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Move to the Big City (2018)
- octokatt 7y agoDoes anyone else read these on impulse, then remember they don't want to make it big? I want to make it to Comfortable, by working on interesting but non-stressful problems, reach FI at forty, then enjoy my family and work at hobby research. Am I alone here?
- draw_down 7y agoHe’s right: big cities are not good places for a nice work/life balance and a nice lifestyle. They are places for serious people. But I don’t like being serious, and I don’t like working out of balance with the rest of my life.
- GhettoChild 7y agoThis is news? People have been doing that for thousands of years.
- temon 7y agoyeah, I don't think it's new. But I think we can work remotely nowadays (especially for software developers). I post it here because I want to know is it still appropriate for now?
- deanCommie 7y agoThe list is somewhat surprising for 2018 Tokyo? Beijing? Shanghai?
- jborichevskiy 7y agoThis stood out: > So why do I hate to admit this? > Because I love how the internet has made it possible for anyone to get successful, anywhere. I love the idea of living in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nature, yet being connected to the world. > But still, when I look at the facts, it’s impossible to deny. Living in the big city, and being where everything is happening, will help your career the most. Being anywhere else won’t hurt you, but it won’t help. Though I'm in NYC right now, I plan to leave eventually. Ideally I think I'd want a remote cabin in Montana with a high speed internet connection. Wake up, go for a 2 hour hike, code a few hours, watch the sunset, read, sleep. Sounds like some sort of paradise. Realistically though I'll probably end up somewhere closer to civilization. But it's a shame remote work isn't quite at that level to completely make physical location irrelevant. Maybe someday.
- sjroot 7y agoAre you me? Also in NYC and also dream of a quiet place in Montana. My team has actually had discussions about Montana specifically. What is it about Montana?
- yepthatsreality 7y agoNYers flooding MT would be worse than OHians flooding NYC.
- WizardAustralis 7y agoTed Kaczynski did some awful things because of things like a road being built through Montana near his cabin. I don't dare think about what he would have done if a New York people flood came through.
- slimed 7y agoI'm willing to bet you wouldn't refer to other groups as "flooding" NYC. Why do New Yorkers find it acceptable to say such things about Midwesterners?
- rhizome31 7y agoAs a software developer who has lived in London for a couple of years, this didn't work for me. London was great for having fun but in terms of career it wasn't very interesting. The work atmosphere wasn't great and the problems weren't very interesting. I've found better opportunities in medium-sized cities. Just a personal experience, of course.
- topkai22 7y agoI’m always very conscious of the selection bias of the people writing these types of articles. They tend to have succeeded in a major city, but as the author says: > “It’s not casual. It’s not a place for a comfortable work/life balance. It’s fueled by ambition. People go go go.” What of all those, and they will likely be most people, that don’t thrive in that environment. Are they getting a net benefit moving to a major metro? I really don’t know the answer there. The statistics are messy. All other things being equal, those of my friends that moved back to my hometown after college do not seem less happy or satisfied with their lives than those who went to major metros.
- discordance 7y agoI work 90% remote at the moment, and the only thing stopping me from moving to a smaller town is the fear of not having a community or friends nearby. It’s so important to have in person human contact, especially with remote work, that Montana or wherever will always be a dream. Would love some ideas on how to solve this if anyone has any!
- coldtea 7y ago>I work 90% remote at the moment, and the only thing stopping me from moving to a smaller town is the fear of not having a community or friends nearby. OTOH, you can have more community and more friends nearby in a smaller town -- and actually get to see them and do things with them. But you need to take the time to make friends with those people. Still I know several people who moved to a small town, small island even, and made great friends with the local community, even people from an entirely different country. YMMV.
- danenania 7y agoRight, I think you just need to be more willing to make friends with people who don't necessarily share many of your interests. The great thing about a big city, at least in theory, is that whatever sort of weirdo you are, you can probably find a group of people that sees it as a positive rather than a negative. On the flip side, many people in cities are very busy and don't have much room for new relationships, so it can be hard to establish close friendships, the kind you can hang out with on a daily or weekly basis, without some catalyst like school or (non-remote) work. In a smaller town, people will have time for you and it's easier to integrate into a community, but you may have to water yourself down a bit to fit in. It's tough to have it all!
- coldtea 7y ago>Right, I think you just need to be more willing to make friends with people who don't necessarily share many of your interests. A, yes, that part is crucial. E.g. a common interest in just life, nature, and common stuff: small talk, food, drink, some games, etc, sure helps.
- Antoninus 7y agoA year ago, I moved to the suburbs of Saigon from NY to work remotely. My cost of living is 1000usd</month + rent, utilities, food, motorbike/gas, etc. While my savings have improved, I do miss socializing with other developers which in turn creates future opportunities. The isolation is great if you're looking to work in a distraction free environment and relax. I'm a bit torn as I consider myself a mid-level developer at 7 years of experience. At the moment, I'm looking to relocate anywhere to be surrounded with senior engineers who can push me to the next level. With that being said, I'll probably go back to the remote life when I feel more comfortable with my skills.
- notadoc 7y ago> "(Nashville, Paris, Seoul, or Tokyo only count if you’re limiting yourself to those markets.)" LOL, as if Nashville is even vaguely comparable to the other three?
- cryptica 7y agoI think in terms of learning it's true up to a point. I don't think it makes sense to move to a big city for financial reasons though. You'd think it creates a competitive environment where the best talent rises to the top but this is not the case. What I've found instead is that the environment is competitive to the point that everyone is focused on politics and social manipulation; for example trying to claim credit for other peoples' work to get promoted or making friends with the founders. Top level managers are not capable of identifying talent and seeing though all the political BS; they fall for it over and over again but it doesn't matter because they're friends with millionaire investors so they can keep raising money even after their company fails. It feels like behind every powerful person in a position of power, there is either a rich friend or a rich daddy. That's why I'm into blockchain now, I'm tired of this nepotism. I want to participate in creating a new industry in which human nature can be factored out as much as possible.
- simonebrunozzi 7y agoI don't really see the connection between being into "blockchain", and avoiding nepotism. Also, the issues you mention (being friends with millionaire investors, etc) might be very specific to Silicon Valley / San Francisco, and less about other "alpha" places?
- rmah 7y agoSorry, but nepotism, politics and connections are even more important in the cryptocurrency/blockchain industry than in traditional tech or even finance. In crypto/blockchain it's ALL about who you know. And the lack of good regulation means that good contacts can get your firm advantages that would literally be illegal in the traditional finance world. I guess the only real distinction is that the industry is spread out more and not centered in one or two cities.
- coldtea 7y ago>But still, when I look at the facts, it’s impossible to deny. Living in the big city, and being where everything is happening, will help your career the most. Will it help your happiness? Will your goals and career benefit humanity one iota?
- raverbashing 7y agoI think the idea is sound, though the list of cities is very US (culturally) centric. For an IT audience, Nashville is probably irrelevant, also it assumes there's "no live" outside of those cities.
- aserafini 7y agoMy take on this is that the network effects of living in a big city vs. small town actually increased post-internet. Ie. the value proposition of the physical city network is even greater with internet. One obvious example is on demand food delivery. In a small town you still just get one or two places delivering food, the internet cannot solve that. But in a city you’re immediately connected to every provider in your radius. It was technically true before but required walking around, local knowledge etc. The internet removed that upfront investment and made the physical network available to anyone immediately.
- ipnon 7y agoA model of the net increase in network size pre- and post-internet would be interesting but I don't know of any.
- ghostwriter 7y agoPaul Graham had it right in his "Cities and Ambition" note: Does anyone who wants to do great work have to live in a great city? No; all great cities inspire some sort of ambition, but they aren't the only places that do. For some kinds of work, all you need is a handful of talented colleagues. http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html
- Vesuvium 7y agoFurther from the same article: You don't have to live in a great city your whole life to benefit from it. The critical years seem to be the early and middle ones of your career. Clearly you don't have to grow up in a great city. Nor does it seem to matter if you go to college in one. The Impressionists show the typical pattern: they were born all over France (Pissarro was born in the Carribbean) and died all over France, but what defined them were the years they spent together in Paris.
- pimmen 7y agoFor tech, that list of cities could be changed drastically (Dublin, Berlin, Stockholm and Tel Aviv are major tech centers, for example) but the gist of it is very true.
- atum47 7y agoI recently accept a job on a big city. I'm excited to see what happens next. I've worked on big cities before, but mostly remote. I only went to the company once every 3 months. This time I'm actually moving.