correct me if i’m wrong

I cringe every time I read a blog post purporting starting a company outside of Silicon Valley because “rent is cheaper.” I would eat my hat if I ever heard a failed entrepreneur lamenting “the expensive rent” in his quest for glory. The general intuition is simple: you gotta spend money to make money, and rent is a minuscule (i.e., negligible) expenditure if you’re truly building a real company with millions in revenue. These words never seemed to pack enough of a punch, though. Fortunately, Hacker News reader, Joel Sutherland, states it beautifully:

Joel: Low cost of living. For a tech startup, Ramen and split-rent costs about the same everywhere. A low cost of living generally means that the people around you are used to paying less for things. Silicon Valley is nice because the population has money and is ready to spend it and founders can get by for dirt cheap just as they would anywhere else.

Q: I don’t understand. It sounds like you’re saying rent costs the same everywhere. It manifestly does not.

Joel: If I’m going to quit my job for a full-time startup the difference between $500 on rent in Omaha and $1000 rent in SF is not large enough to optimize for.

Those numbers are probably exaggerated as well. If you really wanted to live cheap you could do $300 and $600 I’m sure. The point is that the difference between the costs of living decreases in an absolute sense when you are living cheap.

Paying double for Ramen is not a big deal if it means you are living in an area where there are investors.

I’m not going to state how the ecosystem pushes you forward in the competitive landscape, or cite the endless success stories, or elegize the world-class university system. I just want to keep a permanent record of this for reference.

I was chatting to a successful entrepreneur in a coffee shop the other day when he ran into a entreprenuer friend. Apparently, his business was seeking to solve problem X for Y by doing Z. “That’s really interesting,” I casually remarked. “I know somebody who can use this.”

There was a point in my life when this would have been an exciting moment for me — I would have been thrilled that I met somebody who is trying to solve a problem for someone I care about. There was a point in my life in which I wondered where the smart, ambitious people that sought to change the world are located.

This question tormented me throughout college when I persistently sought out entrepreneurial people and failed. There are, no doubt, amazingly talented people at my alma mater, but the entrepreneurial spirit was not what I expected. This seemed unusual to me, as Austin, Texas, is considered a “tech town.” Naturally, entrepreneurs should be attracted there.

Within days of being in Silicon Valley, it felt like home, although I wasn’t in the proximity of any family and only a few friends.

The difference between the two places is simple: in Austin, there are some people doing startups, and in Silicon Valley, there are some people NOT doing startups.  The entrepreneurial spirit permeates the culture so deeply that you’d be hardpressed to live here and avoid it. It’s subtle, but it’s everywhere; whether it’s the Yahoo! billboard on highway 80 in San Francisco, the Palo Alto Egg, or the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, these icons convey a simple message: great technology is borne here.

There are few places in the world where organizations and events like the Homebrew Computer Club, Hackers and Founders, SuperHappyDevHouse at the Rainbow Mansion, YCombinator, and endless hacker spaces and houses can co-exist.

Silicon Valley is not without its woes; dating and socializing is difficult. It is also worth noting that during my senior year in college (2007-2008), Austin (along with many other U.S. cities) began what I expect to be massive growth in the startup sector. I met many entrepreneurs (both experienced and aspiring) that will go on to do amazing things, so I don’t want to undermine them–personally, at that point, I was bittersweet about the environment, and although I intended to stay there after college, I knew my stay was short-lived.

I suggest that you watch a TED Talk by the brilliant Internet marketer, Seth Godin, on the tribes we lead. I invite you, if you possess the desire and ambition to make an impact on the world’s technology to join our tribe in Silicon Valley. I, for one, am glad to be among the world’s greatest hacker culture.

…the social scene.

As a 22-year old recent college graduate, adjusting to an “adult” social scene is a new endeavor. I have been spoiled by the virtues of university social life. Having 50,000 aspring college students residing in a relatively small city, Austin, TX, around the central campus location makes socializing virtually effortless. It’s much different in Silicon Valley.

I live in Palo Alto, California. For those unfamiliar with the area, here is a quick description of the geography. There are three major cities–San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland, forming a V-shaped or triangular settlement, with the cities being each point of the triangle and residences spanning between and around the three. Palo Alto is in the middle of the left-side of the “V,” between San Francisco and San Jose, but closer to San Jose. If that’s not clear, Google Maps is only a couple clicks away.

San Francisco is what I consider a great American city. It has a unique character, spanning from it’s architecture to its people to its industry and history. San Jose doesn’t. It feels like an overgrown suburb, and that’s a fairly accurate description.

According to wikipedia, San Jose started as a farming town in the late 18th century. It’s development really took off starting in the 1960’s, when families started suburbanizing it. If you’ve been to San Jose, the urban growth laws are readily apparent. The hills and bay are unpopulated, despite the huge geographical span of the Bay Area. As a result of this legislation, San Jose’s growth was heavily fragmented, with the population developing in independently incorporated cities nearby, such as Campbell and Santa Clara.

This is the crux of the problem with social life in Silicon Valley; it’s very decentralized. There’s few urban centers that have vastly taken off. Each individual province has a “main street;” Palo Alto has University Ave.; Mountain View has Castro St.; Campbell has Campbell Ave., and so on. While these are quaint, elegant centers for restaurants, cafe and shopping, they do little do perpetuate large-scale growth for entertainment districts on which residents can consistently rely.

Unfortunately, for 22-year old aspiring yuppies like myself, social life suffers because Silicon Valley has mostly families. Approximately 60% of households in San Jose consist of families according to the wikipedia article. Therefore, there is not a huge demand needed for the growth of entertainment districts.

This family domination leads to a perpetual cycle of Silicon Valley having a perpetuating suburban feels. There are many houses, and thus a low population density. Everything is spread out. Getting from Palo Alto to the adjacent city, Mountain View, can be a 10-15 minute car ride. This is very different from going from North Beach to Mission in San Francisco, for example, in which people can span a significant fraction of the city in car, bus, bicycle or on foot.

The fact that everything is so spread out and decentralized has ultimately restricted from any single part of Silicon Valley to develop into a reliable entertainment district. Instead, there are multiple, spread out centers which have a small variety of bars, clubs, theaters for temporary gratification.

All in all, adapting to such a difference in social environment has been an unsuccessful endeavor. I am sure it’s not absolutely hopeless, however, with so many diverse, unique people with common interests to me. I must be doing something wrong, or need to try harder and persist more. Any suggestions?