41–50 of 110 posts
I've lived in Taipei, Los Angeles, LA suburb, east San Jose, Cupertino, San Diego, Pendleton, Lejeune, and now back in Cupertino with constant visits to San Francisco and I can honestly say... it doesn't really matter where you live.
Learn as much as you can. Make as many friends as you can. And make sure you always have a WiFi connection.
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San Francisco is a great city. But there are other great cities too. I for one, love where I live in Toronto. There is a general perception that Toronto is just another American city except it happens to be in Canada. That is flat out inaccurate and my colleague one office over who just emigrated from California and another American colleague who setup shop here after getting his Ph.D. from Harvard will attest to tha…
Ugh, the one thing I really hate about Canadian cities is the WEATHER! (I live in Canada) It's nice to wear shorts and a t-shirt! I feel better when it's warm most of the time vs. 3 months! I rather live in California for the weather alone.
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I just moved from Seattle to NYC after 5 years, and although it's only been a few weeks -- it's been nice to be in a city where there are other dominant industries other than technology. San Francisco (and to a lesser extent, Seattle) does a great job of attracting the best and brightest technical people from around the world ... but that doesn't make for a very intellectually diverse set of people (both socially and…
It depends on the fields you're interested in. Seattle feels just as diverse as NYC to me, just in different ways. If you're into finance, advertising, and fashion, NYC is hard to beat. Seattle, OTOH, wins big at mountain climbing (we have mountains nearby), aviation (we have Boeing nearby), and martial arts (we have Japan nearby), for example. It's also a hotspot for medicine, microbrews, and certain kinds of music.…
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I just moved from Seattle to NYC after 5 years, and although it's only been a few weeks -- it's been nice to be in a city where there are other dominant industries other than technology. San Francisco (and to a lesser extent, Seattle) does a great job of attracting the best and brightest technical people from around the world ... but that doesn't make for a very intellectually diverse set of people (both socially and…
Have you been to San Francisco? This is a very diverse city, from nationalities to political persuasion, etc. The tech community is definitely in the minority here.
DHH talked about lifestyle at Startup camp, and lifestyle is the key reason to want to be in San Francisco. It is simply a great City to live in with the added benefit that almost any escape to the natural world, like skiiing, sailing, etc etc, is immediately available. The downside is some added cost, but the costs here are comparable to Southbay locations and other major Cities. So if you want to build a sustainabl…
San Francisco is a great city. But there are other great cities too. I for one, love where I live in Toronto. There is a general perception that Toronto is just another American city except it happens to be in Canada. That is flat out inaccurate and my colleague one office over who just emigrated from California and another American colleague who setup shop here after getting his Ph.D. from Harvard will attest to tha…
I don't think suburbs are the end of the world, especially for people with kids.
You also left out college towns, which can be very nice. While the college town I'm living in now (Laramie, WY) doesn't have the sheer diversity of a major cosmopolitan city, it attracts a healthy selection of smart, interesting people. I can also walk to work in 10 minutes, housing is way cheaper than places like Seattle and SF, and there are mountains less than half an hour away. If you don't need the networking resources of a major city, a college town can be a sweet deal.
I'm in Buenos Aires. The cost of living here it's 1/6 compared to San Francisco. And we have a lot of talent, cheap bandwidth and resources (apple Computers, big linux community, etc). Also, real state its growing fast. If you are planing to visit BA, msg me! :)
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Give me a break. I lived in San Francisco for a bunch of years, starting after my first company got bought out --- I've experienced the city both totally flush with cash and living paycheck to paycheck. Allow me to retort: * Public transportation in the Bay Area is a shambles, and, in particular, getting between any two points in the (tiny) city of San Francisco involves interaction with the worst bus system in the c…
* Public transportation in the Bay Area is a shambles, and, in particular, getting between any two points in the (tiny) city of San Francisco involves interaction with the worst bus system in the country. - Public transportation is bad, unless you've ever been to houston, phoenix, dallas, detroit, los angeles, or anywhere else in the US outside of NYC, Boston, Portland, Chicago, or D.C. As bad as it is, SF's public t…
* Compared to Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Atlanta, or Boston, San Francisco is filthy, both in a "civic pride and basic hygiene" sense, and in a "methadone clinics spewing out mentally ill homeless people contributing to a desperate humanitarian crisis" sense.
* What areas are walkably friendly got that way by gentrifying and bleaching out the culture and neighborhoods from the city. Live in San Francisco? When was your last block party? Can you name your neighbors?
* Strong indie music scene? I guess it depends on what you like --- you could caricature me as a Pitchfork fan. Admittedly, comparing to Chicago, most other cities save New York and Seattle are going to suffer. But go read JWZ's blog about the DNA Lounge and form your own conclusions about how vital and diverse San Francisco's indie venues are.
* If your friends all work at startups, a big chunk of them live in the South Bay, which means you will rarely see them, because facing a 45 minute commute (that's without 101 traffic) at 12:30AM is a strong deterrant to an impromptu night at a bar.
* Your office on Howard Street --- presuming it's a real office --- is not cheaper than what you'd pay in Chicago. Let's compare notes. You first.
I'm skipping the good stuff about San Francisco. Leaving aside the benefits of being surrounded by product managers and QA team leaders, which is a dubious benefit, let me get in:
* You have 7-day-a-week access to solid Dim Sum.
* You live in the US capital of fresh water aquarium suppliers.
* On any Friday or Saturday you are 30 minutes, a cooler, and a couple of logs away from a bonfire on the beaches south of San Francisco.
* If your car can handle, the drive to Half Moon Bay is pretty awesome.
I'm assuming most of the readers here don't have kids. I have two. We won't get in to how much worse the city is going to be for you if you're trying to raise a family.
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* Public transportation in the Bay Area is a shambles, and, in particular, getting between any two points in the (tiny) city of San Francisco involves interaction with the worst bus system in the country. - Public transportation is bad, unless you've ever been to houston, phoenix, dallas, detroit, los angeles, or anywhere else in the US outside of NYC, Boston, Portland, Chicago, or D.C. As bad as it is, SF's public t…
I modded you up, but: * Compared to Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Atlanta, or Boston, San Francisco is filthy, both in a "civic pride and basic hygiene" sense, and in a "methadone clinics spewing out mentally ill homeless people contributing to a desperate humanitarian crisis" sense. * What areas are walkably friendly got that way by gentrifying and bleaching out the culture and neighborhoods from the city. Live in San…
- I agree with that, I guess. SF is pretty psychotic.
* What areas are walkably friendly got that way by gentrifying and bleaching out the culture and neighborhoods from the city. Live in San Francisco? When was your last block party? Can you name your neighbors?
In my neighborhood the block party is in September but the SOMA block party is in a couple of weeks. I know all the people who live in my building (there are only 5) and three of my good friends live on the same block.
* Strong indie music scene? I guess it depends on what you like --- you could caricature me as a Pitchfork fan. Admittedly, comparing to Chicago, most other cities save New York and Seattle are going to suffer. But go read JWZ's blog about the DNA Lounge and form your own conclusions about how vital and diverse San Francisco's indie venues are.
- JWZ is grouchy because he was hoping to open up an industrial club but instead has to cater to asian gangsters coming up from Daly City. The scene he is into (industrial dance music) was never big enough to support a club the size of DNA and pretty much died out entirely 10 years ago. Everyone who was into it is now 40+ and doesn't go out anymore. I will admit that I don't go to many shows but the bands that I like (Autechre, TV on the Radio, Cornelius, are a few shows I've seen) seem to play here as often as anywhere else. The LOCAL music scene isn't that awesome, IMO. Most people are trying to be DJs rather than be in bands.
* If your friends all work at startups, a big chunk of them live in the South Bay, which means you will rarely see them, because facing a 45 minute commute (that's without 101 traffic) at 12:30AM is a strong deterrant to an impromptu night at a bar.
I guess that would be true. However most of the friends I have at startups work at startups in the city.
* Your office on Howard Street --- presuming it's a real office --- is not cheaper than what you'd pay in Chicago. Let's compare notes. You first.
We pay $8850 for 9000 square feet. Pre-wired, server room, and physical workspace in the basement (part of our product involves creating physical prototypes)
DHH generalizes wildly in this rant -- usually an indication of anger and jealousy rather than reason.
Are you sure you want to listen to someone who has never lived in San Francisco? How can you measure the benefits of being around people and businesses that are similar? Its possible to trade stocks anywhere, but why do companies setup in New York or London? If you don't want to take someone else's money to build your business, then don't. If you lived in Las Vegas would you automatically become a gambler?
I don't know. Why don't you ask FeedBurner?