[ACTIVITY]: Exploratory Visit to the Bay Area

DanB

In my opinion, living anywhere other than the center of your industry is a mistake. A lot of people — those who don’t live in that place — don’t want to hear it. But it’s true. Geographic locality is still — even in the age of the Internet — critically important if you want to maximize your access to the best companies, the best people, and the best opportunities. You can always cite exceptions, but that’s what they are: exceptions.

- Marc Andreessen

Like many people in the technology industry, I have been thinking seriously about moving to the Bay Area. However, before I decide to move, I want to do a lot of information gathering. Some basic pieces of information - employment prospects, cost of living statistics, and weather averages - can be found online. But I feel that one's quality of life is determined by a large number of very subtle factors - things like walkability, public transportation, housing quality/dollar of rent, lifestyle options, and so on. These kinds of things seem to require first-hand, in-person examination. For that reason, I'm planning to visit the Bay Area and do an in-depth exploration next month, August 20th-24th.

My guess is that a significant number of LWers are also thinking about moving to the Bay Area, and so I wanted to invite people to accompany me in this exploration. Here are some activities we might do:

Travel around using public transportation. Which places are convenient to get from/to, and which places aren't?
Visit the offices of the major tech companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, and Twitter. Ask some of their employees how they feel about being a software engineer in Silicon Valley.
Eat at local restaurants - not so much the fancy/expensive ones, but the ones a person might go to for a typical, everyday lunch outing.
See some of the sights. Again, the emphasis would be on the things that would affect our everyday lifestyle, should be decide to move, not so much on the tourist attractions. For example, the Golden Gate Bridge is an awesome structure, but I doubt it would improve my everyday life very much. In contrast, living near a good running trail would be a big boost to my lifestyle.
Do some apartment viewing, to get a feel for how much rent a good/medium/student apartment costs in different areas and how good the amenities are.
Go to some local LW meetups, if there are any scheduled for the time window.
Visit the Stanford and UC Berkeley campuses and the surrounding areas.
Interact with locals and ask them about their experience living in the region
Visit a number of different neighborhoods, to try to get a sense of the pros and cons of each
Discuss how to apply Bayesian decision theory to the problem of finding the optimal place to live ;)

I would also love to connect with LWers who are currently living in the Bay Area. If you are willing to meet up, discuss your experience living in the area, and share some local tips, I'd be happy to compensate you with a nice dinner or a few beers.

If you are interested in participating in this activity, either as a visitor to the area or as a local, please comment below and I will PM you details for how to contact me. Depending on the level of interest, I will probably set up a shared Google Doc or one-off email list to distribute information.

In general, my plan is to keep things loosely organized - less like a conference and more like a couple of friends on a weekend vacation. If you want to participate for a single day or just one activity, that's fine. The main exception is: if you are interested in sharing accommodations, please let me know and we will try to coordinate something (sharing rooms will make things cheaper on a per-person basis). I am planning to use AirBNB (if you are a local LWer who rents a room through AirBNB, that would be perfect!)

In my opinion, living anywhere other than the center of your industry is a mistake. A lot of people — those who don’t live in that place — don’t want to hear it. But it’s true. Geographic locality is still — even in the age of the Internet — critically important if you want to maximize your access to the best companies, the best people, and the best opportunities. You can always cite exceptions, but that’s what they are: exceptions.

- Marc Andreessen

Travel around using public transportation. Which places are convenient to get from/to, and which places aren't?
Visit the offices of the major tech companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, and Twitter. Ask some of their employees how they feel about being a software engineer in Silicon Valley.
Eat at local restaurants - not so much the fancy/expensive ones, but the ones a person might go to for a typical, everyday lunch outing.
See some of the sights. Again, the emphasis would be on the things that would affect our everyday lifestyle, should be decide to move, not so much on the tourist attractions. For example, the Golden Gate Bridge is an awesome structure, but I doubt it would improve my everyday life very much. In contrast, living near a good running trail would be a big boost to my lifestyle.
Do some apartment viewing, to get a feel for how much rent a good/medium/student apartment costs in different areas and how good the amenities are.
Go to some local LW meetups, if there are any scheduled for the time window.
Visit the Stanford and UC Berkeley campuses and the surrounding areas.
Interact with locals and ask them about their experience living in the region
Visit a number of different neighborhoods, to try to get a sense of the pros and cons of each
Discuss how to apply Bayesian decision theory to the problem of finding the optimal place to live ;)

I plan to stay in Berkeley, and I hope to visit San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Oakland. Maybe that is too much for one visit? I prefer to live somewhere that is walkable and not over-the-top expensive. My limited knowledge suggests that Berkeley and Oakland are good candidates, given those constraints.

Walkable, and close access to public transit (rails, I assume?).. that would be Mountain View or Palo Alto in the south bay. Berekely or Oakland would be fine if you're looking for affordable city life. It's a little outside of the tech scene however. San Francisco is expensive and pretentious :\

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[ACTIVITY]: Exploratory Visit to the Bay Area

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[ACTIVITY]: Exploratory Visit to the Bay Area

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