I'm a bit amused by the advice to move to SF because that's what all the other nonconformists are doing.
I might replace that advice with "be in the city", where "the city" is anywhere that isn't suburbs/rural.
The fact that you didn't step in it makes that a good day in SF
Granted, I am an introvert and don’t strike up conversations as much as I should, but it seems like saying visit SF is useless. Is there a club or some secret society or library or bar that everyone hangs out in? I’ll come back and visit if I have an address to go to. SF is way too broad.
Best way to meet CEOs is to become one yourself.
I’ll keep trying to search, but could someone post a note on what’s it’s about?
And the name is a throwback to the 2600Hz tone that was used to gain operator rights on pre-digital trunking phone lines.
For example, in 2007, I loitered outside Facebook HQ on university ave until I had a chance encounter with someone who also attended my alma mater (!) and was starting his first day of work, so he took me inside with him[1]. I tried to meet with Zuck but they sicced Dave Morin on me. I ended up getting incredible access to the FB engineering team and my app was ultimately acquired, and I partially attribute that to unfair advantage.
[1] I think he's now successfully retired.
Also it seems like you might be good at talking to people (based on the story above). The OP says they are an introvert and might find that more difficult.
If evolution keeps going in this direction then there will be a point where capitalism won't be able to support it anymore. Capitalism was designed for a certain kind of species and we are no longer it.
Second, just because it worked for you doesn't mean it works in general. I'm sure if 1,000 people did it, a couple of them would be successful. But that's definitely not the best way to get peoples attention. Some YC partner says in one of their Investor Startup School lecture that they hate it when people stalk investors at their favorite coffee shop or whatever and that it leads to an adverse effect.
- You can meet people by emailing them and asking for coffee. A cool thing about SV culture is that people are pretty open for that. - The favorite way I like meeting new people is through friends (friends of friends) at non-work related parties - You can meet people at networking events, but I find that there's a self-selection bias (i.e. interesting people usually don't go there, at least in my experience) - You can just meet people randomly at bars, etc. but that takes some time :-)
Note the advice about making friends over the internet. Do that and then ask to say hi.
Reply to the person on this thread who suggested places to go and ask to buy them a coffee.
Don’t go to places, go to people.
nl's advice seems to be broadly on the money. Get in touch with people online first, and also spend more time there so you don't have to pack the schedule too hard.
What's nice is it's somewhat less insular than other status-oriented hierarchies in that you can break into these circles by being reasonably good at generating value (particularly as an engineer/technologist) and even vaguely charismatic.
That said, in my opinion the primary focus should always be on figuring out how to create value. These days the upper echelons of the Bay Area are alarmingly saturated with talkers and bloviators, as opposed to doers.
Well, then, I'll get right on that! Sounds simple... I'm surprised I'm not already on Marc Andreessen's dinner list.
Besides that it helps to be around other similar people, but I wouldn't necessarily spend my day in Philz / Ritual / Sightglass / Four Barrel / a co-working space if the trip was for vacation. I came to SF for a pre-accelerator once that brought a similar crowd.
Staying in the HI hostel helps too.
I'd love to hang out with chill tech folks à la Homebrew Computer Club, but I get the feeling that kind of thing doesn't really exist anymore. Everyone is too busy peddling their wares.
And then less good specific but decently good networking at interesting side projects meetups.
I think the general purpose tech meetups can be hit/miss. It takes some work to find the best big one in a city. The best one in my city asks that only startup employees attend and not third party recruiters unless they're sponsoring.
It also helps if the meetup is hosted at an incubator or accelerator type space — one signal of quality vs a random place.
It's actually hard to be fully aware of the high levels of conformity one finds elsewhere until you have spent 6+ months in SF.
That's not to say that there aren't widespread prejudices held in SF.. the biggest one I have encountered is the belief that people living in "flyover" states are idiots and are less enlightened than those living in SF.
Saying SF is open to nonconformity is not another way of saying SF is "enlightened". It's just an aspect of enlightenment that SF culture does particularly well compared to other parts of the world.
This isn't even necessarily all kinds of nonconformity... it's just some that are rare elsewhere.
If you pick a person at random from anywhere in the US you'll find roughly equivalent levels of enlightenment and judgmental views. What's unique about SF is that being different is way more acceptable than it is elsewhere.
When you live in SF for a while and then go to other major cities and see how people dress it looks like they are all wearing a conformist costume, trying to look acceptable. But acceptable to whom? It's this instinct toward conformity that is so repellent about many areas of the country. The example I used about fashion is just an example, the same exists when it comes to life choices, values, etc.
I haven't found this to be the case at all, at least compared to LA/NY/Seattle.
That being said, I can see how -if you identify as a non-conformist in some way or the other- it makes sense to move to a place with a higher-than-normal ratio of other non-confirmists.
After all, even if they are not of the same bent as you, at least they are familiar with the feeling of not fitting in and, hopefully, as a result are more tolerant of other people who deviate from the norm - whatever that norm may be.
lol
>Austin
Texas.
>Salt Lake City
Mormons.
>Probably Portland.
Bingo.
Honestly I doubt it will be a city on the tier of Austin/Portland/Seattle, when San Francisco was still the obvious place to go for people who wanted to do weird things it was much cheaper relatively. The same goes for NYC back when it was a musical/artistic hotspot - living space was much much more affordable than any of these cities.
It definitely does, but to a lesser extent. Oregon is a reliably blue state because the population is extremely sparse outside of Portland, whereas Austin is just a bubble amid a sea of red. Oregon is also a lot less of the "southern redneck confederate" type, and more of the "libertarian don't tread on me" conservative, which is far more tolerable.