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It's interesting since as a SDE in India/Bangalore, I would absolutely love to work in California. All the reasons citied in the article applies to Bangalore as

It's interesting since as a SDE in India/Bangalore, I would absolutely love to work in California. All the reasons citied in the article applies to Bangalore as well? For example similarities include, cost of living / rent in Bangalore is high but it's also the city with most tech jobs. The public transport infra is weak and there is an acute shortage of Uber cabs and yet it still is the most fun city for the youth to be in. I guess what I am saying is that the grass is always greener on the other side. There will always be a tradeoff to make.

InitialLastName 4y ago
Something tells me that most of the people who want to leave Silicon Valley don't think that India is where the grass is greener.
- ok_dad 4y ago
  It would be a giant culture shock for an American to live in India, but I was in Bangalore for a while auditing some vendors there, and I have to say I would be very happy to work at any one of those places, they were like Google campuses and I enjoyed sitting in their gardens doing work in between audit meetings. Their work ethic was also very hardcore, so they worked a bit harder than I would be willing to do, but they were certainly as professional and their companies and facilities were as nice as anything in America.
dxbydt 4y ago
> as a SDE in India/Bangalore, I would absolutely love to work in California As someone who spent all his childhood in Bangalore before migrating to the USA & specifically California, let me give you some perspective. No SDE wants to work in a Shimoga or Davangere. They want to work in Bangalore. Similarly, no SDE wants to work in a Concord or Martinez or what have you. There are thousands of perfectly good cities in California, but the SDEs all want to work in Silicon Valley. I remember during the early days of YC, I wrote to a founder saying I'd like to work with him. So he invites me. I go to see the company. Its just a 2 bedroom house in San Francisco! They've gotten rid of the furniture, put tables & chairs & laptops. So I tell him, look, I have a 2 bedroom house in San Ramon. We can just operate out of that. He says, I too have a 2 bedroom house in San Ramon! So I say, why are you working out of San Francisco ? Because that's Silicon Valley, you see! So 2 people who live 5 minutes walking distance from each other, both in San Ramon, each have 2 bedroom houses with enough space to spare, no cost, have to commute 1 whole hour, all the way to San Francisco every morning, to work in an expensive rented 2-bedroom house, because Silicon Valley. Now if that's not ridiculous, I don't know what is. In the case of Bangalore, one could argue there is a huge advantage to commuting from say Hebbal to Electronics City, because there is a gigantic 4 million square feet Infosys campus over there. But if you have a collection of 1000s of startups, and each of them is just a 2-bedroom house or some small office building, the same can very well exist in Danville or Pleasanton or Walnut Creek or Clayton or Dublin or Antioch or .... I've stayed in all those places and there's plenty of cheap office space & 2-bedrom houses. But no. All the action must happen in Silicon Valley. Because. In that sense I really welcome all this disruption. You don't have to go to Colorado or Seattle or whatever...just go 20 miles N/S/E/W...that itself would be a huge deal. Forget cost cutting, Cutting down on the pollution due to commute traffic would be a very significant positive contributor to the environment.
- sifar 4y ago
  >> one could argue there is a huge advantage to commuting from say Hebbal to Electronics City I think you are underestimating the commute to Electronic city. It must be life sucking, same as the SV commute, probably more.
jdminhbg 4y ago
> and yet it still is the most fun city for the youth to be in. This definitely does not apply to the Valley. SF you could make an argument for at least.
sifar 4y ago
I guess it all depends on what your base threshold is. Once you move to SV, after a few years one might feel the same way.

InitialLastName 4y ago

Something tells me that most of the people who want to leave Silicon Valley don't think that India is where the grass is greener.

ok_dad 4y ago
It would be a giant culture shock for an American to live in India, but I was in Bangalore for a while auditing some vendors there, and I have to say I would be very happy to work at any one of those places, they were like Google campuses and I enjoyed sitting in their gardens doing work in between audit meetings. Their work ethic was also very hardcore, so they worked a bit harder than I would be willing to do, but they were certainly as professional and their companies and facilities were as nice as anything in America.

dxbydt 4y ago

> as a SDE in India/Bangalore, I would absolutely love to work in California As someone who spent all his childhood in Bangalore before migrating to the USA & specifically California, let me give you some perspective. No SDE wants to work in a Shimoga or Davangere. They want to work in Bangalore. Similarly, no SDE wants to work in a Concord or Martinez or what have you. There are thousands of perfectly good cities in California, but the SDEs all want to work in Silicon Valley. I remember during the early days of YC, I wrote to a founder saying I'd like to work with him. So he invites me. I go to see the company. Its just a 2 bedroom house in San Francisco! They've gotten rid of the furniture, put tables & chairs & laptops. So I tell him, look, I have a 2 bedroom house in San Ramon. We can just operate out of that. He says, I too have a 2 bedroom house in San Ramon! So I say, why are you working out of San Francisco ? Because that's Silicon Valley, you see! So 2 people who live 5 minutes walking distance from each other, both in San Ramon, each have 2 bedroom houses with enough space to spare, no cost, have to commute 1 whole hour, all the way to San Francisco every morning, to work in an expensive rented 2-bedroom house, because Silicon Valley. Now if that's not ridiculous, I don't know what is. In the case of Bangalore, one could argue there is a huge advantage to commuting from say Hebbal to Electronics City, because there is a gigantic 4 million square feet Infosys campus over there. But if you have a collection of 1000s of startups, and each of them is just a 2-bedroom house or some small office building, the same can very well exist in Danville or Pleasanton or Walnut Creek or Clayton or Dublin or Antioch or .... I've stayed in all those places and there's plenty of cheap office space & 2-bedrom houses. But no. All the action must happen in Silicon Valley. Because. In that sense I really welcome all this disruption. You don't have to go to Colorado or Seattle or whatever...just go 20 miles N/S/E/W...that itself would be a huge deal. Forget cost cutting, Cutting down on the pollution due to commute traffic would be a very significant positive contributor to the environment.

sifar 4y ago
>> one could argue there is a huge advantage to commuting from say Hebbal to Electronics City I think you are underestimating the commute to Electronic city. It must be life sucking, same as the SV commute, probably more.

jdminhbg 4y ago

> and yet it still is the most fun city for the youth to be in. This definitely does not apply to the Valley. SF you could make an argument for at least.

sifar 4y ago

I guess it all depends on what your base threshold is. Once you move to SV, after a few years one might feel the same way.