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Choosing New York over San Francisco

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Re: Choosing New York over San Francisco

#31

Post by wooster »

Not every time, but much of the time, I try to talk about what I do with a New Yorker (most East Coasters, actually), they start by bringing a lot of stop energy[0]. They'll say something like "Why are you doing that when there's already X?"[1], "That'll never work because of Y"[2], "Why did you quit your job at Z?", "Why don't you go work at ABC Investments, Hedge Funds, and Worldwide Arbitrage, Inc?"[3], etc.

It's frustrating and tiring to have to run through a huge body of what should be background knowledge just to have a conversation with someone about what I'm doing.

In the Bay Area, I generally don't have to deal with:

- Huge amounts of stop energy.

- Myopic views about which industries/products/companies/places[4] matter.

- Support of entrenched monopolies or ideas.

- Excessive amounts of negativism.

For example, when the iPhone came out, people in Silicon Valley were really excited. Meanwhile, talking to people in New York, it was almost a non-event; all I heard from them was why it would never matter because the Blackberry was so freaking awesome.

[0] http://www.userland.com/whatIsStopEnergy

[1] Why are you going to work for Apple? Nobody uses Macs and Microsoft is a much bigger tech company.

[2] Nobody here uses iPhones, you'd better get yourself a Blackberry!

[3] The future is bundling mortgage securities!

[4] If you can't find it in Manhattan, it can't be found! Best city in the world!

Re: Choosing New York over San Francisco

#33

Post by geebee »

ardit33 wrote: post #13

I think one major argument that he didn't mention is that NYC beats SF hands down in the 'getting laid' department. If you are young and your idea of having a good time is going out, partying until 4am, and getting laid often, then you should stay in NYC. If you a super hipster, social outcast and/or into weird stuff, then come to SF. Your friends are already here.

I actually had a similar experience. Spent most of my life in SF but lived for about 6 months in Manhattan. It was far, far easier to meet women. In fact, a guy can even be a bit of a wallflower and still meet women in Manhattan, because they will take the initiative. Funny, up to that point, I thought SF was a pretty good place to meet women, because my only point of comparison was San Diego, which is a pretty rough dating scene for men. I actually still think SF is ok, because it has a greater concentration of jobs that appeal to women, as opposed to the valley. But it's no manhattan (I suspect that nowhere else in the world really compares). You know, this is actually one of the benefits of being in a city where tech isn't the main industry. New York is a far bigger center than SF for fashion, publishing, advertising, and so forth - fields that attract more women than men.

Re: Choosing New York over San Francisco

#34

Post by ivorjawa »

"San Francisco is fun, dont get me wrong. Compared to New York, its boring. I have trouble even thinking about living in an apartment in Mountain View, Cupertino or Palo Alto. Those places are socially dead."

Last time I looked, none of those cities are San Francisco.

Re: Choosing New York over San Francisco

#36

Post by api »

wooster wrote: post #31

Not every time, but much of the time, I try to talk about what I do with a New Yorker (most East Coasters, actually), they start by bringing a lot of stop energy[0]. They'll say something like "Why are you doing that when there's already X?"[1], "That'll never work because of Y"[2], "Why did you quit your job at Z?", "Why don't you go work at ABC Investments, Hedge Funds, and Worldwide Arbitrage, Inc?"[3], etc. It's…

[0] is awesome, thanks. I encounter a lot of stop energy, and unfortunately sometimes it works on me. I need to just ignore it.

Re: Choosing New York over San Francisco

#37

Post by api »

Dnewz wrote: post #6

Is san francisco ruby or python?

I don't know, but Boston is C++. Its mixture of hacker culture, hyper-IQ academia, and classical puritan social values is sort of like implementing closures with template metaprogramming and special #ifdefs everywhere for compiler backward compatibility.

It's puritan social values plus academic liberalism plus nerds. It is backward compatible but not strictly a superset.

Comparing cities to programming languages thread GO!

Re: Choosing New York over San Francisco

#38

Post by Ixiaus »

I like this rebuttal, a lot. I will say, having lived in California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Kentucky (not in that order) has made me realize this: culture counts for a lot, the internet is prolific, and calling any large American city a "technological backwater" is a farce.

A lot of people = a diversity of ideas = culture = innovation. New York has a lot of people and a lot of culture, quite a bit of innovation has come out of that city; California (as a whole, not just the Valley, I live in SD right now) has a lot of people and a lot of culture. The same can be said for Atlanta, Dallas, etc...

I will note this difference, though: much of California's culture embraces the leading edge more than it's east coast counterparts - computers and the internet is the leading edge; the internet is an agent of social reform and change, technology (computers) is the vessel through which widespread social reticulation is delivered. Therefore, I do not think New York is a technological backwater; but I do think the people in California/Portland/Seattle can be more progressive and this is why the west coast is carrying the torch.

Small disclaimer: I've been to New York but I haven't lived there, my conclusion is derived much more from intuition than actual experience.

Re: Choosing New York over San Francisco

#39

Post by [deleted] »

geebee wrote: post #33
ardit33 wrote: post #13

I think one major argument that he didn't mention is that NYC beats SF hands down in the 'getting laid' department. If you are young and your idea of having a good time is going out, partying until 4am, and getting laid often, then you should stay in NYC. If you a super hipster, social outcast and/or into weird stuff, then come to SF. Your friends are already here.

I actually had a similar experience. Spent most of my life in SF but lived for about 6 months in Manhattan. It was far, far easier to meet women. In fact, a guy can even be a bit of a wallflower and still meet women in Manhattan, because they will take the initiative. Funny, up to that point, I thought SF was a pretty good place to meet women, because my only point of comparison was San Diego, which is a pretty rough…

[deleted]
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