5 ms·

I went to UC Davis but would frequently visit Sac. It's such a beautiful and laid-back city, and the people are great. SF is only a one hour drive away and Lake

by halpme 11y ago

I went to UC Davis but would frequently visit Sac. It's such a beautiful and laid-back city, and the people are great. SF is only a one hour drive away and Lake Tahoe is relatively close too. I've been living in Mountain View for a couple months and I miss the Davis/Sac area more and more as time goes on. The atmosphere here is, I dunno, toxic. Too many people here size each other up based on where they work and where they live and people are way too obsessed with advancing their careers and chasing higher salaries, more luxurious cars, nicer apartments, etc. Everyone seems to have some sort of inferiority complex if they don't work for the "Big 4". People in Davis/Sac seemed less superficial and it was a lot easier for me to make friends. Also, yeah, the cost of living is so much cheaper. I'm paying $1700 for a tiny studio in MV. Back in Davis I was paying $1400 for a pretty nice 2-bedroom apartment. Meh.

eclipxe 11y ago
>The atmosphere here is, I dunno, toxic. Too many people here size each other up based on where they work and where they live and people are way too obsessed with advancing their careers and chasing higher salaries, more luxurious cars, nicer apartments, etc. Everyone seems to have some sort of inferiority complex if they don't work for the "Big 4". People in Davis/Sac seemed less superficial and it was a lot easier for me to make friends. Is this your own set of insecurities being projected on others? I never got that sense in SV...
- halpme 11y ago
  Do you actually go out and talk to people? The first thing anyone asks is what you do, followed by which company you work for. Watch people's reactions change depending on the reputation of your company. The whole social scene here is centered around networking, not making meaningful relationships. No one cares if you're a chill person with cool hobbies, but if you work at <cool company> then you become one more inside connection when someone needs a new job and a reference. YMMV.
  - sjg007 11y ago
    I lived in LA and the first thing you learn there is to not ask what anyone does because everyone's an actor.
    - beachstartup 11y ago
      these days everyone in LA is working on some kind of tech-related nonsense. i moved here to get away from all that, and it followed me. now i just want to go live in the woods with my dog.
      - mikekij 11y ago
        @beachstartup Me too. In North SD. Want to work on med device security and take company retreats in the woods?
        rosettesor 11y ago
        @beachstartup @mikekij sounds great. when can we start? just moved from sf to venice, and now all i want to do is move where i can own land and start a farm.
    - bcheung 11y ago
      I was living in LA for a while (5 years). I got a job as a photographer at a modeling agency. Pay was crap so I tried doing more programming work but most of the work wasn't very innovative and really boring compared to Silicon Valley so I moved back to the bay area where I'm originally from. Going from being surrounded by models all day to living in Man Jose is quite the difference. Wish I could still be there.
    - wdr1 11y ago
      Eh, I've lived here & haven't found that to be true. Sure, I do know people who work in the entertainment industry, but by and large they're regular people. Some are assholes, some are kind. I found the same to be true when I lived in Sunnyvale.
    - 11y ago
- luckydude 11y ago
  Moved to Mountain View in 1987, then to SF about a year later, then to the Santa Cruz mountains about 10 years ago. My wife and I were in tech that whole time (me: SCO, Sun, SGI, Cobalt, briefly at Google, then BitMover). Neither of us enjoy going to Mountain View any more. It's the worst parts of a big city (crowded, traffic, parking, expensive housing) and the worst part of the suburbs. And there is a lot of snobbery about where you work and what you do, that's been there since the first day I got there (and I'm part of the problem, I was all snotty about the fact that I worked in Sun's kernel group; at the time that was the top of the heap, at least in my eyes). Personally, I'm happier up in the mountains. Can still get to SF in about 1h15m, get to the valley in about 30m but I live among redwoods, falcons, etc.
  - Hydraulix989 11y ago
    If anything, I think low-level programming has become an underappreciated skill. If you work on kernel development, be as snooty as you want. These days, those jobs that require real expertise and in-depth knowledge aren't nearly as heavily compensated as your run-of-the-mill Rails dev Stackoverflow pasting position.
  - el_benhameen 11y ago
    How's housing up there? I went to school at the UC and have always dreamed about moving back.
    - luckydude 11y ago
      It's gotten expensive. Figure $1.2M for a decent 34 bedroom.
      - trav4225 11y ago
        Not too bad. My last 34-bedroom house was at least 10x that. ;-)
  - Johnnybe 11y ago
    Redwoods, falcons = real friends
- sheri 11y ago
  > Is this your own set of insecurities being projected on others? I never got that sense in SV... I am not the OP, but I share his/her views. To the above point, maybe? I used to perceive NY/Wall-Street as all about image, and SF/tech-scene to be much more down-to-earth and friendly. I don't find that anymore. Taking Caltrain, I see people wearing Google/FB/Twitter/XXX t-shirts, sweatshirts, jackets, bags etc. Company badges are displayed prominently, and its easy to recognize companies from the badge. YC t-shirts, sweatshirts are also common. If not company t-shirts, then I see tons of MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Harvard t-shirts, sweatshirts etc. I rarely saw any company or university branded apparel in NYC. The prominence of these in SV seems like a way to showcase an elite status.
  - kika 11y ago
    Look, imagine two tungsten balls, 4" in diameter each, at night. One is painted matte black and the other is heated to 2500 degrees Celsius. Which one is more visible? These are two absolutely equal balls and one constitutes exactly 50% of the population :-) I take Caltrain regularly (I live on Peninsula and work in SF FiDi) and I see these people, but nothing out of ordinary. There're, I believe, 8000 working in FB Menlo Park office. That's a lot of people. And the industry is heated up, so these people are more visible because the temperature is higher. So what, it happened before (2001) and will happen again :-)
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - eclipxe 11y ago
    Or maybe they just don't care to buy sweatshirts, jackets, bags, when they get them for free from their company? Who cares what people wear on CalTrain??!?
  - nostrademons 11y ago
    I think you're reading into this based on how the rest of the world operates. Most techies in Silicon Valley wear company schwag because it's free. My wardrobe consists of (or has consisted of, my wife made me throw a bunch of the older stuff out) T-shirts from Amherst, Brandeis, and Olin; a TellApart T-shirt; a Medallia T-shirt; a Microsoft T-shirt; a Foliage Software Systems T-shirt; at least 6 Google T-shirts; 2 Google hoodies; and then a bunch of unbranded stuff I got as gifts. I don't think I've ever bought a T-shirt with my own money.
- pikachu_is_cool 11y ago
  Not everyone in SV is elitist, it's probably something like 5-10% of people. Maybe you haven't run into anyone like that yet. But they're there. And it is a lot, when compared to the 0% in most other places.
autotune 11y ago
$1700 for a tiny studio would be a steal here in SF.

by halpme 11y ago

eclipxe 11y ago

>The atmosphere here is, I dunno, toxic. Too many people here size each other up based on where they work and where they live and people are way too obsessed with advancing their careers and chasing higher salaries, more luxurious cars, nicer apartments, etc. Everyone seems to have some sort of inferiority complex if they don't work for the "Big 4". People in Davis/Sac seemed less superficial and it was a lot easier for me to make friends. Is this your own set of insecurities being projected on others? I never got that sense in SV...

halpme 11y ago
Do you actually go out and talk to people? The first thing anyone asks is what you do, followed by which company you work for. Watch people's reactions change depending on the reputation of your company. The whole social scene here is centered around networking, not making meaningful relationships. No one cares if you're a chill person with cool hobbies, but if you work at <cool company> then you become one more inside connection when someone needs a new job and a reference. YMMV.
- sjg007 11y ago
  I lived in LA and the first thing you learn there is to not ask what anyone does because everyone's an actor.
  - beachstartup 11y ago
    these days everyone in LA is working on some kind of tech-related nonsense. i moved here to get away from all that, and it followed me. now i just want to go live in the woods with my dog.
    - mikekij 11y ago
      @beachstartup Me too. In North SD. Want to work on med device security and take company retreats in the woods?
      - rosettesor 11y ago
        @beachstartup @mikekij sounds great. when can we start? just moved from sf to venice, and now all i want to do is move where i can own land and start a farm.
  - bcheung 11y ago
    I was living in LA for a while (5 years). I got a job as a photographer at a modeling agency. Pay was crap so I tried doing more programming work but most of the work wasn't very innovative and really boring compared to Silicon Valley so I moved back to the bay area where I'm originally from. Going from being surrounded by models all day to living in Man Jose is quite the difference. Wish I could still be there.
  - wdr1 11y ago
    Eh, I've lived here & haven't found that to be true. Sure, I do know people who work in the entertainment industry, but by and large they're regular people. Some are assholes, some are kind. I found the same to be true when I lived in Sunnyvale.
  - 11y ago
luckydude 11y ago
Moved to Mountain View in 1987, then to SF about a year later, then to the Santa Cruz mountains about 10 years ago. My wife and I were in tech that whole time (me: SCO, Sun, SGI, Cobalt, briefly at Google, then BitMover). Neither of us enjoy going to Mountain View any more. It's the worst parts of a big city (crowded, traffic, parking, expensive housing) and the worst part of the suburbs. And there is a lot of snobbery about where you work and what you do, that's been there since the first day I got there (and I'm part of the problem, I was all snotty about the fact that I worked in Sun's kernel group; at the time that was the top of the heap, at least in my eyes). Personally, I'm happier up in the mountains. Can still get to SF in about 1h15m, get to the valley in about 30m but I live among redwoods, falcons, etc.
- Hydraulix989 11y ago
  If anything, I think low-level programming has become an underappreciated skill. If you work on kernel development, be as snooty as you want. These days, those jobs that require real expertise and in-depth knowledge aren't nearly as heavily compensated as your run-of-the-mill Rails dev Stackoverflow pasting position.
- el_benhameen 11y ago
  How's housing up there? I went to school at the UC and have always dreamed about moving back.
  - luckydude 11y ago
    It's gotten expensive. Figure $1.2M for a decent 34 bedroom.
    - trav4225 11y ago
      Not too bad. My last 34-bedroom house was at least 10x that. ;-)
- Johnnybe 11y ago
  Redwoods, falcons = real friends
sheri 11y ago
> Is this your own set of insecurities being projected on others? I never got that sense in SV... I am not the OP, but I share his/her views. To the above point, maybe? I used to perceive NY/Wall-Street as all about image, and SF/tech-scene to be much more down-to-earth and friendly. I don't find that anymore. Taking Caltrain, I see people wearing Google/FB/Twitter/XXX t-shirts, sweatshirts, jackets, bags etc. Company badges are displayed prominently, and its easy to recognize companies from the badge. YC t-shirts, sweatshirts are also common. If not company t-shirts, then I see tons of MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Harvard t-shirts, sweatshirts etc. I rarely saw any company or university branded apparel in NYC. The prominence of these in SV seems like a way to showcase an elite status.
- kika 11y ago
  Look, imagine two tungsten balls, 4" in diameter each, at night. One is painted matte black and the other is heated to 2500 degrees Celsius. Which one is more visible? These are two absolutely equal balls and one constitutes exactly 50% of the population :-) I take Caltrain regularly (I live on Peninsula and work in SF FiDi) and I see these people, but nothing out of ordinary. There're, I believe, 8000 working in FB Menlo Park office. That's a lot of people. And the industry is heated up, so these people are more visible because the temperature is higher. So what, it happened before (2001) and will happen again :-)
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- eclipxe 11y ago
  Or maybe they just don't care to buy sweatshirts, jackets, bags, when they get them for free from their company? Who cares what people wear on CalTrain??!?
- nostrademons 11y ago
  I think you're reading into this based on how the rest of the world operates. Most techies in Silicon Valley wear company schwag because it's free. My wardrobe consists of (or has consisted of, my wife made me throw a bunch of the older stuff out) T-shirts from Amherst, Brandeis, and Olin; a TellApart T-shirt; a Medallia T-shirt; a Microsoft T-shirt; a Foliage Software Systems T-shirt; at least 6 Google T-shirts; 2 Google hoodies; and then a bunch of unbranded stuff I got as gifts. I don't think I've ever bought a T-shirt with my own money.
pikachu_is_cool 11y ago
Not everyone in SV is elitist, it's probably something like 5-10% of people. Maybe you haven't run into anyone like that yet. But they're there. And it is a lot, when compared to the 0% in most other places.

autotune 11y ago

$1700 for a tiny studio would be a steal here in SF.