Yep I think we see eye to eye on all of that. With a clarification that SF is great in particular for having professional, tech- or entrepreneurial-focused conv

Yep I think we see eye to eye on all of that. With a clarification that SF is great in particular for having professional, tech- or entrepreneurial-focused conversations, but that social scene is pretty weak otherwise. I've found that, except with those close to me, my conversations in the Bay Area very quickly transform into talking about what you're working on or what credentials you have. People here generally don't seem to want to talk about much else, whereas my experience chatting up strangers in Tokyo and Shanghai is that people actively avoid talking about their work, and my friends in Bangalore compare the social scene there vs SF like night and day. And as far as I can tell a lot of my friends have the same thoughts—it's not just Bay Area natives who can't afford the cost of living who leave the Bay Area for greener pastures, but also tons of disillusioned techies themselves—so the people deriding Californians in this article might rightfully complain about that group. Thankfully being in software provides a benefit inaccessible to most—the flexibility to work remote. So I think that lifestyle is definitely doable, and I intend to make it happen one way or another.