Having two or three sort-of hot companies has a tendency to make that happen. Philadelphia just hasn't had the mega-success stories which will change how people view an area. Philadelphia suffers because of its location between two technology hubs, New York and Washington, D.C., he said. The city has always struck me as sort of like a 'tweener in basketball - too big to be a guard and too small to be a forward. But that hardly spells disaster.
People live their lives there.
Sure, Philadelphia is a tech center - just not in information technology, said Sam Katz, the former mayoral candidate who now heads Greater Philadelphia First, which is trying to bring new business to the area. Biotechnology and pharmaceuticals are the region's hope for the future. Maybe we were slow to realize that because of the cachet and currency of the Safeguard family. Other venture capitalists resent that the Safeguard story was ever viewed as symbolic of Philadelphia. We feel great about the fundamentals for the region at the broadest level.