Why I’m Quitting My Job and Leaving San Francisco
future-bits.com
future-bits.com
San Francisco is just one city among many in the world. It may or may not be right for you. Believing the hype that "NYC is the greatest city on earth" or "San Fran is the only place where smart developers go" is a surefire recipe for disappointment.
It's your life and it's up to you to find the balance that makes you happy. Congrats on realizing this and having the courage to do a 180.
Disclaimer: I haven't been to all the cities yet.
I need to write a follow-up post about why I decided to leave San Francisco to start a company.
Thanks for your comment. I really appreciate it.
I was going to comment on this. As someone going through it now (working for money in the morning, and working on craft in the nights,) it seems that many of my peers who do the same thing are burning out because they charge on until 2-3am, and get up for work at 6-7am.
You aren't going anywhere faster because you work yourself to death. A solid 3-4 hours at night, some great sleep, and I'm good to go. I just expect the payoff (of working on the craft) to come much, much slower than if it were my full time gig.
It works for me, and I take plenty of breaks from working at night because girlfriend, friends, and family would all leave if I didn't. I just take it slow and steady.
On the other hand, it's easy to become complacent and lose motivation to keep toiling away. Maintaining a steady regimen of working, even just a little, each night seems to be the best way to not lose interest. Otherwise it's easy to continually say to yourself "well, I'll work on it tomorrow" for the hundredth time in a row.
Nothing wrong with that. When it comes to finding a career, learning what you don't like about a job can be just as valuable as learning what you do like.
A lot of my friends in college already knew exactly what job they wanted the day they arrived at school (or so they thought). I don't know of a single one who got the job they'd been striving for and ended up genuinely enjoying it. Many are now in grad school and still trying to figure out what they really want to do.
San Francisco has only been considered a hub for startups in the past few years. Before that, very few companies made their home in the city, and it was generally down in the South Bay or the Peninsula. Before Twitter, et. al started moving to SOMA, it was mainly banks, and retail companies like the Gap, Red Envelope, etc that were up here.
Ever since startups have decided to move to SOMA, the rents have skyrocketed, from 2000/month for a 1 br to over $3000, all in the span of maybe 18 months.
what do you want at 30? at 40?
the chain of your short-term decisions should connect to fulfill your ten year goals. this will help make whatever short-term decision you need to make not feel so aimless, soul-crushing, or rash.
at the end of the 10 years, you can proudly look back and see how each opportunity help fulfill a larger purpose.
This is not exactly unique for people working in SF as part of the current boom cycle.
Sounds like this was a great learning opportunity for him. If someone gave him that advice before he joined Twilio, it's possible he would have ignored it.
Sometimes it takes experiencing something first-hand to truly learn it.
1. Programming itself can be more fun than 99% of what people get paid to do, at least if you're building new stuff and in at least enough of a leadership role that you're not constantly keeping up with other peoples' changes.
2. 85% of real-world programming work is crappy maintenance and you need some independent credibility (e.g. "X who programs") in something else-- product, data science, finance-- to dodge it and keep getting the good stuff that builds your career.
It all depends on how you interact with those people. If they are actually strong connections, which mine are, then you will not lose them by being in another city. They will also want to stay connected to you even though you are gone.
http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/fundamental-s...
TL;DR: People have to seem more open to subordinate roles than they actually are in order to get jobs.
It's not always greener on the software side of the fence, though. Much of the job is dealing with bad legacy code, which seems to hurt you more if you're a good designer (cf. first and second design paradox) which your well above-average writing skills suggest you are.
I like Chicago a lot and think that it's a great place to live. Honestly, I think the obscene cost of living in New York and San Francisco has a negative overall impact on the quality of businesses that can be founded, but that's a rant for another time.
Good luck!
I think 'obscene' is the perfect word when talking about the cost of rent in SF. It's the number one factor in making me consider moving away from the area.
Why commute all that way when I can move somewhere much more reasonable and get a 3 bed house with a pool for the same price as a small 1 bed apartment in SF, AND only have a 10 minute drive to work? These places exist all over the world and contrary to popular belief around these parts, smart people and businesses do exist in places other than SV.
[1] http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/05/your...
The financials of it isn't the end of it, though. The nightlife is better, the people are nicer, I can have a backyard, I'm not severely limiting my options by having dogs, and the weather is better (for me, but I'm used to hot). I'm significantly happier in Austin.
[1]: My 2-bedroom house that I live in by myself costs about what I was paying for my share of a 2-bedroom apartment in SF. Both required about a 10 minute commute, though I drive in Austin where I could walk in SF. It extends beyond rent, though. Everything in SF is more expensive, though nothing is quite as dramatic as the rent.
Furthermore, if you're fitness, there are so many running clubs, core classes and cycling races that go on.
Note: I moved to the bay area for a couple years before heading back to Austin (I lived in Austin for a decade before wanting to try out the bay area, no idea why people like it so much).
In Austin I can get pay pretty close to Seattle, but live within 30 minutes of my office (fairly easily) and have a nice house to live in.
For the vast majority of jobs it would be time wasted. But as a software developer it's an automatic 1.5 hours per day I have to spend thinking about what I need to do.
Two hours a day is 500 hours a year on the train. That's a tremendous amount of time to be away from your loved ones for the sake of a Good Job or a Nice House.
I can understand using that time to better yourself in some way, but working for free I don't agree with.
I live in SF, and love it.
Driving is any longer than 30 minutes to work (each way) is going to be more of a pain as you can only do so much in the car without endangering others.
Public transportation when it works well in cities leads to people tolerating longer commutes to work. If I had to commute 45 minutes in CA traffic I would be very upset.
That said, since moving from Boston, I'm so much happier. No commute, three times the space and a nicer apartment for half as much rent, better weather, close to the beach. South Carolina isn't exactly the mecca of technology, but telecommuting makes up for it.
Later, I moved to Austin, where house prices are reasonable even if you want to live close to downtown, and you don't have to worry about long commutes just to save money. I have no regrets over gaining so much of my time back, and Austin has a thriving tech community.
When people have to beat others down just to afford to live in the city, it's bad, and most people lack the talent or opportunity to make that amount of money (300k+, for a family) through decent means.
The transience, I think, is behind a lot of the build-to-flips that are degenerate gambles on social trends.
Silicon Valley happened because California land was cheap-- at one time.
The sheer number of startups and engineers in the same place can be pretty fantastic, and there isn't anywhere else that can compete (NYC to some extent, I suppose). In the end, though, it's just an unusually large collection of tech-minded individuals in what amounts to a fairly terrible place to live. YMMV, of course.
You're being facetious here, hopefully.
In any case, San Francisco was never cheap, where OP's startup is.
Effing Norah, that would get you a small stately home in the North of the UK. I'm talking 15 bedrooms and a small park. You could buy a normal family house for a year's rent at that level almost anywhere outside London or Edinburgh
Second decade, 21st century and location still matters so much? What did we do wrong?
I think it's common goal for people to try and make their millions in such a place as SF so they can leave the area and live like kings elsewhere. This is fairly obvious just looking at the rents here, and in places that have the perception of creating more millionaires (usually through business) than others. You know the mindset: live rough and work hard for 5 years to earn what most people take a lifetime to earn.
Personally, I think that is possible in many places around the world, certainly places that will have a nicer standard of living, however you wish to measure that.
The percentage of people who get that is small, and it's mostly noise, not talent. I'd be happy to have boring old 7-8% per year growth in exchange for autonomy and interesting work.
Once you reach a certain point of development, your DFA light (DFA = Done Fucking Around) comes on and you're no longer happy if you don't call the shots regarding how you spend your time. The appeal of the idiocy it takes to reach $5m per year disappears after that.
I do, however, still hold onto the romantic notion that if you find a way to earn a living while doing what you love, the chances of hitting that jackpot are significantly higher.
Very well said, I think you just put a feeling/idea into words that I was having difficulty putting into words.
I absolutely love SF, but I never felt like home there. I think what we were missing was that sense of permanence, resulting from the high cost of housing (and therefore lack of future options).
What's that number intended to represent? It seems (1) too small to be the cost of a house in SF suitable for a family, (2) too large to be the annual (still less the monthly) cost of renting somewhere in SF suitable for a family, and (3) too large to be the salary you need to be making in SF to afford the rent or mortgage on a house suitable for a family. Is it intended to be the amount you need for a realistic downpayment when buying a house, perhaps?
(It looks to me as if you can rent a pretty decent house in SF for, say, $6k/month, which is certainly a whole lot of money but far less than $300k/year. If you want to buy, it seems like the figure is somewhere around $1M.)
For a $1 million house, you're looking at a $4300 per month mortgage. You shouldn't be spending more than 30% of after-tax money on housing, so that means you should be making $14,000 per month post-tax, which puts you right around $300k.
Well, I'm going to talk about it now, if you don't mind :P
If you look at a list of US MSAs[0], you can see that there are quite a few very large cities with low costs of living. For example, the Dallas and Houston MSAs are ranked 4th and 5th (SF is 11th), and are in a state that has a relatively low cost of living, not least due to the 0% income tax. Houston in particular is known for its lack of zoning laws (though some say not a complete lack), which drives down housing costs - the direct opposite of SF.
Although many people might think that they'll be surrounded by teabagging creationists if they go to Dallas or Houston, you'll actually find that there are a lot of young people in the cities that aren't your average Texan (and often aren't even from Texas).
You obviously lose some of the network effects advantages by moving to the Midwest, but I think such issues are becoming less and less important with each passing day, partially due to the connectivity provided by the internet, and partially due to a geographical diversification of the tech industry.
0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_United_States_Metropol...
I will say though that Dallas does not have anywhere near the scene when it comes to the social aspect of development/employment. The conferences are sporadic and not very big. Then gain, I am not a big conference person, so it does not bother me.
Here's my perspective: http://www.erica.biz/2012/austin-vs-silicon-valley/
I can't believe this hasn't attracted a lot more people already, you can do quite a lot with $20k extra every year!
One other question - how is the transportation situation in Austin? Can you drive everywhere? As someone who grew up in the Midwest, I don't really like having to use public transportation. Is there parking everywhere you go in (downtown) Austin?
The religiosity in Austin is unfortunate, but from what friends in Dallas and Houston have told me, this is not so much the case in those cities (partly due to more out-of-state people).
The weather in the summer (and winter) can be quite unbearable in the Midwest as well, but I've dealt with that since childhood by just staying inside (as I am happy to do pretty much all year round, actually). If you buy a house, it's quite easy to ensure you have double-paned windows and good insulation, and energy costs are relatively low, so you can keep the temperature at a comfortable 70-80 F year round.
And it's amazing how you can buy houses in the Midwest that would be considered palatial in SF for a fraction of the cost of renting an apartment!
Weather is similar to what I had growing up in Indiana, so it doesn't bother me at all.
I just paid my last year of taxes in California, and living here will save me over $30,000 a year in state income tax alone. That is probably what you will save as a dual-income household in the Bay Area. The savings more than pays my mortgage and utilities for a house close to downtown in a good neighborhood.
Outside of the star cities, you have to grow your own talent. On the other hand, people don't leave you every 2 years and you don't have to give people 20% raises every year to account for the disgusting housing prices.
Anecdotally, I've heard that many startups here in Austin are funding relocation packages for developers who are tired of living in a tiny town in the Midwest or tired of paying $4,000+ in rent in SF. There's a lot of talent moving here, and since the cost of living is sane, it's easier to attract people who want to own their own property and/or raise kids.
Cost of living is lower in Chicago, there's less intense competition in Chicago (in particular, there's no equivalent of Google looming over every Chicago team member), and people in Chicago tend to live here because they want (or need) to live here; they're "stickier".
I find trying to use hn as your support group a little distasteful.