
Zed Shaw on SF vs NYC - gthank
http://zedshaw.com/blog/2009-08-17.html
======
old-gregg
But isn't the end result the same? Joining an existing startup as an engineer
is NOT financially beneficial. Just do the math:

An average post-series A startup has 10% chance of success and an average
acquisition price is around $50M.

Now, when you're joining as an engineer how much do you get in equity? Much
less than just 1%, yet you're losing a lot of potential earning power and,
most importantly, you're investing 100% of your raw intellectual potential in
it (good startups suck it all out of you). So... while at a startup you are:
not working on your own projects, not making as much $$$ as you could have,
and the payoff is what? 10% chance of making $50K in 3 years?

~~~
kls
Crap dude you just summed my life up in a paragraph. 3 start ups, all sold and
the most I ever pulled was 100k for my efforts. I did however make a
comparable wage to developers in established businesses so it did not hit me
so hard in the earning potential; but you are right about the intellectual
capital spent. Once the risk of failure starts to subside the amount investors
are willing to part with follows a similar curve. If you are going to get in,
it has been my experience that, ground floor is the only place that you will
see any significant chance of getting to anywhere better than well off or
comfortable.

~~~
riffer
Being part of three successful startups must have taught you a ton, though.
Certainly more than being a drone.

~~~
kls
Most assuredly, I absolutely don't want anyone to take away that it was a
completely negative experience. Those where some of the best times in my
career. Every change you make, you can literally feel the money role in and
you are in complete control of the decision making process. You are in it
together and it is a conquer the world attitude. The best friends I have ever
made, where bonds built in those companies. That said, I think the parent
posters comment is often overlooked by the inexperienced, in the quest for the
one hit. I am now a VP of a fortune 100 company due to the experience I gained
in those companies and my track record of hitting it 3 times. I just wanted to
highlight that even upon success, if the timing of entry is not right you may
only walk out with some good resume fodder and enough to float you to the next
gig.

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caffeine
I give it six months before he starts whining about how everyone in SF is a
"douche" and fuck them because I'm the genius who wrote Lamson... whatever.

~~~
shiranaihito
+34, seriously? Apparently HN is like a high school girl clique that's decided
Zed Is Bad.

~~~
blasdel
No, we've just decided that Zed Is Predictable.

~~~
shiranaihito
Well, I've never understood the Zed -hate. People say he's a prick, but people
saying that doesn't make it true.

To me, he seems like an intelligent and nice person. His writings are often
blunt, but how often is he blunt _and wrong_?

As for being predictable, I predict that the prediction _"he starts whining
about how everyone in SF is a "douche" and fuck them because I'm the genius
who wrote Lamson"_ is wrong. Your comment, on the other hand, looks like you
believe it will happen.

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jcsalterego
Why is this on HN's front page? :(

~~~
aditya
I upvoted because being an NYC native (well, after 5 years here) it is always
interesting to see what I think I may be missing out on by not being in SF.

Honestly, I think he's spot on with SF being cheaper, cleaner and better tech
scene than NY. Where NY wins out is that it is actually refreshing that not
everyone is consumed by startup culture here, yet there are still people
(buglabs, drop.io) building interesting companies. Also, NYC feels more
vibrant compared to SF but my experience is highly limited to an 8 month stint
in SF '05 and I wasn't working at a startup.

How about we cut the negativity and share other experiences of people that
have relocated?

~~~
tedunangst
If you care about comparing SF and NYC, I wouldn't trust somebody's account of
a weekend visit. I almost laughed out loud at some of it. "Awesome summer
weather" and SF are fundamentally incompatible.

And Zed apparently doesn't actually like Mexican food, he just likes burritos,
as that's the only thing you can only find in SF.

Now he is spot on regarding Muni. Actually, probably lucky he found a bus at
all. Muni vs MTA alone probably makes it worth moving to NYC.

~~~
SystemOut
I don't know why people don't like the summer weather in San Francisco. Sure,
if you live on the ocean side or in Pacifica it can be foggy and cold but in
other parts of the city like the Financial District, North Beach or the
Mission it is really comfortable most of the summer (high 60s, 70s and sunny
most days). If you like super hot weather then you just head down the South
Bay or over to the East Bay and you can get plenty of 80s/90s throughout the
summer.

~~~
timr
It's pretty cold here in early summer -- I was wearing a sweater and a winter
coat a few evenings last month. I just spent seven years in Seattle (aka the
Gloomiest Place on Earth), and even I think it's a bit ridiculous to be
wearing a winter coat in July. I also routinely run into tourists over by
Giants Park who underestimated the weather, and who are frantically searching
for warmer clothes.

That said, I like it here. But had I moved here from LA or anywhere with heat,
I would have probably been sorely disappointed.

~~~
hughprime
I'm enjoying my first SF (well, Emeryville actually) summer after three years
in Sacramento, where "summer" means "90 straight 100+ days". I think it's nice
that even on the hottest day of the year I can still walk around outside for
an hour without feeling like I'm going to die of heatstroke.

Unless you're planning a day at the beach, I think "hot" is overrated (and I
say that as a Sydney native).

~~~
ghshephard
Emeryville is a significantly different Micro Climate than San Francisco.
There are even parts of the actual _city_ of San Francisco that have different
weather patterns - and just go a little South down the peninsula, and it's
like you are in a different State when it comes to the weather.

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mcxx
Am I the only one who doesn't give a shit about Zed's migration?

~~~
dennmart
Being a New Yorker who wants to do the exact same thing that Zed is doing now
(not because he's doing it, of course), it does interest me somewhat.

~~~
silverlake
Me too. I was checking out SF a few weeks ago. Froze my ass off at night
(50F!). People in SF are 10X nicer than NYC. Even the homeless. Food is not as
good, though the high-end fancy places were ok. Housing appears to be half my
insane rent in NYC. I'll inevitably move to SF when the economy improves.

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demaratus
"More importantly, the general feel of the technology scene in SF has almost
zero douchebag in it."

Good to hear that someone's trying to change that.

------
look_lookatme
"I went down to the Mission to get some Mexican food, because there is
absolutely no good Mexican food in New York. None."

Wrong. Sunset Park in Brooklyn has excellent Mexican food. I say this as a
person who recognizes the insane subjectivism of "good" Mexican food. Books
could be written on how Americans judge US made Mexican food and I really do
think there is no deterministic way to understand what goes into each persons
position on what is good and not good when it comes to a burrito or enchilada.

But I will say this; if you go to Sunset Park in Brooklyn NY, you will find
quality tacos and tortas. Probably the burritos won't be as good, but I
personally find the burrito to be an uninspired dish. I've had good enchiladas
and excellent tamales in Sunset Park, too.

~~~
mikeryan
To be fair as well, the burrito (as we know it in SF) is either a San
Francisco or LA based creation. You're not going to find that in Mexico.

~~~
davidw
Yes and no, it looks like:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burrito#History>

Looking at that picture made me suffer though... I can't believe I'm saying
this, but I'd probably be happy just to get some Taco Bell. Things are _that
bad_ here in Padova.

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bcl
Interesting to see a New Yorker's view of SF, but why do we care? Who is Zed
Shaw and why is he important?

~~~
yan
I'm reminded about something I read regarding human interaction in general:
"It's not who has the most interesting to say that's most popular, it's who's
the loudest."

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tptacek
I lived in Bayview, north of Candlestick, for a couple months. My sense was
that it was the worst neighborhood in San Francisco. It didn't even come close
to the worst of Chicago. How does someone from NYC manage to get intimidated
by SF? I kind of don't believe this happened.

San Francisco is too small for genuinely dangeous neighborhoods, and the whole
area is so expensive that even Oakland is viable for family housing.

~~~
neilk
How could Bayview trump the Tenderloin? Or for that matter, Emeryville (if
we're counting the East Bay?)

Here's a map of SF crime by district.

<http://www.teamten.com/lawrence/projects/sfcrime/>

~~~
tptacek
I don't know this for sure, but I'd bet that vice and drug crimes jack the
stats up for the Tenderloin. Also, this is 1998; 10 years could change a whole
lot in SF. But I'm even more certain that 10 years has made SF more
hospitable, not less.

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strlen
Re: "people are crazy"

San Francisco is less than twenty miles long. It's very easy to get to the
other side of town in a short period of time. NY has neighbourhoods that are
much more dangerous than shady parts of the Mission/Tenderloin (where he
likely ended up) and even Bayview. It's just that it's much harder to stumble
into them.

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klocksib
In further news, I plan on eating a sandwich for lunch.

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siculars
"NYC constantly stinks like dried vagina in the summer."

i read zed for gems like that. hilarious. but, imho, nyc does have
shortcomings when put up against sf, especially in the tech space. i live in
manhattan now and although there are a handful of people/groups that do
hackernews type stuff they are few and far between. mostly those that do play
here are along the lines of the job zed made example of in his post.

~~~
agotterer
Not sure who you have been meeting. But you should check out the hackers and
founders meetup. There are of course a few financial people, but overall a
great group of interesting like minded people. There are people in NYC doing
interesting stuff, you just have to weed through a lot of crap to find them.
But they do exist... If your interested in details for the meet up, shoot me
an email.

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a-priori
The grass is always greener on the other side of the continent.

------
rdouble
I just did the opposite move, from SF to NYC.

The Mexican food in SF is very specific - Burritos. Burritos are as much
Californian food as they are Mexican. You'll be hard pressed to get a decent
burrito in most of Mexico. You'll also be hard pressed to find a decent
burrito outside of SF once you've lived there.

The burritos in NYC are a joke. However, tacos in NYC are fine. The mexican
people in California are usually from California... home of the burrito. All
the mexicans I've met in NYC are from D.F - where there are no burritos to be
found, but there are tacos. You can get nopales with your taco in NYC, it's
hard to get them in SF. Zed's right though... in general there's better
mexican food in SF. However, NYC definitely is not the worst. Try getting
mexican food in Wisconsin, for example.

The weather in SF is weird. It's kinda cold most of the time. When I was a kid
in the midwest I used to watch skateboard videos featuring SF. I'd mimic the
guys who wore a winter hat and a t-shirt. I was determined to be as rad as
they were. My head got so hot, I couldn't stand it. I couldn't figure out how
those dudes could do it. It all came together when I moved to SF. It's the
only place in the world where it makes sense to leave the house in a winter
hat and a t-shirt.

The weather in NYC is balls this summer, but I kind of like having an excuse
to wear shorts for the first time in 5 years.

NYC is indeed dirtier overall. However, if Zed really wants to know where the
part of San Francisco that makes god weep, it's 6th and Market. Human poo,
needles, meth tweakers, etc. The lower tenderloin up the hill from that
intersection is a also a horror movie.

Regarding sketchiness, the sketchy parts of SF are actually sketchy. NYC, not
so much. I've been mugged twice in SF. Once right in front of my apartment. My
roommate was beat up by three dudes for 18 dollars. The hells angels dude got
mowed down right over where I used to live. 21st street is the dividing line
between the Nortenos and Sorrenos... 2 guys got shot on the street in front of
my startup, while I was at work. Note that this was Bryant street and 21st in
the Mission... where tons of hipsters and software people live...in 2006.
There are constant gunshots in the projects next to Hayes Valley, right up the
street from everyone's favorite coffee shop, Blue Bottle. I moved to a "nicer"
neighborhood, Cole Valley, and within months my house got broken into and my
TV was stolen by a crackhead. Market street after midnight (or after noon,
depending on the day) is like 28 days later or similar apocalyptic zombie
movie.. and so forth. Don't get me started on Oakland.

In contrast, New York is so safe these days it's a joke. You have to try
pretty hard to get to a bad neighborhood in NYC these days. I never thought
I'd "go soft" by moving to New York, but I'm not looking over my shoulder for
tweakers and thugs anywhere in manhattan. I left my bike locked up on the
street in Brooklyn and nobody ganked my seat like they did in Berkeley. Etc.

Regarding tech, I haven't been here too long. I know Zed hates ruby, but we
had a nycrb meetup at work, and it was much better than the ruby meetups I'd
been to in SF. The people were really cool. I also thought the "lame" project
email he received sounded like a fun project, and I work for a fashion
company, so maybe I'm not as cool as Zed. I do miss TechShop in Menlo Park
already, as well as all the South Bay weirdos who build robots and actually
design circuits and work on network routing protocols and stuff like that.
There doesn't seem to be an equivalent to that out here, but maybe I just
haven't found it.

~~~
gnosis
Yeah, I think SF has more dangerous places then I've ever been to in NYC. In
fact, though I've travelled quite a lot around the US and around the world,
I'd say that I've never felt more threatened than I was in parts of SF.

SF is kind of weird in that it has these micro-neighborhoods, where you could
go from a quite nice, posh neighborhood to a junky hangout in the space of a
block. In NYC the transition from neighborhood to neighborhood is much more
gradual, so you've got more of a warning.

And Market St in SF is just insane. I have never seen so many homeless people
in my life. It's like a homeless army. It's really quite sad.

I heard that at one point there was an actual proposal being considered by the
SF government to round up all their homeless people and send them to Treasure
Island.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I was coming off Market and heading towards California one day when I happened
to look at a homeless guy. I mean it was just an innocent glance -- like
anybody does all the time.

His eyes got big and round and he walked over to me and started screaming, at
the top of his lungs. Every sort of paranoid delusion and profanity you could
imagine: he yelled it right in my face.

I, of course, totally ignored him at this point. Lord knows what he would have
done if I had confronted him.

He followed me all the way home -- about a half-mile. Screaming the entire
time. I was very thankful to live in a secure apartment building!

Sadly, this same thing happened to me a few months later with a different guy.

SF is a beautiful city, but it has a lot of issues.

~~~
gnosis
I honestly think many of those homeless people are suffering from quite
serious mental illness. They are not on the streets by choice.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
My wife studied sociology. She tells me that there was a big push like in the
1970s to let a lot of crazy people out on the streets. It was deemed to be
better to have them on the streets than in institutions.

If that's true, I don't think it's worked out very well.

~~~
gnosis
I think it was due to budget cuts to social services across the board. That
included closing a lot of asylums.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I've heard both that it was due to budget cuts and I've heard that it was due
to well-meaning activists who were pushing for patient's rights. Honestly I
never dug into it to figure out what really happened.

Whatever happened, it's a sad state of affairs.

------
joshwa
There is, in fact, good Mexican food in NYC--at the Red Hook ball fields on
weekends in the summer.

[http://nycfoodguy.com/2009/05/06/redhookballfieldsintroducti...](http://nycfoodguy.com/2009/05/06/redhookballfieldsintroduction/)

[http://events.nytimes.com/2006/08/23/dining/reviews/23unde.h...](http://events.nytimes.com/2006/08/23/dining/reviews/23unde.html)

------
ottbot
Mexican food is only good in Texas, London is more expensive than NYC, and the
SF weather is the nicest of all.

Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock.

~~~
tptacek
There are really good taquerias in the Mission.

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jackdawjack
a one page comparison of NYC vs SF, blurgh...

~~~
weeksie
Based on a four day visit _rolleyes_

Almost every time I visit a new place I want to move there, then I hang out
for a few days and miss either New York or Sydney and realize that I'm
perfectly content with my home(s).

------
marcusbooster
He's right about the Mexican food in NYC, just horrible. But then all the
Mexican stands are run by Chinese because the Latinos run the pizza parlors.

~~~
weeksie
Meh, you can't get California style Mexican food but you can definitely get
some great tacos.

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petercooper
Let's rename this site to Zed Shaw's Hacker News.

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caballero
one could argue this guy doesn't get NY. (by making almost the same arguments
that is)

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socratees
Wish you all the best Zed.

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pssdbt
_Something negative and irrelevant that doesn't add to conversation about this
link and somehow says I hate Zed Shaw so I sound like I'm a cool rebel too_

Joking. Was a good read. Also, some of you need to read to the bottom to the
'Clue mean in' part.

------
pibefision
Who is this guy? the next Anthony Bourdain? come one...

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chasingsparks
"More importantly, the general feel of the technology scene in SF has almost
zero douchebag in it."

++0

------
psranga
Almost everything I read about NYC seems to reinforce my prejudices against
it. :)

