The best AI founders in the world are moving here (youtube.com)
Everyone used to want to work for Google in 2005. It became a mecha for serious tech people.
People starting companies then were older, late 20s early 30s. PHDs for Google. People wanted to be in the suburbs, investors too. Palo Alto.
‘For people who are builders, it’s important to be around people who are like that.'
In community. Greatly enhances chances of success.
Everyone's doing a startup. It's nourishing rather than draining, as it is talking to people in banking or finance or any regular job, who think you're just lazy or dreaming, kind of a bum, not really working. Being around the ones that start really working, it's energizing. It makes you wanna work.
Going from any startup to any other was 15 minutes. They'd ask someone who was already in, and that person would just email a bunch of intro emails to everyone that wanted to get.
Nerds went there from around the world, and they weren't judged, they could talk about their interests, there were lots of people just the same, and optimist and excited.
Mainstream has different values from nerds.
Some peope think the reason people go to SF is transactional, the investors are there, but maybe a bigger factor is it is a city that values the things those people want. They seem them as ambitious and serious, for doing things that elsewhere they're judged as poor, can't take vacations, working weird hours.
In SF, around tech, there's no limits to how far your ideas can go. It's just a question of how far do you want to keep working to push them.
Being wrong is ok there. That's part of the culture. People might not believe yet what it's going to be, but people expect that.
In a matter of a few months, after Covid, all this was true, although there were subsurface tensions like homelessness, then pandemic measures and everything changed, and these problems became surface, and it was a chance to leave SF and go somewhere where they didn't have these problems.
Then chatGPT was maybe a reset, and brought lots of people back. It was suddenly cool to work on AI. The people working on AI before were counter(culture). It was wondered whether AI would have many locaitons, NY, London, etc, but it's all in SF now.
Commercial real estate is cheaper now. Lots of companies are in Hayes, which is different from Soma which is cheap but dangerous and uncomfortable to be on the streets. Now, it really matters which neighborhood you're in. Now, it's very important you pick the right one. There are neighborhoods to avoid now.
YC has a Friday where people can go to an office, and there's a lunch where people demo their code and grab a beer, and then Friday night people go out together and meet each other.
If / when AI companies make hundreds of millions then billions, they'll fill all those office buildings.
If you're building tools, they'll be used by companies there.
Agglomeration effects create a scene. SF has the building blocks.
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