Ben Gilbert: NYC has “More events, more interview[s], more networking”

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

In the great big rise of geek culture from subculture to full blown community, video gaming has been a primary player.

In spring 2009, Joystiq was continuing its reign as preeminent gaming blog and content jewel of Aol. It also managed to have quite a Philly pull, from its Wharton-educated founder to a Fishtown-based editor and a pair of major contributors living in the region.

This past summer, one of those contributors, Ben Gilbert, who was also part of the Geekadelphia crew, made the jump and moved to Brooklyn.

Originally from Connecticut, Gilbert, 26, came to Philly for Temple University. Now the writer, who says he ‘developed a bit of hopelessness for Philly,’ talks about leaving, coming back and the Dock Street Brewery.

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Michael McLarnon ‘hit the limit’ with his development in Philly

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

Michael McLarnon says he just needed to try some place out to grow.

The Media native graduated from Drexel in 2005 and worked with GIS firm Azavea from then until this past July. That month, after living in Philly permanently since 2006 (and living carless since 2007) he took the familiar trip north to the 67th ward.

McLarnon says he’ll be back, and we wanted to know why.

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Jonny Goldstein: Philly “oozes with character”

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

People leave and come to cities all the time. That’s just part of their natural ebb and flow.

And, Exit Interview was never meant to be exclusively about community members leaving in a huff, it was meant to get a pulse on the various reasons why different people have left. Sometimes those reasons are purely circumstance.

Jonny Goldstein didn’t leave in a huff when he moved in mid-August 2010. His wife got a job in Pittsburgh, and the pair still loves this city. But the graphic artist’s new perspective is helpful in garnering insight on the perception of our city’s tax structure, its place in this part of the country and, heck, even how the Steel Town sees us.

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Ben Kessler: Philly has “a lack of leaders looking to take the risk to start a company”

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

In September 2009, Ben Kessler was having trouble getting work.

After a Drexel co-op in San Francisco the summer before, the new graduate and Unbreaded co-founder was living with his parents in Yardley, waiting for what was next. The Great Recession was hot then, but even still, Kessler, now 25, was getting bites in the 67th ward. By that October, he had moved up the Jersey Turnpike to New York City.

Philly has an ugly reputation for retaining its college graduate, but that trend is moving dramatically the other way. Still, we asked Kessler for perspective from  a college graduate who loves this city but hightails it for one with a job for him.

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Kevin Fitzpatrick on Philly’s startup scene: ‘There isn’t much of one’

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

Kevin Fitzpatrick had one of those cool white collar tech jobs that actually thrive in Center City.

Born in the Northeast neighborhood of Rhawnhurst, raised in Horsham and a loving resident of Center City, his job with Comcast Interactive Media seemed to suggest he would stick around.

But in June 2010, Fitzpatrick packed up with his girlfriend and moved to San Francisco. It was just time, he says, though his roots may likely bring him back.

“I needed to get out, find mentors and work on new stuff,” he said. Where’s the line between a city that limits and a natural need to try new places. Hear more from Fitzpatrick in his Exit Interview below.

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Megan Wendell: “I felt that Philadelphia taxes were significantly holding back” our business

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

Megan Wendell has an interesting story, and she knows it.

As shared in our March 2010 interview with the indie record label executive turned Canary Promotions + Design chief and her web developer husband Mason, Wendell had very deep professional and personal relationships with the Philadelphia arts and creative technology communities.

A couple months before husband Mason joined Old City development firm Zivtech, the couple had moved their home, their young daughter and, by extension, Megan’s promotions business out of Mount Airy in northwest Philadelphia to nearby suburban Glenside.

Megan is very careful in pointing out that this move was all business. She still has nothing but love for the Philly arts scene, but there has to be something to be learned from the move by this young, educated, creative family.

Technically Philly talks to Megan below, in another installment of Exit Interview.

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Blake Jennelle: I grow incrementally if I stay and in a much bigger way if I go

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with those who have moved out of Philly. We hear a lot of chatter about Philadelphia’s brain drain, particularly from our technology community. We’ve read the reports and heard the studies, but we wanted to hear from the people who have actually left. Why’d they go, would they stay, will they come back? If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

Second in our series is Blake Jennelle, founder of Philly Startup Leaders and MyDunkTank. Technically Philly caught up with Jennelle via email to ask him why he moved and if he’d ever come back. Answers edited for length.

When did you actually leave? And to where?

I moved to New York City three weeks ago, just before Christmas. I hope Santa got my gift forwarding notice. If not, Merry Christmas to the whomever is taking over my apartment.

What are the primary reasons you left for your new location? Was there a specific event or moment that you realized you had to/wanted to leave?

It was a feeling more than anything specific. I had been spending a couple of days each week in New York for about six months. It was partly because my cowgirl lives there and partly to meet with clients for my charity fundraising startup, MyDunkTank.

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Notehall on Philly perception: ‘To be honest, generally, it’s not very good’

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

In the DreamIT Ventures incubation community, it was big news when the team behind Notehall, an online marketplace for college study materials, decided in August 2009 to forgo its West Coast roots and stay in Philadelphia. By their first national TV appearance that October, they had remade a Manayunk rowhome into a quirky Web 2.0 office.

“DreamIT worked. We’re staying in Philadelphia,” Notehall Co-Founder Justin Miller said in summer 2009. Their team spoke about being embraced by the Philly startup community and exploring a new, big East Coast city.

By this May, a year after first coming to Philly, they had moved to San Francisco.

The core of this growing company still thinks fondly on this city, but we spoke to the company’s marketing officer DJ Stephan about moving on and what they remember best.

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Greg Wilder: NYC is six times more productive for Orpheus Media

We hear a lot of chatter about Philadelphia’s brain drain, particularly from our technology community. We’ve read the reports and heard the studies, but we wanted to hear from the people who have actually left. Why’d they go, would they stay, will they come back? So here now, we introduce Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. Let’s see if there are any surprises.If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

First up is Greg Wilder of Orpheus Media Research, the music technology company and Switch presenter. As always, the conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

When did you actually leave Philly? And where did you go?

December 15th, to Brooklyn’s DUMBO area.

Why did you leave for Brooklyn?

We knew for a while that Orpheus Media Research needed to move in the beginning of 2011.

The reason we needed to move OMR is, because we are working in media and music, there were no clients or momentum in Philadelphia. We were Megabusing it all the time. That gets old very fast. We weren’t gonna move to Los Angeles so we decided New York is the place to be then.

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