8 ms·

Why I’m Quitting My Job and Leaving San Francisco

84 points by endtwist 14y ago

Yhippa 14y ago
"Getting your foot in the door" cost me a large part of my career. I did something I didn't really have my heart set on at a large financial services company and the OP is right: it's hard to work on the craft you love at night while doing your day job. I wish I'd have picked up on this years ago but that's life.
- danielzarick 14y ago
  This is exactly why I wrote the post. It was 100% a personal decision, but I hope that other people might relate and find a little courage if they are feeling the same way. Thanks for your comment. I really appreciate it.
- rayiner 14y ago
  Careers are long, and you don't look that old. ;)
  - dasil003 14y ago
    Another reason to get out of SV: people won't think you're over the hill at 35.
- JonLim 14y ago
  > it's hard to work on the craft you love at night while doing your day job I was going to comment on this. As someone going through it now (working for money in the morning, and working on craft in the nights,) it seems that many of my peers who do the same thing are burning out because they charge on until 2-3am, and get up for work at 6-7am. You aren't going anywhere faster because you work yourself to death. A solid 3-4 hours at night, some great sleep, and I'm good to go. I just expect the payoff (of working on the craft) to come much, much slower than if it were my full time gig. It works for me, and I take plenty of breaks from working at night because girlfriend, friends, and family would all leave if I didn't. I just take it slow and steady.
  - polyfractal 14y ago
    I'm in the same boat. It's a love-hate relationship. If I've had a particularly rough day or just don't feel like working, it's nice to just say "screw it" and drink a beer, play with the dog and talk to my girlfriend. I don't feel particularly bad because there is always tomorrow. If you take the long timeline perspective, it doesn't really matter much if you slack a little today. On the other hand, it's easy to become complacent and lose motivation to keep toiling away. Maintaining a steady regimen of working, even just a little, each night seems to be the best way to not lose interest. Otherwise it's easy to continually say to yourself "well, I'll work on it tomorrow" for the hundredth time in a row.
ritchiea 14y ago
What is the craft you love and why does going back to Chicago help you work on it?
- drstewart 14y ago
  It's not clear in either case. He says that he ideally would like to be a product designer, but then says it's tough to stand behind a developer and watch them build code instead of doing it himself.
  - danielzarick 14y ago
    Product designer is what I should be doing, and will be doing from here on. In my definition of product design, the ideal skill-set is a UI designer who works mostly in front-end code.
    - michaelochurch 14y ago
      Good plan. 2 dirty secrets of the software industry: 1. Programming itself can be more fun than 99% of what people get paid to do, at least if you're building new stuff and in at least enough of a leadership role that you're not constantly keeping up with other peoples' changes. 2. 85% of real-world programming work is crappy maintenance and you need some independent credibility (e.g. "X who programs") in something else-- product, data science, finance-- to dodge it and keep getting the good stuff that builds your career.
      - bosie 14y ago
        what do you mean by "product"?
        deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
      - ErikAugust 14y ago
        Good advice.
flxmglrb 14y ago
"…my actions felt like they were driven mostly by ego and the desire to be known in the startup community." This is not exactly unique for people working in SF as part of the current boom cycle.
- danielzarick 14y ago
  Exactly. That's another reason I felt the urge to leave, particularly if I was going to start a business. I didn't want to be influenced by the bad habits of the Valley and SF. It seemed unnecessary to touch on that in this particular blog post, but maybe in a future one.
michaelochurch 14y ago
I don't think the "cheating" was anything unethical. I wrote about the pervasiveness of that (anti-)pattern this morning. http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/fundamental-subordinate-dishonesty/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/fundamental-s... TL;DR: People have to seem more open to subordinate roles than they actually are in order to get jobs. It's not always greener on the software side of the fence, though. Much of the job is dealing with bad legacy code, which seems to hurt you more if you're a good designer (cf. first and second design paradox) which your well above-average writing skills suggest you are. I like Chicago a lot and think that it's a great place to live. Honestly, I think the obscene cost of living in New York and San Francisco has a negative overall impact on the quality of businesses that can be founded, but that's a rant for another time. Good luck!
- peacemaker 14y ago
  I would like to hear your thoughts on the cost of living and how it affects business quality? I think 'obscene' is the perfect word when talking about the cost of rent in SF. It's the number one factor in making me consider moving away from the area.
  - dxbydt 14y ago
    I actually did the opposite. Owned a house in Chicago. Sold the house, moved to SF, bought a house in the suburbs, and now take the BART to twitter everyday. Rents are obscene if you want to live in SF proper...as you start moving out to the south Bay or better yet, East Bay, they drop quite dramatically. If you are willing to live in Concord or Pittsburg, you can easily find a 1K/mo rent. Even in Pleasant Hill I was able to land a 1.5K, and Walnut Creek & thereabouts will still be below 2K. Ofcourse you spend 45 minutes on the BART...but hey, there's a reason machine learning textbooks are 800+ pages....:) I have learnt so much in the past 3 months, & all the credit goes to BART.
    - peacemaker 14y ago
      Sure I can live an hour away from my workplace and sit on the BART 2 hours every day but it's quite well known that this kind of living is bad for you [1] and I know from experience I would hate doing that again. Why commute all that way when I can move somewhere much more reasonable and get a 3 bed house with a pool for the same price as a small 1 bed apartment in SF, AND only have a 10 minute drive to work? These places exist all over the world and contrary to popular belief around these parts, smart people and businesses do exist in places other than SV. [1] http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/05/your_commute_is_killing_you.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/05/your...
fmitchell0 14y ago
while focusing on short-term, ego-stroking opportunities makes things exciting, i'd also recommend setting 10-year goals. what do you want at 30? at 40? the chain of your short-term decisions should connect to fulfill your ten year goals. this will help make whatever short-term decision you need to make not feel so aimless, soul-crushing, or rash. at the end of the 10 years, you can proudly look back and see how each opportunity help fulfill a larger purpose.
jbail 14y ago
It sounds like you had held up San Francisco and a startup job as being some sort of perfect ideal. This type of thinking usually results in feeling unhappy later. San Francisco is just one city among many in the world. It may or may not be right for you. Believing the hype that "NYC is the greatest city on earth" or "San Fran is the only place where smart developers go" is a surefire recipe for disappointment. It's your life and it's up to you to find the balance that makes you happy. Congrats on realizing this and having the courage to do a 180.
- jonathanjaeger 14y ago
  But NYC is the greatest city on Earth ;) Disclaimer: I haven't been to all the cities yet.
- danielzarick 14y ago
  Yes, you are right that I thought a startup job in San Francisco would be ideal. However, I have zero issues with San Francisco as a city and lifestyle (other than cost of living, which I dealt with fine). The decision to leave is mostly based on how it will serve the next steps in my life. There is a solid chance I will end up back in San Francisco at some point in life, if only for a short period. I need to write a follow-up post about why I decided to leave San Francisco to start a company.
enoughisenough 14y ago
Why in hell is this on HN?
- tbatterii 14y ago
  it fits the pattern "Why I'm <verb>ing the <noun>", ever hear of SEO? :)
- colkassad 14y ago
  This is actually a fairly typical representation of what has always been on Hacker News. Why the hell are you surprised?
necubi 14y ago
It was great getting to work with you at Twilio. Good luck with everything in your future!
Irregardless 14y ago
> My problem is that I also took a job that wasn’t exactly what I wanted to be doing so that I could be in San Francisco, instead of staying where I was and honing my craft. Nothing wrong with that. When it comes to finding a career, learning what you don't like about a job can be just as valuable as learning what you do like. A lot of my friends in college already knew exactly what job they wanted the day they arrived at school (or so they thought). I don't know of a single one who got the job they'd been striving for and ended up genuinely enjoying it. Many are now in grad school and still trying to figure out what they really want to do.
kjackson2012 14y ago
Good luck, hopefully you find the experience that you're looking for! San Francisco has only been considered a hub for startups in the past few years. Before that, very few companies made their home in the city, and it was generally down in the South Bay or the Peninsula. Before Twitter, et. al started moving to SOMA, it was mainly banks, and retail companies like the Gap, Red Envelope, etc that were up here. Ever since startups have decided to move to SOMA, the rents have skyrocketed, from 2000/month for a 1 br to over $3000, all in the span of maybe 18 months.
cwb71 14y ago
I think Daniel buried the lede on this one: there’s an apartment available in San Francisco!
MicahWedemeyer 14y ago
I'd be a little concerned that you're abandoning the network you've built in SF. I guess it depends on the business you're starting, but when I co-founded my consulting company, all of our initial clients came from my existing network.
- tptacek 14y ago
  It's true. Now that he's wandered into a snowy wasteland from which nobody ever emerges, surely his San Francisco network will never get in touch with him again; even if they could (I guess there's always telegraphs and morse code here?), they'll be afraid of catching Yetis from him. Chicago has Yetis like NYC and SF have bedbugs.
  - danielweber 14y ago
    I seriously had problems with my slowly but strongly built network when I moved from Boston to Charlotte. I still have plenty of references and people I can ask for help and technical problems, but in terms of finding permanent jobs or consulting gigs, location matters.
    - fourspace 14y ago
      Hey, fellow Charlottean here! I've found a similar situation here, where my SF network still exists but isn't quite as useful as it was when I was living there.
- danielzarick 14y ago
  I used to live in Chicago and have a very strong network there. I actually grew my network in Chicago while not living there because I continued to work on good things and by being active on the internet. I expect that the same thing will happen with my SF network as I move back to Chicago. It all depends on how you interact with those people. If they are actually strong connections, which mine are, then you will not lose them by being in another city. They will also want to stay connected to you even though you are gone.
mikeleeorg 14y ago
In the past, my actions felt like they were driven mostly by ego and the desire to be known in the startup community. If being out here has taught me anything, it is that none of that stuff matters (obviously). Sounds like this was a great learning opportunity for him. If someone gave him that advice before he joined Twilio, it's possible he would have ignored it. Sometimes it takes experiencing something first-hand to truly learn it.
tptacek 14y ago
Welcome back to Chicago! We're a great city from which to operate tech companies. I still remember moving back to Chicago from San Francisco and how good it felt to be back where the leaves change color and every coffeshop in the city isn't filled with people talking about tech products.
- jamesjporter 14y ago
  I'm considering moving from Chicago to California for grad school and the lack of real seasons is one of a few things that's making me lean towards going out East (Boston or NYC) instead.
hnriot 14y ago
How on earth does someone quitting their job and moving back home constitute news on hn??? I realize tumblr's down, but this really is a lame story. Good luck to the guy, but seriously, this is not newsworthy.
- danielzarick 14y ago
  Read the other comments. You'll see why I wrote the post... other people are dealing with the same problems and questions that I dealt with, and reading about other people who have figured it out is reassuring.
  - hnriot 14y ago
    I would imagine that many others also have to go grocery shopping this week, but that doesn't make it newsworthy. I find trying to use hn as your support group a little distasteful.
joey_muller 14y ago
It's cool. You're still young. You'll look back at these years and realize how much you really learned with Jeff and the gang at Twilio. Keep writing and reaching out to people and above all have fun. Chicago is a pretty nice backup city. :)

84 points by endtwist 14y ago

"Getting your foot in the door" cost me a large part of my career. I did something I didn't really have my heart set on at a large financial services company and the OP is right: it's hard to work on the craft you love at night while doing your day job. I wish I'd have picked up on this years ago but that's life.

danielzarick 14y ago
This is exactly why I wrote the post. It was 100% a personal decision, but I hope that other people might relate and find a little courage if they are feeling the same way. Thanks for your comment. I really appreciate it.
rayiner 14y ago
Careers are long, and you don't look that old. ;)
- dasil003 14y ago
  Another reason to get out of SV: people won't think you're over the hill at 35.
JonLim 14y ago
> it's hard to work on the craft you love at night while doing your day job I was going to comment on this. As someone going through it now (working for money in the morning, and working on craft in the nights,) it seems that many of my peers who do the same thing are burning out because they charge on until 2-3am, and get up for work at 6-7am. You aren't going anywhere faster because you work yourself to death. A solid 3-4 hours at night, some great sleep, and I'm good to go. I just expect the payoff (of working on the craft) to come much, much slower than if it were my full time gig. It works for me, and I take plenty of breaks from working at night because girlfriend, friends, and family would all leave if I didn't. I just take it slow and steady.
- polyfractal 14y ago
  I'm in the same boat. It's a love-hate relationship. If I've had a particularly rough day or just don't feel like working, it's nice to just say "screw it" and drink a beer, play with the dog and talk to my girlfriend. I don't feel particularly bad because there is always tomorrow. If you take the long timeline perspective, it doesn't really matter much if you slack a little today. On the other hand, it's easy to become complacent and lose motivation to keep toiling away. Maintaining a steady regimen of working, even just a little, each night seems to be the best way to not lose interest. Otherwise it's easy to continually say to yourself "well, I'll work on it tomorrow" for the hundredth time in a row.

ritchiea 14y ago

What is the craft you love and why does going back to Chicago help you work on it?

drstewart 14y ago
It's not clear in either case. He says that he ideally would like to be a product designer, but then says it's tough to stand behind a developer and watch them build code instead of doing it himself.
- danielzarick 14y ago
  Product designer is what I should be doing, and will be doing from here on. In my definition of product design, the ideal skill-set is a UI designer who works mostly in front-end code.
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    Good plan. 2 dirty secrets of the software industry: 1. Programming itself can be more fun than 99% of what people get paid to do, at least if you're building new stuff and in at least enough of a leadership role that you're not constantly keeping up with other peoples' changes. 2. 85% of real-world programming work is crappy maintenance and you need some independent credibility (e.g. "X who programs") in something else-- product, data science, finance-- to dodge it and keep getting the good stuff that builds your career.
    - bosie 14y ago
      what do you mean by "product"?
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
    - ErikAugust 14y ago
      Good advice.

flxmglrb 14y ago

"…my actions felt like they were driven mostly by ego and the desire to be known in the startup community." This is not exactly unique for people working in SF as part of the current boom cycle.

danielzarick 14y ago
Exactly. That's another reason I felt the urge to leave, particularly if I was going to start a business. I didn't want to be influenced by the bad habits of the Valley and SF. It seemed unnecessary to touch on that in this particular blog post, but maybe in a future one.

michaelochurch 14y ago

I don't think the "cheating" was anything unethical. I wrote about the pervasiveness of that (anti-)pattern this morning. http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/fundamental-subordinate-dishonesty/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/fundamental-s... TL;DR: People have to seem more open to subordinate roles than they actually are in order to get jobs. It's not always greener on the software side of the fence, though. Much of the job is dealing with bad legacy code, which seems to hurt you more if you're a good designer (cf. first and second design paradox) which your well above-average writing skills suggest you are. I like Chicago a lot and think that it's a great place to live. Honestly, I think the obscene cost of living in New York and San Francisco has a negative overall impact on the quality of businesses that can be founded, but that's a rant for another time. Good luck!

peacemaker 14y ago
I would like to hear your thoughts on the cost of living and how it affects business quality? I think 'obscene' is the perfect word when talking about the cost of rent in SF. It's the number one factor in making me consider moving away from the area.
- dxbydt 14y ago
  I actually did the opposite. Owned a house in Chicago. Sold the house, moved to SF, bought a house in the suburbs, and now take the BART to twitter everyday. Rents are obscene if you want to live in SF proper...as you start moving out to the south Bay or better yet, East Bay, they drop quite dramatically. If you are willing to live in Concord or Pittsburg, you can easily find a 1K/mo rent. Even in Pleasant Hill I was able to land a 1.5K, and Walnut Creek & thereabouts will still be below 2K. Ofcourse you spend 45 minutes on the BART...but hey, there's a reason machine learning textbooks are 800+ pages....:) I have learnt so much in the past 3 months, & all the credit goes to BART.
  - peacemaker 14y ago
    Sure I can live an hour away from my workplace and sit on the BART 2 hours every day but it's quite well known that this kind of living is bad for you [1] and I know from experience I would hate doing that again. Why commute all that way when I can move somewhere much more reasonable and get a 3 bed house with a pool for the same price as a small 1 bed apartment in SF, AND only have a 10 minute drive to work? These places exist all over the world and contrary to popular belief around these parts, smart people and businesses do exist in places other than SV. [1] http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/05/your_commute_is_killing_you.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/05/your...

fmitchell0 14y ago

while focusing on short-term, ego-stroking opportunities makes things exciting, i'd also recommend setting 10-year goals. what do you want at 30? at 40? the chain of your short-term decisions should connect to fulfill your ten year goals. this will help make whatever short-term decision you need to make not feel so aimless, soul-crushing, or rash. at the end of the 10 years, you can proudly look back and see how each opportunity help fulfill a larger purpose.

jbail 14y ago

It sounds like you had held up San Francisco and a startup job as being some sort of perfect ideal. This type of thinking usually results in feeling unhappy later. San Francisco is just one city among many in the world. It may or may not be right for you. Believing the hype that "NYC is the greatest city on earth" or "San Fran is the only place where smart developers go" is a surefire recipe for disappointment. It's your life and it's up to you to find the balance that makes you happy. Congrats on realizing this and having the courage to do a 180.

jonathanjaeger 14y ago
But NYC is the greatest city on Earth ;) Disclaimer: I haven't been to all the cities yet.
danielzarick 14y ago
Yes, you are right that I thought a startup job in San Francisco would be ideal. However, I have zero issues with San Francisco as a city and lifestyle (other than cost of living, which I dealt with fine). The decision to leave is mostly based on how it will serve the next steps in my life. There is a solid chance I will end up back in San Francisco at some point in life, if only for a short period. I need to write a follow-up post about why I decided to leave San Francisco to start a company.

enoughisenough 14y ago

Why in hell is this on HN?

tbatterii 14y ago
it fits the pattern "Why I'm <verb>ing the <noun>", ever hear of SEO? :)
colkassad 14y ago
This is actually a fairly typical representation of what has always been on Hacker News. Why the hell are you surprised?

necubi 14y ago

It was great getting to work with you at Twilio. Good luck with everything in your future!

Irregardless 14y ago

> My problem is that I also took a job that wasn’t exactly what I wanted to be doing so that I could be in San Francisco, instead of staying where I was and honing my craft. Nothing wrong with that. When it comes to finding a career, learning what you don't like about a job can be just as valuable as learning what you do like. A lot of my friends in college already knew exactly what job they wanted the day they arrived at school (or so they thought). I don't know of a single one who got the job they'd been striving for and ended up genuinely enjoying it. Many are now in grad school and still trying to figure out what they really want to do.

kjackson2012 14y ago

Good luck, hopefully you find the experience that you're looking for! San Francisco has only been considered a hub for startups in the past few years. Before that, very few companies made their home in the city, and it was generally down in the South Bay or the Peninsula. Before Twitter, et. al started moving to SOMA, it was mainly banks, and retail companies like the Gap, Red Envelope, etc that were up here. Ever since startups have decided to move to SOMA, the rents have skyrocketed, from 2000/month for a 1 br to over $3000, all in the span of maybe 18 months.

cwb71 14y ago

I think Daniel buried the lede on this one: there’s an apartment available in San Francisco!

MicahWedemeyer 14y ago

I'd be a little concerned that you're abandoning the network you've built in SF. I guess it depends on the business you're starting, but when I co-founded my consulting company, all of our initial clients came from my existing network.

tptacek 14y ago
It's true. Now that he's wandered into a snowy wasteland from which nobody ever emerges, surely his San Francisco network will never get in touch with him again; even if they could (I guess there's always telegraphs and morse code here?), they'll be afraid of catching Yetis from him. Chicago has Yetis like NYC and SF have bedbugs.
- danielweber 14y ago
  I seriously had problems with my slowly but strongly built network when I moved from Boston to Charlotte. I still have plenty of references and people I can ask for help and technical problems, but in terms of finding permanent jobs or consulting gigs, location matters.
  - fourspace 14y ago
    Hey, fellow Charlottean here! I've found a similar situation here, where my SF network still exists but isn't quite as useful as it was when I was living there.
danielzarick 14y ago
I used to live in Chicago and have a very strong network there. I actually grew my network in Chicago while not living there because I continued to work on good things and by being active on the internet. I expect that the same thing will happen with my SF network as I move back to Chicago. It all depends on how you interact with those people. If they are actually strong connections, which mine are, then you will not lose them by being in another city. They will also want to stay connected to you even though you are gone.

mikeleeorg 14y ago

In the past, my actions felt like they were driven mostly by ego and the desire to be known in the startup community. If being out here has taught me anything, it is that none of that stuff matters (obviously). Sounds like this was a great learning opportunity for him. If someone gave him that advice before he joined Twilio, it's possible he would have ignored it. Sometimes it takes experiencing something first-hand to truly learn it.

tptacek 14y ago

Welcome back to Chicago! We're a great city from which to operate tech companies. I still remember moving back to Chicago from San Francisco and how good it felt to be back where the leaves change color and every coffeshop in the city isn't filled with people talking about tech products.

jamesjporter 14y ago
I'm considering moving from Chicago to California for grad school and the lack of real seasons is one of a few things that's making me lean towards going out East (Boston or NYC) instead.

hnriot 14y ago

How on earth does someone quitting their job and moving back home constitute news on hn??? I realize tumblr's down, but this really is a lame story. Good luck to the guy, but seriously, this is not newsworthy.

danielzarick 14y ago
Read the other comments. You'll see why I wrote the post... other people are dealing with the same problems and questions that I dealt with, and reading about other people who have figured it out is reassuring.
- hnriot 14y ago
  I would imagine that many others also have to go grocery shopping this week, but that doesn't make it newsworthy. I find trying to use hn as your support group a little distasteful.

joey_muller 14y ago

It's cool. You're still young. You'll look back at these years and realize how much you really learned with Jeff and the gang at Twilio. Keep writing and reaching out to people and above all have fun. Chicago is a pretty nice backup city. :)