7 ms·

San Francisco is becoming a tech hub again, Y Combinator CEO says

26 points by kaycebasques 3y ago

some_furry 3y ago
At what cost? Forced relocation is a component of companies rolling back remote work. Not to mention new COVID-19 variants ripping through the workers and their families. I have too many friends who are now permanently disabled by their last round with the virus.
- api 3y ago
  It's okay. If a company asks that you return to SF, just ask them for a 2-3X raise to afford real estate. That's what it costs. Or leave. $200K/year is practically the poverty line. It's all because of real estate cost.
  - throwaway1777 3y ago
    It’s really not though, you just can’t have a 4000sq foot house here, you get a 1000sq ft apartment or you commute in. 200k income won’t buy you a nice house in Austin or Miami without a commute either.
    - sillysaurusx 3y ago
      1000sq ft is nice for young people without a family. But, it’s a tale as old as time; those are primarily the group that power Silicon Valley. 200k/yr for 1000sq ft is pretty comical though.
      - tomohelix 3y ago
        Maybe that is what they want? People coming to Cali to burn their passion and youth, fueling the economy. Then they get a bit of savings if they rent and live like crap for a few years and jump companies to somewhere more affordable. Because honestly, unless you hit it big somehow or already have a house in SF before, I don't see how an average salaried worker can afford a family home there. Settle down and making a new family is just near impossible.
        api 3y ago
        Yeah, all the tech leaders freaking out about low birth rates (especially among the highly skilled) are supporting an economy that is structurally hostile to family formation among those people.
    - texas2toss 3y ago
      This is ridiculous- $200k yearly income will buy you plenty in central Austin with very little commute
      - throwaway1777 3y ago
        Not in the areas with good schools…
  - barbazoo 3y ago
    I might be missing something but there are tons of 2br+ rentals around $4k a month. That seems perfectly affordable on a USD200k/yr salary. Maybe it's a matter of adjusting one's expectations?!
    - Retric 3y ago
      While I agree that it’s hyperbole, a family really does face vastly larger costs of living in SF. Rent impacts more than just your personal rent. People only work on SF if they’re paid enough to make rent/cost of living so labor prices rise. Shops also need to cover rent and labor costs which then spirals.
- jbm 3y ago
  For the sake of clarity can I ask for more details on the COVID19 effects around you? In my circles there is one person who lost her sense of smell, and another friend lost three elderly extended relatives but otherwise I haven't personally seen much more. Is this a more recent thing? (Work remotely)
- dehrmann 3y ago
  > Not to mention new COVID-19 variants ripping through the workers and their families. You're not going to believe me, but you need to take an honest look at severity of current variants, availability of vaccines and treatments, and weigh that against how you want to live your life. You might reach the same conclusion, but it sounds like you're still fighting the last war.
  - iwonthecase 3y ago
    Not GP, but an ongoing concern I have with covid is that the "severity of current variants" is something that you can really only know after the fact and mild cases can still cause long term effects. I also think that, even if there is a really dangerous strain that evolves, there's no way that in-office companies will go back to WFH, so it might make sense to plan for that possibility. It could also be the case that they're fine with the risk of covid when it comes to actually living life (travel, hanging out with friends and family), but doesn't want to take that risk just to make zoom calls in an office instead of at home.
chasd00 3y ago
i skimmed the interview and didn't get the impression San Francisco was coming back and "tech hub again" doesn't appear in the interview that i could find.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  If you say it enough it might make it so.
- RC_ITR 3y ago
  I doubt Garry, literally someone with the power to make SF a tech hub (as he did by doubling down on YC in person in SF) who knows Sam Altman (the guy who runs arguably the most important private technology company in the world, which is headquartered and growing in SF) would use that sort of language about SF anyway.
- brandur 3y ago
  There's a little bit of editorializing in the title, but Garry's basic contention is that YC is firing on all cylinders, and it's headquartered in SF: > Jamali: It’s kind of interesting — so that narrative is there, but are you saying at the same time that there is this comeback happening, that maybe a lot of people outside of San Francisco haven’t appreciated? A comeback that’s being driven by the tech industry? > Tan: Yeah, at the end of the day, what we want is prosperity. And the coolest thing in the world is that at Y Combinator, we get to see two or three people come together from any background, from any country in the world, and they have a fair shot here. They get half a million dollars, and they can go and try to create something that touches a billion people. And that’s really what we try to do every day. And if they succeed, they’ll have thousands of employees, and these are good, high-paying jobs in tech. And that will actually create so much prosperity for the whole community, that that’s actually why San Francisco is so awesome. Not so much in the interview, but a common claim is that many of the most important AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are located in the city, so there's a bit of an AI boom going on. For general context though, Garry's part of the crowd that's committed to staying in San Francisco and getting involved in local politics to make the city better. Whether or not you agree, he's definitely going to have an intentional pro-SF bias in general, which he'd acknowledge.
incomingpain 3y ago
I'm sure he's hoping for this, but the current politicians in control at various levels are themselves eliminating the possibility of silicon valley's return. Even at the federal level, actions they are taking mean silicon valley will be trending the other direction. Much of their problems are state level to be clear, but they are so far gone there's no chance of any short term recovery.
monero-xmr 3y ago
Once you have a family, living in SF is a very poor proposition, unless you are very well compensated. And if you are very well compensated, the taxes are really bad especially compared to services and quality of life. I think SF makes the most sense for childless males between 22 and 30. After that I would find a new home base.
- mock-possum 3y ago
  Why childless males?
  - mikrl 3y ago
    Presumably the crime factor. Walking around drunk at night is risky for anyone, but males of our species tend to be more tolerant of the risks and better equipped to GTFO.
- welder 3y ago
  Many new families move to surrounding cities Palo Alto, Mountain View, San Mateo, Alameda, Mill Valley, etc. Way less crime and still within reach of SF. Some, like me, bet on WFH and become expats abroad to enjoy a balanced life.
solardev 3y ago
I'm hoping tech plateaus and the bubbles burst. Maybe Silicon Valley would become livable again with normal cities and regular housing, not this gilded dystopia we have with the ultra rich tech class dabbling in society, popping into cities to make a quick buck before moving on and leaving behind a wasteland of empty giant towers. Meanwhile everyone else, like the families who've been there for decades, suffers from the hyperinflation we cause. I remember when San Francisco was so awesome as a kid. Now every time I visit it feels more and more like Blade Runner :/ Seattle is suffering the same fate. Meanwhile someplace like Chicago is vibrant with life and culture, with affordable housing everywhere. I can't help but think it's the tech that's the problem, not the other way around.
- iamcasen 3y ago
  I remember the same. I visited Alcatraz as a kid in the early '90's, and then later returned in 2010 for my tech career. 2010 was pretty great honestly, but by 2014 I realized I was just one of the hollowed out tech workers too busy and drained from work to contribute anything of value to the city. That's one of the big issues with tech: it isn't really tied to place. It has global reach via cyberspace, with entire decades of work existing purely as bits and bytes in the cloud. Only a software engineer would even have the slightest clue of the vastness of various compute systems composed of millions upon millions of lines of code. People work day and night on this stuff, and the general public only sees the tip of the iceberg. I think this makes for a challenging recipe to balance in a local economy
- xw3098 3y ago
  If you think San Francisco is bad now. You should’ve seen it in the 70s, when I was a kid. The crime was so bad it made the second sentence in the Wikipedia page. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_in_the_1970s https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_in_the_1970s Honestly these things come and go, as they do in all big cities. Adapting to change, especially for large groups of people, is alway rough and tumble. I’m sure they’ll get it figured out eventually. Just in time for it to change again… Also, most residents as Chicago disagree with your assessment of their housing affordability. https://www.chicagobusiness.com/crains-forum-affordable-housing/chicagoans-say-more-affordable-housing-needed https://www.chicagobusiness.com/crains-forum-affordable-hous...
hospitalJail 3y ago
I imagine lots of property owners in SF will say this out loud as they worry the peak is gone. There will always be tech there, but the next FAAMG won't be located there until they hit the 100M milestone. I say this as someone that lives in an area far past its peak. The money is still here, the knowledge is still here, but the growth is gone.
- yumraj 3y ago
  > next FAAMG won't be located there until they hit the 100M milestone. None of the FAAMG, assuming F is FB and M is Microsoft, happened in SF (city). FB, Apple and Google happened at about 40 milestone and Amazon & Microsoft happened in Seattle. Secondly, SF city may be down, but the greater Bay Area including Silicon Valley is going to remain a major hub for a really long time. Well, that’s my prediction, and hope, anyway.
- mikrl 3y ago
  Detroit used to be (and still is) the motor city, but is the auto industry anything like it was in the 1920s-1950s?
nimbius 3y ago
The only people still flogging "tech hub" cities are real estate companies stuck with trillions of dollars of unsaleable office space, teetering on the brink of total financial ruin after their calculated disaster-spending during COVID backfired spectacularly. Folks like Richard Ellis and WeWork have every incentive to try and get someone, anyone, in tech to evangelize or at least attempt an acknowledgement of their slum-lord ant piles of dirt that have bled startups and established players alike for decades now. WFH is here. its not going anywhere. the KPI's are real and established. its is a perk that snipes hot talent from places like Salesforce and Alphabet. It is, decidedly, to the encumbrance and disadvantage of commercial real estate and the octogenarian city councils that have gilded their pockets with daily commuters.
- buzzert 3y ago
  What’s a recent successful startup that’s totally WFH? I’ve been hearing a lot about OpenAI, Anthropic, etc., but they’re all in-person.
  - the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
    Isn’t the more important question which successful startup only hires in-person in SF? I would guess most startups these days have distributed setups quite early.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - no_wizard 3y ago
    Linear Gitlab has been remote first since day one Github went fully remote earlier this year[0] (while not a startup, worth noting IMO) Close (CRM) Zapier (if I recall correctly) Sourcegraph Timescale Supabase I'm sure there's more [0]: https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/09/github-lays-off-10-and-goes-fully-remote/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/09/github-lays-off-10-and-goe...
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
deviantbit 3y ago
Gotcha title. Read the article. SF is definitely not coming back anytime soon. Most commercial real-estate is vacant, crime is horrible (they need batman) and the leftists policies are not going to change anytime soon. I was there recently and witnessed an armed robbery. There are lots of cars with windows knocked out from thieves. I wanted to go the OpenAI conference, but after my last experience decided to skip it.
- welder 3y ago
  I've been hearing the same from friends still there, but there's tons of new people still moving to SF from other states and countries. Seems despite the city problems, there's always a supply of people willing to try and make it there. Then they leave when they've made it, burned out, or start thinking of a family.
  - RC_ITR 3y ago
    >Then they leave when they've made it, burned out, or start thinking of a family. They then post negatively about SF online for the rest of their lives.
    - welder 3y ago
      I'm just telling how it is. Most people go to SF for a job or a dream. Nobody can work hard forever and dreams either come true or burst. When they're done working hard they usually move somewhere easier. It's a cycle with people coming and going. And I don't have to post negative about SF... everyone knows it's a beautiful and gringy city at the same time depending if you're looking up or down the hill.
      - RC_ITR 3y ago
        >I'm just telling how it is. I think you gave a biased opinion (as we all do, that's fine). There are plenty of people over 40 in SF [1] and plenty of people who choose to live their full lives here. You may not be friends with them, but they exist. What I also notice is that most anti-SF people need you to agree SF is bad. They are unwilling to accept that anyone could like it (despite it being one of the most in-demand places to live in America, which they hand wave away as being a jobs thing). It's truly bizarre, because I comp it to a city like Paris which has many of the same cleanliness & "law and order" problems, but it has nowhere near the amount of people who demand you say it's bad. [1]https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US0667000-san-francisco-ca/ https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US0667000-san-franc...
ang_cire 3y ago
Please no. - San Francisco
outside1234 3y ago
I think what he means really is that the Bay Area is reasserting its dominance across finance, education, and talent. It really is the best place to be for startups given the ecosystem and it still really isn't even close. San Francisco, as a small part of the Bay Area, is a bigger question given the problems it has with poor governance, but the Bay Area which dominates almost the whole tech stack is not.
bilsbie 3y ago
Offshoot question. Would it be affordable to get an acre and a little cabin in the Santa Cruz mountains? What kind of commute would that be to the tech hub? It looks close on a map and seems like a lot of open land.
- SR2Z 3y ago
  The land is protected from development, IIRC.
  - welder 3y ago
    Only the preserve, but the Santa Cruz mountains have tons of people living there. The downside of Santa Cruz mountains is there's only one road in/out and it's often blocked from traffic, car crash, fallen trees, rain. Not to mention yearly wildfires.
- welder 3y ago
  Sounds nice until the fire claims your house.
- latchkey 3y ago
  That area is really beautiful. ~1 hour commute each way. Doesn't sound like much until you start to add it up and factor in things like wear and tear and gas. Driving 17 highway is a lot of fun and beautiful, but it is like playing Russian roulette with accidents.
drums8787 3y ago
> Lily Jamali: So you call this “Cerebral Valley,” is that right? > ... > Jamali: Got it. What does that mean, that term? > > Tan: Well, I think it’s a play on really the brain,... The things people say.
swsdsailor 3y ago
In a place like SF it’s really quite fun to commute to the office. I can easily see cities not having much WFH. Elsewhere, the commute just wrecks your soul. Glad to hear SF bouncing back!
- iwonthecase 3y ago
  Yes, but with traffic (or reliance on public transit, and the Bay Area's n different transit orgs), a 10 mile commute could easily be more than an hour each way.
KirillPanov 3y ago
I need to unload my real estate bags, Y Combinator CEO says

26 points by kaycebasques 3y ago

At what cost? Forced relocation is a component of companies rolling back remote work. Not to mention new COVID-19 variants ripping through the workers and their families. I have too many friends who are now permanently disabled by their last round with the virus.

api 3y ago
It's okay. If a company asks that you return to SF, just ask them for a 2-3X raise to afford real estate. That's what it costs. Or leave. $200K/year is practically the poverty line. It's all because of real estate cost.
- throwaway1777 3y ago
  It’s really not though, you just can’t have a 4000sq foot house here, you get a 1000sq ft apartment or you commute in. 200k income won’t buy you a nice house in Austin or Miami without a commute either.
  - sillysaurusx 3y ago
    1000sq ft is nice for young people without a family. But, it’s a tale as old as time; those are primarily the group that power Silicon Valley. 200k/yr for 1000sq ft is pretty comical though.
    - tomohelix 3y ago
      Maybe that is what they want? People coming to Cali to burn their passion and youth, fueling the economy. Then they get a bit of savings if they rent and live like crap for a few years and jump companies to somewhere more affordable. Because honestly, unless you hit it big somehow or already have a house in SF before, I don't see how an average salaried worker can afford a family home there. Settle down and making a new family is just near impossible.
      - api 3y ago
        Yeah, all the tech leaders freaking out about low birth rates (especially among the highly skilled) are supporting an economy that is structurally hostile to family formation among those people.
  - texas2toss 3y ago
    This is ridiculous- $200k yearly income will buy you plenty in central Austin with very little commute
    - throwaway1777 3y ago
      Not in the areas with good schools…
- barbazoo 3y ago
  I might be missing something but there are tons of 2br+ rentals around $4k a month. That seems perfectly affordable on a USD200k/yr salary. Maybe it's a matter of adjusting one's expectations?!
  - Retric 3y ago
    While I agree that it’s hyperbole, a family really does face vastly larger costs of living in SF. Rent impacts more than just your personal rent. People only work on SF if they’re paid enough to make rent/cost of living so labor prices rise. Shops also need to cover rent and labor costs which then spirals.
jbm 3y ago
For the sake of clarity can I ask for more details on the COVID19 effects around you? In my circles there is one person who lost her sense of smell, and another friend lost three elderly extended relatives but otherwise I haven't personally seen much more. Is this a more recent thing? (Work remotely)
dehrmann 3y ago
> Not to mention new COVID-19 variants ripping through the workers and their families. You're not going to believe me, but you need to take an honest look at severity of current variants, availability of vaccines and treatments, and weigh that against how you want to live your life. You might reach the same conclusion, but it sounds like you're still fighting the last war.
- iwonthecase 3y ago
  Not GP, but an ongoing concern I have with covid is that the "severity of current variants" is something that you can really only know after the fact and mild cases can still cause long term effects. I also think that, even if there is a really dangerous strain that evolves, there's no way that in-office companies will go back to WFH, so it might make sense to plan for that possibility. It could also be the case that they're fine with the risk of covid when it comes to actually living life (travel, hanging out with friends and family), but doesn't want to take that risk just to make zoom calls in an office instead of at home.

chasd00 3y ago

i skimmed the interview and didn't get the impression San Francisco was coming back and "tech hub again" doesn't appear in the interview that i could find.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
If you say it enough it might make it so.
RC_ITR 3y ago
I doubt Garry, literally someone with the power to make SF a tech hub (as he did by doubling down on YC in person in SF) who knows Sam Altman (the guy who runs arguably the most important private technology company in the world, which is headquartered and growing in SF) would use that sort of language about SF anyway.
brandur 3y ago
There's a little bit of editorializing in the title, but Garry's basic contention is that YC is firing on all cylinders, and it's headquartered in SF: > Jamali: It’s kind of interesting — so that narrative is there, but are you saying at the same time that there is this comeback happening, that maybe a lot of people outside of San Francisco haven’t appreciated? A comeback that’s being driven by the tech industry? > Tan: Yeah, at the end of the day, what we want is prosperity. And the coolest thing in the world is that at Y Combinator, we get to see two or three people come together from any background, from any country in the world, and they have a fair shot here. They get half a million dollars, and they can go and try to create something that touches a billion people. And that’s really what we try to do every day. And if they succeed, they’ll have thousands of employees, and these are good, high-paying jobs in tech. And that will actually create so much prosperity for the whole community, that that’s actually why San Francisco is so awesome. Not so much in the interview, but a common claim is that many of the most important AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are located in the city, so there's a bit of an AI boom going on. For general context though, Garry's part of the crowd that's committed to staying in San Francisco and getting involved in local politics to make the city better. Whether or not you agree, he's definitely going to have an intentional pro-SF bias in general, which he'd acknowledge.

incomingpain 3y ago

I'm sure he's hoping for this, but the current politicians in control at various levels are themselves eliminating the possibility of silicon valley's return. Even at the federal level, actions they are taking mean silicon valley will be trending the other direction. Much of their problems are state level to be clear, but they are so far gone there's no chance of any short term recovery.

monero-xmr 3y ago

Once you have a family, living in SF is a very poor proposition, unless you are very well compensated. And if you are very well compensated, the taxes are really bad especially compared to services and quality of life. I think SF makes the most sense for childless males between 22 and 30. After that I would find a new home base.

mock-possum 3y ago
Why childless males?
- mikrl 3y ago
  Presumably the crime factor. Walking around drunk at night is risky for anyone, but males of our species tend to be more tolerant of the risks and better equipped to GTFO.
welder 3y ago
Many new families move to surrounding cities Palo Alto, Mountain View, San Mateo, Alameda, Mill Valley, etc. Way less crime and still within reach of SF. Some, like me, bet on WFH and become expats abroad to enjoy a balanced life.

solardev 3y ago

I'm hoping tech plateaus and the bubbles burst. Maybe Silicon Valley would become livable again with normal cities and regular housing, not this gilded dystopia we have with the ultra rich tech class dabbling in society, popping into cities to make a quick buck before moving on and leaving behind a wasteland of empty giant towers. Meanwhile everyone else, like the families who've been there for decades, suffers from the hyperinflation we cause. I remember when San Francisco was so awesome as a kid. Now every time I visit it feels more and more like Blade Runner :/ Seattle is suffering the same fate. Meanwhile someplace like Chicago is vibrant with life and culture, with affordable housing everywhere. I can't help but think it's the tech that's the problem, not the other way around.

iamcasen 3y ago
I remember the same. I visited Alcatraz as a kid in the early '90's, and then later returned in 2010 for my tech career. 2010 was pretty great honestly, but by 2014 I realized I was just one of the hollowed out tech workers too busy and drained from work to contribute anything of value to the city. That's one of the big issues with tech: it isn't really tied to place. It has global reach via cyberspace, with entire decades of work existing purely as bits and bytes in the cloud. Only a software engineer would even have the slightest clue of the vastness of various compute systems composed of millions upon millions of lines of code. People work day and night on this stuff, and the general public only sees the tip of the iceberg. I think this makes for a challenging recipe to balance in a local economy
xw3098 3y ago
If you think San Francisco is bad now. You should’ve seen it in the 70s, when I was a kid. The crime was so bad it made the second sentence in the Wikipedia page. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_in_the_1970s https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_in_the_1970s Honestly these things come and go, as they do in all big cities. Adapting to change, especially for large groups of people, is alway rough and tumble. I’m sure they’ll get it figured out eventually. Just in time for it to change again… Also, most residents as Chicago disagree with your assessment of their housing affordability. https://www.chicagobusiness.com/crains-forum-affordable-housing/chicagoans-say-more-affordable-housing-needed https://www.chicagobusiness.com/crains-forum-affordable-hous...

hospitalJail 3y ago

I imagine lots of property owners in SF will say this out loud as they worry the peak is gone. There will always be tech there, but the next FAAMG won't be located there until they hit the 100M milestone. I say this as someone that lives in an area far past its peak. The money is still here, the knowledge is still here, but the growth is gone.

yumraj 3y ago
> next FAAMG won't be located there until they hit the 100M milestone. None of the FAAMG, assuming F is FB and M is Microsoft, happened in SF (city). FB, Apple and Google happened at about 40 milestone and Amazon & Microsoft happened in Seattle. Secondly, SF city may be down, but the greater Bay Area including Silicon Valley is going to remain a major hub for a really long time. Well, that’s my prediction, and hope, anyway.
mikrl 3y ago
Detroit used to be (and still is) the motor city, but is the auto industry anything like it was in the 1920s-1950s?

nimbius 3y ago

The only people still flogging "tech hub" cities are real estate companies stuck with trillions of dollars of unsaleable office space, teetering on the brink of total financial ruin after their calculated disaster-spending during COVID backfired spectacularly. Folks like Richard Ellis and WeWork have every incentive to try and get someone, anyone, in tech to evangelize or at least attempt an acknowledgement of their slum-lord ant piles of dirt that have bled startups and established players alike for decades now. WFH is here. its not going anywhere. the KPI's are real and established. its is a perk that snipes hot talent from places like Salesforce and Alphabet. It is, decidedly, to the encumbrance and disadvantage of commercial real estate and the octogenarian city councils that have gilded their pockets with daily commuters.

buzzert 3y ago
What’s a recent successful startup that’s totally WFH? I’ve been hearing a lot about OpenAI, Anthropic, etc., but they’re all in-person.
- the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
  Isn’t the more important question which successful startup only hires in-person in SF? I would guess most startups these days have distributed setups quite early.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- no_wizard 3y ago
  Linear Gitlab has been remote first since day one Github went fully remote earlier this year[0] (while not a startup, worth noting IMO) Close (CRM) Zapier (if I recall correctly) Sourcegraph Timescale Supabase I'm sure there's more [0]: https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/09/github-lays-off-10-and-goes-fully-remote/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/09/github-lays-off-10-and-goe...
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago

deviantbit 3y ago

Gotcha title. Read the article. SF is definitely not coming back anytime soon. Most commercial real-estate is vacant, crime is horrible (they need batman) and the leftists policies are not going to change anytime soon. I was there recently and witnessed an armed robbery. There are lots of cars with windows knocked out from thieves. I wanted to go the OpenAI conference, but after my last experience decided to skip it.

welder 3y ago
I've been hearing the same from friends still there, but there's tons of new people still moving to SF from other states and countries. Seems despite the city problems, there's always a supply of people willing to try and make it there. Then they leave when they've made it, burned out, or start thinking of a family.
- RC_ITR 3y ago
  >Then they leave when they've made it, burned out, or start thinking of a family. They then post negatively about SF online for the rest of their lives.
  - welder 3y ago
    I'm just telling how it is. Most people go to SF for a job or a dream. Nobody can work hard forever and dreams either come true or burst. When they're done working hard they usually move somewhere easier. It's a cycle with people coming and going. And I don't have to post negative about SF... everyone knows it's a beautiful and gringy city at the same time depending if you're looking up or down the hill.
    - RC_ITR 3y ago
      >I'm just telling how it is. I think you gave a biased opinion (as we all do, that's fine). There are plenty of people over 40 in SF [1] and plenty of people who choose to live their full lives here. You may not be friends with them, but they exist. What I also notice is that most anti-SF people need you to agree SF is bad. They are unwilling to accept that anyone could like it (despite it being one of the most in-demand places to live in America, which they hand wave away as being a jobs thing). It's truly bizarre, because I comp it to a city like Paris which has many of the same cleanliness & "law and order" problems, but it has nowhere near the amount of people who demand you say it's bad. [1]https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US0667000-san-francisco-ca/ https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US0667000-san-franc...

ang_cire 3y ago

Please no. - San Francisco

outside1234 3y ago

I think what he means really is that the Bay Area is reasserting its dominance across finance, education, and talent. It really is the best place to be for startups given the ecosystem and it still really isn't even close. San Francisco, as a small part of the Bay Area, is a bigger question given the problems it has with poor governance, but the Bay Area which dominates almost the whole tech stack is not.

bilsbie 3y ago

Offshoot question. Would it be affordable to get an acre and a little cabin in the Santa Cruz mountains? What kind of commute would that be to the tech hub? It looks close on a map and seems like a lot of open land.

SR2Z 3y ago
The land is protected from development, IIRC.
- welder 3y ago
  Only the preserve, but the Santa Cruz mountains have tons of people living there. The downside of Santa Cruz mountains is there's only one road in/out and it's often blocked from traffic, car crash, fallen trees, rain. Not to mention yearly wildfires.
welder 3y ago
Sounds nice until the fire claims your house.
latchkey 3y ago
That area is really beautiful. ~1 hour commute each way. Doesn't sound like much until you start to add it up and factor in things like wear and tear and gas. Driving 17 highway is a lot of fun and beautiful, but it is like playing Russian roulette with accidents.

drums8787 3y ago

> Lily Jamali: So you call this “Cerebral Valley,” is that right? > ... > Jamali: Got it. What does that mean, that term? > > Tan: Well, I think it’s a play on really the brain,... The things people say.

swsdsailor 3y ago

In a place like SF it’s really quite fun to commute to the office. I can easily see cities not having much WFH. Elsewhere, the commute just wrecks your soul. Glad to hear SF bouncing back!

iwonthecase 3y ago
Yes, but with traffic (or reliance on public transit, and the Bay Area's n different transit orgs), a 10 mile commute could easily be more than an hour each way.

KirillPanov 3y ago

I need to unload my real estate bags, Y Combinator CEO says