What's comfortable about working until 9 or 10 pm every night? Would you be saying that if you had kids?
I was pointing that out because it seemed like a massive contradiction to say that working at Yahoo is comfortable, but then to say in the following sentence that home life is non-existent. I often ponder the long term stuff in the tech realm as a current full time grad student, and this particular section was striking to me.
I don't have kids, I'd probably do the same thing if it were so convenient.
Now, to be fair, I live in Cupertino (right next to Sunnyvale) and I would rather live in Berkeley or SF, because there is certainly MORE to do, but Sunnyvale isn't THAT bad.
If you can't find something to do, you're probably just being lazy.
1. If you like the outdoors, there are plenty of wonderful places to run/hike/bike in the South Bay/Peninsula. 2. There are frequent sporting events at HP Pavilion. 3. Sunnyvale may not be Paris, but museums and art galleries do exist in the area. 4. The diversity and quality of Bay Area restaurants is unrivaled. 5. Nightlife can be found in San Jose. 6. For weekend getaways, Santa Cruz, Half Moon Bay and Napa are all within reasonable driving distance. 7. Like most metropolitan areas, there are tons of gyms where you can stay in shape and meet people. 8. Meetups of all types abound in the Bay Area. 9. If you like shopping or window shopping, you could do a lot worse than Valley Fair Mall and Santana Row. 10. A lot of the downtowns in the area are great for grabbing a cup of coffee and people watching.
There is a pretty active club scene on Murphy street, there are great restaurants on Sunnyvale a few miles up in Mtn View, a few miles south in Cupertino, and a few miles south in Santa Clara. You've got hiking and parks with wetlands and concert venues (Shoreline, Great America, HP Pavilion), soon you'll have NFL football and world cup Soccer nearby, and you've got an amusement park with concerts and roller coasters, and you've got quicker access to the mountains, and the Steven's creek trail for some excellent biking, running, and walking.
Downtown Palo Alto is a quick train trip, where you can walk from the University Ave station to pretty much anywhere.
What you don't have are some high density urban buildings. More of those are coming with the Murphy Park build but they will still not be high rise apartment/condos. Its not clear to me what the buys you, but it is a difference.
And yes, I'm a bit defensive when people say "its so boring and plastic" (or words to that effect) but getting them to say what is 'not boring' or 'not plastic' seems unexpressable.
I'd love to know what makes a for a 'non-boring' place if you have a list.
A few places I've lived, such as NYC, Tokyo and Paris, have had all these things, but also a whole bunch of other stuff going on I wouldn't have ever thought of. A few other ones have had all this stuff, but didn't really surprise me in any way, like SF, Boston, Minneapolis, Seattle and Portland. Most places I've been meet some of these criteria, but not all. I found that Cupertino did not have anything on my wish list, and also didn't have any other stuff going on that I wouldn't have thought of. In addition, there was a lot of stuff that seemed additionally negative: driving everywhere, expensive, bad rental properties, mediocre food, etc.
A fantastic question, and my answer as a south bay dweller is absolutely-freaking-not. Expensive, hot (for CA), crowded, weak culture:size ratio.
Quality theaters (both movie & traditional).
Parts of town you'd feel comfortable walking alone at 1am.
Art, both public (public installations, statues, etc) & private (museums & so forth).
Varied & competing viewpoints/ideas/industry.
Crime.
2. Trying to compare cities on a relative basis is a pointless exercise. You could easily find people living in major cities outside of the Bay Area who would suggest that San Francisco is boring. That doesn't mean that if you live in San Francisco, you should lock yourself in your room and wait until you can move to Miami or Las Vegas to have fun.
3. The idea is that you can't have a life and work hard and improve your skills is asinine.
4. The sad truth is that "I'll do x when y" is usually just an intellectually dishonest rationale for convincing oneself not to do y.