bring someone with an idea in touch with other people who could help test and realize it.
For example, the city could announce a New-Opportunity Fair at which industry membership associations, like the NY Software Industry Association for emerging technology, would be invited to send representatives.
At such a fair, citywide passes could be given away or sold. The passes would allow the bearer to attend certain open meetings, times and places to be posted on dedicated website pages, with the URL listed on the pass. The pass might also be promoted in upscale publications like City Hall.
Such initiatives would make it easier for people with business ideas to connect with partners. They would strengthen the people-oriented component of the city's economic development programs. And they would help to create a climate for a multiplied replication of the kind of job-creating innovation that the Mayor launched in 1981.
John Tepper Marlin, principal at CityEconomist (www.cityeconomist.com) and adjunct professor at NYU's Stern School of Business, served three city comptrollers as chief economist and senior policy adviser from 1992-2006.
