I grew up in Florida and went to college in Tampa. I just kinda stayed around after school. I was working in software at Raymond James unhappily wearing my bus

I grew up in Florida and went to college in Tampa. I just kinda stayed around after school. I was working in software at Raymond James unhappily wearing my business appropriate attire in 90% humidity everyday. (I am VERY temperature / humidity sensitive). After work (in 2004) I used to go to a bar and code a bit. No WiFi, I don’t think Starbucks even had WiFi. Needless to say, no one else ever had their laptop at the bar. I do this for a few months. One day another dude walks into the bar wearing board shorts and a tshirt with his laptop and sits down at the far end of the bar. The bartender says to me, “I bet he’s a software developer.” And I said, “what would make you think that?” “Who else would bring a fucking laptop to a bar?” Good point, I thought. So I ask the guy if he’s a software developer and he says yes. I ask what he does that he gets to wear board shorts to work. He says he works for a start up in Los Angeles. Now at this time in my life I’d never heard the phrase “start up” ... I thought it was the company’s name. So I ask what Start Up does? He explains it’s not the company name. I feel dumb. He goes on to explain a start up as “some MBA tricks a bunch of rich people into giving them money and then they hire software developers that pretty much get to do whatever they want.” So I quit my job the next day and moved to LA that weekend. Should I have moved to SF? Probably would have made more money sure, but I also don’t enjoy temperatures below 72° F. I traveled for quite a while a few years after I moved, developing from “the road”. My favorite place was Routan, Honduras. I lived in “the woods” (maybe they call it the jungle, but I’m from Florida - so it’s “woods”) on the beach in a little hut WITH WIFI! I eventually settled in Pasadena. Close proximity to nature and city things, affordable houses with a yard relative to the rest of LA.