San Francisco?

[pamcaid]

@savedsinner777 SF definitely has downsides; was not a fan when I first moved from Texas (my car was stolen in the Filmore Center). It depends on what you are doing, where your customers are, your financial situation, etc. Definitely, tailor the advice to your situation esp if you are getting from someone on the internet (who's giving the advice, their motives, are they targeting people like your or someone else?).

HOWEVER in general, if you are starting a startup, which is an incredibly lonely and difficult journey fraught with constant rejection and failure, there is a hub of smart and driven people doing something very similar. And they are all within a few mile radius in SF. And many of them are also early adopters of new technology/products. And there are investors/accelerators who are open to giving money to a shitty pre-seed company. Being in SF is part of a recipe for creating opportunity for yourself.

 

[savedsinner777]

Comments like this are most confusing: "Why was San Francisco so definitively the center of the tech industry?" Spoiler alert: it wasn't. Apple was founded in Los Altos, CA. Facebook was founded in Cambridge, MA. Google was founded in Menlo Park, CA. Amazon was founded in Bellevue, WA. The list goes on. This depiction might be a bit more accurate w/r/t recent times. Still, deluding tech origins to serve your own interest doesn't seem to be in the interest of the people who eat glass, put themselves out there, talk to to people, discover problems, and solve them (with technology).

 

[prinzleczy]

@savedsinner777 I think when they say SF, they refer to SF bay area not just SF city. SF and cupertino is like 40 miles drive.

 

[revena]

@prinzleczy That's clearly another city then, pretty much in any country outside us

 

[manuele]

@savedsinner777 haha author of that depiction here. only got more true since!

 

[revena]

@savedsinner777 You have to see the bigger picture.. they don't like solo cofounders and now they like San Francisco.. Connect the dots with the empty real state there.

In a recent video Gary Tan talked about his vision of filling these empty buildings with cofounders using each apartment as live in offices. That gives them the control to push them work hard, 80 to 100 hours a week for 125k per year per cofounder (or even less if there are more cofounders and company fails in three years).

They are essentially hiring cofounders. Any serious entrepreneur will stay away from this mindset. Accelerators are becoming pseudo companies nowadays and not investors

Oh btw ur lucky they didn't remove your critical post, may be it sneaked through the lenses of yc team and ex founders

 

[wynelle]

@revena That’s the part of YC that I don’t understand - why would you give them so much equity for just $125k salary that a regular tech job already gives you double? You can work on your YC idea nights and weekends until you get traction and are ready for fundraising.

 

[revena]

@wynelle Absolutely, the thing is lots of people have never seen that kind of money..

Then those who have seen it, they will also come to yc.. look at infinity ai.. the yc startup announced on linked in yesterday. They came got yc pre seed after already raising millions in seed round.. these founders had a previous (pseudo) startup, an ai consultancy (for me that's the same thing as calling barbershop a startup)

These founders will go to yc and antler and every program and investor to raise as much as they can. Because deep down they know their equity's real value is zero and somehow they think by hiring lots of engineers they might one day get things to work later..

but currently as their equity has no value, their only product is their equity (worth zero) and market is yc, investors etc.

No serious entrepreneur would do this..

 

[wynelle]

@revena Oh my god, I just looked up Infinity AI and their cofounders….holy shit. Barely have any work experience which is okay if you’re right out of college but these people are not. They are likely in their early to mid 30s. Yeah that consultancy is irrelevant and adds to the shady nature.

 

[revena]

@wynelle Yes and guess what if yc takes such kind of shady people, who else is shady? When people see more and more of these, they will stop applying to the scam.. people waste their in just giving away their whole work and idea to get rejected for this shady startups

Just one precaution, there are lot of yc team members and ex founders here who would fight against any criticism and even take down your posts.. They have made personal attacks on me trying to portray that my criticisms are because i was rejected when I'm trying to bootstrap actually.. they are a whole team here! And criticisms hurt them real bad

 

[wynelle]

@revena “ai consultancy (for me that’s the same thing as calling a barbershop a startup)” can I marry you?

You’re completely right. YC has become a joke and only accelerated its path to irrelevance with this last two batches.

 

[edm1]

@savedsinner777 My 2 cents. I don’t know why no one is solving the remote ecosystem problem post covid. Now that we know that startups can exist or make significant momentum working remotely - why we are still concentrating to The One City or The One County thing.

Somehow I don’t understand why we couldn’t agglomerate over internet.

 

[moppy]

@edm1 My company works on exactly this

 

[edm1]

@moppy What is that if you are willing to share.

 

[ec0684]

@savedsinner777 I left SF. The culture completely died from COVID. All companies left and no one gave a shit about people who moved there. I'd rather live somewhere beautiful if that's how people really feel about workers there. Gotta take care of me first.

 

[ladylittle]

@savedsinner777 have you tried working in tech in sf vs elsewhere?

 

[savedsinner777]

@ladylittle Yup. SF has a density of like-minded people that is perhaps unrivaled. Certainly no shortage of talent, but the point of an accelerator is to accelerate an existing founder team with their idea to either reach PMF or pivot quickly to find it. There is no need to infuse this already stressful stage of a business that, statistically is doomed to fail, with the need for relocation.

SF is an awesome place to be but being here shouldn't be a condition when all you want to do is solve a problem.

 

[ladylittle]

@savedsinner777

SF has a density of like-minded people that is perhaps unrivaled.

it is unrivaled, there is nowhere else in the world that matches the talent density and energy as sf.

but the point of an accelerator is to accelerate an existing founder team with their idea to either reach PMF or pivot quickly to find it.

precisely why you should move to sf if you are doing a startup in tech

There is no need to infuse this already stressful stage of a business that, statistically is doomed to fail, with the need for relocation.

if someone cant handle moving to a new place, startups are probably not the thing for them. since you are statistically likely to fail, shouldn't you take all the opportunities you have to maximize the likelihood of success?

if you want to do a startup in tech, being based in sf is a no brainer.

 

[ricetree]

@savedsinner777 Any one living near to YC office

 

[ricetree]

@savedsinner777 Any one living in mountain view or silicon valley