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I've been wanting to leave the Bay Area for at least 3 years -- Seattle, Austin, or Berlin. I don't love California, but really dislike virtually everything ab
by rdl 11y ago
I've been wanting to leave the Bay Area for at least 3 years -- Seattle, Austin, or Berlin. I don't love California, but really dislike virtually everything about San Francisco. Of course, I've been working in San Francisco for 21 months now, but that's because of a specific company -- otherwise I'd be gone, at least to the South Bay.
SFBA is not a good place to hire engineers, unless you're heavily funded AND a clear winner and need to hire a bunch of diverse types. For anything else, I could find other places which are far superior.
It's a great place to hire professional services to support startups, and the best place in the world, hands down, to raise money. YC being here makes it great early on, too. I think investors become less location-sensitive as you get to later stages, if you're winning.
The biggest problem is if you're selling b2b to tech companies at all, you can literally bump into your customers here.
With my next startup, I plan to do Seattle (probably) or Austin for a US office, with a small SFBA presence, and then Berlin, and run EU and US companies as separate entities with separate officers, so people can choose if they want to be customers of a US or EU company. Maybe add other location in the future.
(I'd obviously be doing something in the infosec space, which is becoming increasingly jurisdiction sensitive.)
I absolutely encourage people to work in SFBA for a while to build a network, but after that, GTFO unless you really want to be here.
- rudolf0 11y agoOut of curiosity, why would you prefer other US cities over a Californian city? (That is, why don't you love California. Also excluding European alternatives.)
- rdl 11y agoCA laws (guns, primarily; taxes, secondarily, and a bunch of other stuff. Guns are a personal thing for me, but the rest has business impact.). I'd also like to actually be involved in my community somewhere, but everything about SF (and CA) is repellent to doing that. (In Bellevue/Issaquah/etc., I'd happily be a volunteer EMT or even reserve PD officer; might get involved in local non-partisan politics. There is no way I'd ever want to do anything like that in SF.) There are also no non-SFBA cities in CA that I'd actually want to do an infosec startup in. The set of places I'd personally consider (in no real order) is: Seattle, Portland, SFBA, Austin, DC-Metro, Boston, Boulder/Denver, SLC, Raleigh/Durham. I dislike NYC and Chicago but those are also viable (also dislike Atlanta; might be ok). I actually like Las Vegas, Nashville, and Louisville, but they would be challenging. I think Houston, Dallas, Miami, Phoenix, LA, San Diego, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh could work, but not sure. Some other big university places (Ann Arbor being the canonical example) could be fine if you're from there.)
- jmspring 11y ago"rest of the business impact"? Given how the tech boom/bust cycles are centered here in the Bay Area over the last 20+ years, business seem fine to stay here and attract talent. There are also communities here where you can get involved, volunteer, etc. SF doesn't equal the rest of the Bay Area.
- mylons 11y agoso you're going to move to Europe due to it's liberal gun laws?
- rdl 11y agoI'm willing to sacrifice for ~5-10y due to all the other benefits Berlin has. (And German gun laws aren't UK/Japan level)
- chejazi 11y ago> The biggest problem is if you're selling b2b to tech companies at all, you can literally bump into your customers here. Why is that a problem? Is the lack of separation a bad thing?
- rdl 11y agoI mean that the biggest problem with leaving the bay area is losing that.