I spoke recently to a friend of mine who had moved back from NYC to SF, and he told me that when you tell people in a bar you're a software engineer, they get this condescending look and say, "oh, IT..." (as in, the people who fix the computers). This article basically confirms what he was telling me.
It depends on the bar and the crowd; hanging out around NYU or Columbia is much different than hanging out around Wall Street or the Upper East Side.
NYC doesn't have the same kind of start up culture that the Valley has, but there are plenty of start ups here. I've consulted with two start ups that are pretty successful in their respective niches.
I've never lived in Silicon Valley, but I lived in SoCal and I've been to SF a number of times. There is certainly a different vibe on the West Coast. NYC will never be the next Silicon Valley. We have our own culture here and the diversity it provides is a good thing.
