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This article really tempts me. About a year and a half ago, I moved to the SF Bay Area. And since moving here I've been just, totally disappointed. There's a ty

This article really tempts me. About a year and a half ago, I moved to the SF Bay Area. And since moving here I've been just, totally disappointed. There's a tyranny of the useful here. Silicion valley loves boring B2B software -- your Slacks -- and boring social media products -- your Twitters -- and useful but banal consumer products -- your Ubers, and it's just depressing. We don't value fun here. Or art. Or games. Or films. We're like robots, looking for useful things that make money, rather than something risky and expressive and thoughtful. We've fallen in love with money. Reading this article, it's refreshing. A city of artists. I wonder if I might enjoy it to this city of gross utilitarians.

eclipxe 11y ago
You will. It's great down here. There's a balance - different professions, different perspectives. SV can be a big echo chamber. It's great to geek out, but you also can fall victim to serious group-think.
gooserock 11y ago
The really depressing thing is that even just 6 or 8 years ago, San Francisco was about all those things. It had artists, it made films, it valued culture and fun and creativity. I moved here 6 years ago for exactly those things, but even then I noticed it was changing. Now the artists and filmmakers and musicians have mostly left - moved to Oakland or LA or elsewhere. In a way, our moving here destroyed the things we moved here for.
- beatpanda 11y ago
  By God, one of you finally admitted it.
  - api 11y ago
    The places utilitarian careerists create are miserable alienating cultural wastelands. As a result, they are repelled from the places they create and drawn to "artsy" cities and neighborhoods. When they arrive they bid up the price of real estate and drive out the natives. Rinse and repeat. If only the humanities had any economic value.
    - nether 11y ago
      Yeah, we see it in LA. My girlfriend and I ate at a trendy gastropub (top pick from an LA Times critic) and were unfortunately seated next to a pair of Googlers (long communal tables). They were just namedropping all the cool cities they've lived in (London for this, NYC for that) while talking about their jobs and college (which looked like it was at least five years ago for them). It was nauseating.
    - kitsune_ 11y ago
      That process is called gentrification.
      - api 11y ago
        It's a cycle. Once the artists and other culture creators are driven out, the careerists move on and the descent begins.
- kpennell 11y ago
  It's still a very nice place to live but it's not a funky creative mecca. If you just accept sf as a really nice place to program from, you can appreciate it more.
- PopeOfNope 11y ago
  We all have our own perspectives and bias. I moved out to SF 8 years ago and left 1 year ago. During that time, I was nothing but disappointed with SF and its so called "creative culture." Everybody I spoke to said it was so much better 7-8 years before that (just before the dot com bust). And yet, I have difficulty finding notable art that was made in San Francisco that doesn't date back to the 70s.
grubles 11y ago
I hate to be this way but I assume SF is like the show Silicon Valley. I've lived in LA and loved all the street performers. In fact, seeing so many of them has inspired me to take that leap into making my creativity public. Some people laugh at the performers but I envy them for having the guts to do what they do.
fown9 11y ago
LA is a vain, gridlocked, smoggy, disgusting city that cares only about what you look like and what car you drive. It lacks any intellectual curiosity. It not only loves money, but it loves shallowness. In it's absence of morality, it created Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Hugh Hefner, and Larry Flint. It values sequels, misogyny and mindless violence in its games, tv, and films. It seeks not to improve humankind, only deprave it. Perhaps you are attracted to it because you are in tune with it.
- earino 11y ago
  This is a common sentiment towards Los Angeles, and one which I find a little closed minded and surprising. LA is a vast sprawling megalopolis, a collection of dozens of small cities, all with their own culture and approach towards life. From the nature and seclusion of Topanga Canyon to the Art Meets Crime Vibe of Venice, from the privilege of Marina del Rey, to the culture of Plaza Garibaldi, Los Angeles offers something for everyone. The weird little snapshot you portray, of celebrity and smut, is a tiny self-contained microcosm of the greater whole that is LA. I have a theory... it goes a little like this: Someone is the beautiful person in their home town, or they're the funny one, or the artistic one. They have a mild level of success at home, and they feel ready to conquer the world. So they do, what thousands do every week, they board a bus, or drive, or fly to "make it" in the big city, LA. When they get here, they find out that it's a different distribution to sample from than the one they left behind. They are not the only beautiful person here, they are not the only one with an angelic voice, the only one who can move gracefully, inspired by music. They find that the things that made them so unique and special at home, are in no short supply. So they try to make it. They go to audition after audition. They "put in their hours". As savings finishes dwindling, they take a job somewhere, to make ends meet, and they become part of the great fabric that is Los Angeles. You will meet them, if you come to LA. Folks that came here to make it, and just stayed... for 5, 10, 20, 50 years. They've made LA their home, and almost universally, they love it here. If they didn't, they wouldn't pay the high price of rent, or deal with the damned 405. But not all of them stay... for some, the toll is too great. So they pack their bags, and they return home. The home they left with great fanfare, the home that they may have sworn never to return to. But they return none the less. What story are they going to tell folks when they get back? "LA was a lovely place. It was sunny and the sky was actually quite blue. Unfortunately it's full of people more beautiful and more talented than I am, shucks." No. They retell the tale that people returning home from LA, with hurt and bruised feelings have retold. "LA is a soul-less, smoggy, terrible city full of superficial shallow people. It's not that I failed, the city is corrupt. If anything, my failure to succeed is due to my high moral fiber and unwillingness to play by it's rules." It's sad, and I wish those folks well, but I believe that is a large part of why people have this skewed, warped view of LA. Los Angeles has so much to offer, and so many ways to live. If you want a tech industry, it exists and it is growing. It is a sector which has sampled from the engineering and media roots of the greater industry. You can create stuff here. You can contribute to great causes. You can come in contact with a seemingly infinite stream of people from all over the world. You can ski in the morning, and see the sunset over the pacific that night. I'm a husband, a father, a dog owner, and a technologist, and I love LA. Perhaps it is because I am in tune with it.
waterlesscloud 11y ago
The great thing about Los Angeles is that you can find whatever you want here. There's certainly a tremendous amount of truly world class culture in the city. Film, of course. But also music (not just pop, but classical, jazz, etc). Games. Writers. Painters. Sculptors. People doing things there are no names for. It's a giant city, with what is likely the largest concentration of creative people on the planet. Don't let your stereotypes and preconceptions mislead you. Some of that is here, but it's just a thin surface, and there's a great deal of depth underneath it.
wdr1 11y ago
There's a lot of advantages to working in tech in Los Angeles. - If you do need to meet with people in the bay area, it's a short flight. You can even do a day trip, flying up in the morning & flying back in the evening. (It's a long day, but worth it if you have a family.) I do that probably 1-2 times a month. - Being in the same time zone as the bay area is big boon as well. - There's a fairly solid tech community in LA. We've hosted various meetups at the Google LA office and always gotten fairly solid attendance, from a pretty wide range audience. - In a similar vein, we've also done things like hosting art walks on the campus & so on. - The weather is pretty great year-round. - It's easy to escape the tech bubble. In fact, most people you meet are not in tech. I actually find that pretty helpful to understand better how various technical issues are perceived by the non-technical public. - There's a growing "maker" culture, with make spaces popping up. There are also events like Glow (http://glowsantamonica.org/ http://glowsantamonica.org/) which fuse the tech & arts. - The people here are actually pretty great & down to earth, yes, even the "Hollywood" types. I'm friends with the screenwriter of an ongoing movie franchise and the creator of fairly popular TV series. I knew both before there work became popular. Yes, they're very rich. No, they have not had major personality changes. No, they're not assholes. In fact, until you visit their houses, you'd think they were just regular guys. That said, no place is perfect. We share some of the same housing pains at the bay area (esp. on the westside). Likewise, homelessness is a significant problem in parts of the city, including places like Venice. ObRecuriting: We're also looking to add great people to our office. https://www.google.com/about/careers/locations/los-angeles/ https://www.google.com/about/careers/locations/los-angeles/
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

eclipxe 11y ago

You will. It's great down here. There's a balance - different professions, different perspectives. SV can be a big echo chamber. It's great to geek out, but you also can fall victim to serious group-think.

gooserock 11y ago

The really depressing thing is that even just 6 or 8 years ago, San Francisco was about all those things. It had artists, it made films, it valued culture and fun and creativity. I moved here 6 years ago for exactly those things, but even then I noticed it was changing. Now the artists and filmmakers and musicians have mostly left - moved to Oakland or LA or elsewhere. In a way, our moving here destroyed the things we moved here for.

beatpanda 11y ago
By God, one of you finally admitted it.
- api 11y ago
  The places utilitarian careerists create are miserable alienating cultural wastelands. As a result, they are repelled from the places they create and drawn to "artsy" cities and neighborhoods. When they arrive they bid up the price of real estate and drive out the natives. Rinse and repeat. If only the humanities had any economic value.
  - nether 11y ago
    Yeah, we see it in LA. My girlfriend and I ate at a trendy gastropub (top pick from an LA Times critic) and were unfortunately seated next to a pair of Googlers (long communal tables). They were just namedropping all the cool cities they've lived in (London for this, NYC for that) while talking about their jobs and college (which looked like it was at least five years ago for them). It was nauseating.
  - kitsune_ 11y ago
    That process is called gentrification.
    - api 11y ago
      It's a cycle. Once the artists and other culture creators are driven out, the careerists move on and the descent begins.
kpennell 11y ago
It's still a very nice place to live but it's not a funky creative mecca. If you just accept sf as a really nice place to program from, you can appreciate it more.
PopeOfNope 11y ago
We all have our own perspectives and bias. I moved out to SF 8 years ago and left 1 year ago. During that time, I was nothing but disappointed with SF and its so called "creative culture." Everybody I spoke to said it was so much better 7-8 years before that (just before the dot com bust). And yet, I have difficulty finding notable art that was made in San Francisco that doesn't date back to the 70s.

grubles 11y ago

I hate to be this way but I assume SF is like the show Silicon Valley. I've lived in LA and loved all the street performers. In fact, seeing so many of them has inspired me to take that leap into making my creativity public. Some people laugh at the performers but I envy them for having the guts to do what they do.

fown9 11y ago

LA is a vain, gridlocked, smoggy, disgusting city that cares only about what you look like and what car you drive. It lacks any intellectual curiosity. It not only loves money, but it loves shallowness. In it's absence of morality, it created Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Hugh Hefner, and Larry Flint. It values sequels, misogyny and mindless violence in its games, tv, and films. It seeks not to improve humankind, only deprave it. Perhaps you are attracted to it because you are in tune with it.

earino 11y ago
This is a common sentiment towards Los Angeles, and one which I find a little closed minded and surprising. LA is a vast sprawling megalopolis, a collection of dozens of small cities, all with their own culture and approach towards life. From the nature and seclusion of Topanga Canyon to the Art Meets Crime Vibe of Venice, from the privilege of Marina del Rey, to the culture of Plaza Garibaldi, Los Angeles offers something for everyone. The weird little snapshot you portray, of celebrity and smut, is a tiny self-contained microcosm of the greater whole that is LA. I have a theory... it goes a little like this: Someone is the beautiful person in their home town, or they're the funny one, or the artistic one. They have a mild level of success at home, and they feel ready to conquer the world. So they do, what thousands do every week, they board a bus, or drive, or fly to "make it" in the big city, LA. When they get here, they find out that it's a different distribution to sample from than the one they left behind. They are not the only beautiful person here, they are not the only one with an angelic voice, the only one who can move gracefully, inspired by music. They find that the things that made them so unique and special at home, are in no short supply. So they try to make it. They go to audition after audition. They "put in their hours". As savings finishes dwindling, they take a job somewhere, to make ends meet, and they become part of the great fabric that is Los Angeles. You will meet them, if you come to LA. Folks that came here to make it, and just stayed... for 5, 10, 20, 50 years. They've made LA their home, and almost universally, they love it here. If they didn't, they wouldn't pay the high price of rent, or deal with the damned 405. But not all of them stay... for some, the toll is too great. So they pack their bags, and they return home. The home they left with great fanfare, the home that they may have sworn never to return to. But they return none the less. What story are they going to tell folks when they get back? "LA was a lovely place. It was sunny and the sky was actually quite blue. Unfortunately it's full of people more beautiful and more talented than I am, shucks." No. They retell the tale that people returning home from LA, with hurt and bruised feelings have retold. "LA is a soul-less, smoggy, terrible city full of superficial shallow people. It's not that I failed, the city is corrupt. If anything, my failure to succeed is due to my high moral fiber and unwillingness to play by it's rules." It's sad, and I wish those folks well, but I believe that is a large part of why people have this skewed, warped view of LA. Los Angeles has so much to offer, and so many ways to live. If you want a tech industry, it exists and it is growing. It is a sector which has sampled from the engineering and media roots of the greater industry. You can create stuff here. You can contribute to great causes. You can come in contact with a seemingly infinite stream of people from all over the world. You can ski in the morning, and see the sunset over the pacific that night. I'm a husband, a father, a dog owner, and a technologist, and I love LA. Perhaps it is because I am in tune with it.

waterlesscloud 11y ago

The great thing about Los Angeles is that you can find whatever you want here. There's certainly a tremendous amount of truly world class culture in the city. Film, of course. But also music (not just pop, but classical, jazz, etc). Games. Writers. Painters. Sculptors. People doing things there are no names for. It's a giant city, with what is likely the largest concentration of creative people on the planet. Don't let your stereotypes and preconceptions mislead you. Some of that is here, but it's just a thin surface, and there's a great deal of depth underneath it.

wdr1 11y ago

There's a lot of advantages to working in tech in Los Angeles. - If you do need to meet with people in the bay area, it's a short flight. You can even do a day trip, flying up in the morning & flying back in the evening. (It's a long day, but worth it if you have a family.) I do that probably 1-2 times a month. - Being in the same time zone as the bay area is big boon as well. - There's a fairly solid tech community in LA. We've hosted various meetups at the Google LA office and always gotten fairly solid attendance, from a pretty wide range audience. - In a similar vein, we've also done things like hosting art walks on the campus & so on. - The weather is pretty great year-round. - It's easy to escape the tech bubble. In fact, most people you meet are not in tech. I actually find that pretty helpful to understand better how various technical issues are perceived by the non-technical public. - There's a growing "maker" culture, with make spaces popping up. There are also events like Glow (http://glowsantamonica.org/ http://glowsantamonica.org/) which fuse the tech & arts. - The people here are actually pretty great & down to earth, yes, even the "Hollywood" types. I'm friends with the screenwriter of an ongoing movie franchise and the creator of fairly popular TV series. I knew both before there work became popular. Yes, they're very rich. No, they have not had major personality changes. No, they're not assholes. In fact, until you visit their houses, you'd think they were just regular guys. That said, no place is perfect. We share some of the same housing pains at the bay area (esp. on the westside). Likewise, homelessness is a significant problem in parts of the city, including places like Venice. ObRecuriting: We're also looking to add great people to our office. https://www.google.com/about/careers/locations/los-angeles/ https://www.google.com/about/careers/locations/los-angeles/

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]