1) the mission is great for living, but soma is better for getting work done (and closer to most things startup related) 2) if you find someone who lets you cr

1) the mission is great for living, but soma is better for getting work done (and closer to most things startup related) 2) if you find someone who lets you crash on their couch, go for it. give a few neighborhoods a try before you settle down! my first place that wasn't a friend's couch was a warehouse listed on airbnb. worked great and gave me the time to figure out where i really wanted to live. 3) it feels like people here are perpetually busy and barely have the time to hang out even with their closest friends. there's a seemingly endless supply of interesting people too. few strangers will throw a welcome party for you even if you are awesome (unlike where i am from). that makes people seem unwelcoming to a certain degree initially, but don't worry, it just takes a bit to grow into a social circle here and then you'll be perpetually busy and socially oversaturated too. 4) it's much easier to approach people when you have something to talk about. unless your project is in full gear, you might have an easier time getting to know interesting people through doing interesting things or sports. startup meetups and such work too, but being active together or even just picnicking together in dolores park gives you an entirely different connection. there's a lot of fun and cool stuff happening here that's not startup focused, and it's easy to join in and offer to help, and you'll be surprised how tightly connected this town really is. 5) a lot of people use hackerspaces as some of the first places they visit in a new city to meet people. depending on the space and the moon phase you might meet truly awesome people and/or complete weirdos. give it a try, cowork there for a bit and see who you get to know along the way. 6) get a bike. i've resisted initially, but there's simply nothing that works better here (including cabs, muni or your own car). see jwz's advice on bikes in sf: http://jwz.livejournal.com/883988.html http://jwz.livejournal.com/883988.html