Comment by cwilson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cwilson | Hacker News Reader

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I was born and raised in Austin and used to be one of those people who said they would never leave. I fought very hard to make the tech scene in Austin "happen" for years. There are multiple reasons it's taken so long to get to where it is now, which I won't go into here (not relevant to the OP's topic), but one of the main reasons I left to move to the Bay Area is the lack of hustle, or the lack of need to hustle, in Austin.

It was very hard to want to put your soul into building a company (which as a founder you generally always have to do, at least for a while) when everything is just so mellow in Austin. All of my friends were leaving their offices by 5pm to go drink $3 beers every single day, and likely go see a band play that evening. I of course did this too, because I wasn't going to be the only person working through the evening.

Then there is the cost of living. It's absurdly low compared to the bay area or NYC. I could have a great quality of life in Austin by doing 1 - 2 freelance gigs per month, easy (I know this because I did it for 3 years before starting a company). This translates to not feeling the small window of opportunity you'd have to build a company that becomes profitable (or you can raise money with) out in the bay area, because you can coast by on so little money. This also presented a talent/hiring problem when I did try to make a startup happen in Austin. It was VERY hard to convince freelancers who were making 100k a year and putting a majority of that in the bank to come make less for my crazy dream.

In the Bay Area I do not have these issues. EVERYONE works insanely hard. The cost of living is insane, so I can't just sit around and take my sweet time. Becoming profitable as soon as possible is all I think about.

I'm not saying the Bay Area version of this isn't its own extreme, because it is definitely out of control, but there has to be a balance somewhere between the two.

"All of my friends were leaving their offices by 5pm to go drink $3 beers every single day, and likely go see a band play that evening."

There is nothing wrong with this. When you get older, you'll realize soon how much quality of life is important. Wait until you want to start a family...

That's another thing. Some people want to do something with their lives other than just work on tech. That and I've found -- both personally and by observing others -- that workaholism kills creativity. It leads to fixations and mental boxes. To get out you've gotta go drink a beer and hear a band.

I am presently in Asheville, North Carolina, another "mellow" place that's probably very much like Austin (except smaller). A lot of $100k freelancers too. I moved here from Boston, and I'm not going to go into why as it's off-topic, but...

Yours is an interesting perspective. It seems like both extremes are a double-edged sword. On one hand, slower mellower and less expensive places give you the free time to think and play and create. But on the other hand, they drain you of your sense of urgency and they create a culture where people don't hustle -- as you say.

I'm trying to get something off the ground in Asheville now (https://www.zerotier.com/) and it's required a lot of self-motivation. There's not a huge tech scene either, so if it starts to get real traction I'm not sure what resources I'd have to surf the wave aggressively.

On the flip side, I lived for quite a while in the Cambridge, MA startup orbit and experienced my fair share of hustle. What I saw was a lot of me-too, a lot of crackpot stupid ideas frothing around and getting funding because the founders were connected, and a lot of workaholism that eventually drained people (including me) of genuine creativity or excitement about what they were doing. Costs were high, time was short, and inspiration got thrown under the bus for the need to perform.

So I agree that there's probably an optimum in between. My sense is that Asheville, Austin, probably Portland, etc. are probably too far on the mellow end and that today's SF/SV is probably too tweaked out and overpriced.

I get the feeling that SF and SV in the 1990s was right at that happy medium. Wasn't there, so maybe I'm wrong, but that's the sense I get.

"too tweaked out and overpriced"

That's a perfect way to describe it...

I know this probably wasn't your intention but this entire post makes Austin look incredibly attractive.

I certainly wasn't trying to make Austin look unattractive to anyone who thinks they might enjoy that lifestyle. Depending on your stage in life and needs Austin is likely one of the best places in America to live right now (assuming you don't mind 115 degree heat during the peak of the summer). I absolutely love visiting my family there and often spend weeks at a time in Airbnb's when I visit.

All I was trying to do was show another extreme, in contrast to the OP's and situation in San Francisco right now. Some people absolutely love San Francisco and probably thrive in the tech scene here, but that doesn't mean it's great for everyone or every startup.

I tabbed over to http://austin.craigslist.org/ after reading it...

The people you want aren't the people who leave at 5:00 pm and are drinking every night by 5:30. I agree with you there. I doubt that's all you'll get in Austin. A lot of New York/Bay Area people are moving to Austin, Seattle and NC to raise families and most of them have aged out of their heavy-drinking days.

Nor do you (should you, anyway) want the people who work 75-hour weeks at their startups and don't learn any new skills except the one or two things in the critical path of their assigned project (the rest of their work being grunt work they learn nothing from). Those people will suffer a lot to keep their jobs and because they overestimate the career benefit of what they're doing, but they rarely produce anything good.

So you don't want the Austin stereotype (leaves at 5:00, drinking by 5:30) or the Bay Area/New York stereotype (all-in on his employer's assigned work, burns out in 15 months, gets fired but walks away with a tiny sliver of equity that prevents you from forgetting his existence entirely). I agree with you on both. (Not to say that those stereotypes describe everyone in those regions; they don't.)

You want the people who leave at 5:00pm and then work on things that interest them for 3 hours. (Or get up early and work on side projects before coming to you.) Those are the people with the good ideas. Not the workaholic corporate stooges, and not the semi-retired slackers.

Also, there's absolutely nothing wrong with working an 8-hour day if you do it efficiently. Hell, an efficient 5-hour day is probably better than what most corporates put in, even if they're in the office for 10+ hours (that's about shared suffering and its social purposes, not efficiency).

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