Re:Ask HN: Boston or Silicon Valley?
by iamelgringo on Friday November 28, 2008 @10:12AM
(#379342)
So, my wife and I lived in Providence, RI for 3 years.
My wife worked as an admin in a startup for 2-3 weeks in Cambridge, and hated the job, hated the commute, hated the culture so much, she quit her job and went back to school to finish her video production degree. She had hoped it was like her job working at US Robotics/3Com, but it was very, very different.
The thing that we really struggled with in New England was the "Townies" and the culture. There really are two different classes of people in New England:
*"Townies" (people born and raised in the towns of New England)
* "Gownies" (People who move to New England to go to good schools and then settle in and work white collar jobs or get their grad degree and leave).
We never found to many Gownies like us to hang out with, and spent most of our time hanging out at work/school with the townies. And, while they're really nice people, hardworking, fun accents. They tend to be rather insular against outsiders. We were there for 3 years, and I don't have any friends I'd consider going back and visiting.
So, where you live in Boston-land is important. I think that if you're living in the East Side of Providence, or Harvard Square in Cambridge, it can make all the difference in your social life. It's really hard to get a vibe about that until you've lived there. Each town has a distinct flavor, and a distinct attitude towards outsiders. Choose wisely.
Silicon Valley: I've almost lived here longer than anywhere else I've ever lived: 3 years. And, I'm not planning on moving anywhere in the near future. I really like it here, and I'm not moving away unless I have to. That's never happened to me ever before. (I've moved over 25 times in 35 years.)
The people are great. The chance to meet other people and make friends with others that are doing the same things is astounding. I started http://hackersandfounders.com as a meetup group, and it's doubled in size every month but the last. There's just a ton of hackers interested in founding businesses here.
That means a ton of emotional/cultural support that you really can't put a price tag on. Services are also really easy to come by: like it's really easy to get groceries delivered, getting a maid is rather inexpensive and very much worth it. Prepared foods can be outsourced pretty easily using something like Dream Dinners or Dinner A'Fare. You're never very far from really cool things if you need to take a day trip and get away to recharge the batteries.
And finally, housing. If you're considering moving to SV, you really should take a look at renting a house with someone. We live in San Jose, and we split rent on a 4 bedroom, 2 bath house for $2k. Not only do we have a ton of space and a back yard, we turned the formal living room into the startup office. Not bad, when my friends are paying $1700 for a nice one-two bedrooms in an apartment complex. And, you're away from the fun cultural stuff of San Francisco, but it's only a 75 minute drive without traffic, Mountain View is 30 minutes away, and a bunch of restaurants, coffee shops, movie theaters and a FedEx/Kinko's are 3-4 minutes away. Pretty ideal for a startup if you ask me.
My wife worked as an admin in a startup for 2-3 weeks in Cambridge, and hated the job, hated the commute, hated the culture so much, she quit her job and went back to school to finish her video production degree. She had hoped it was like her job working at US Robotics/3Com, but it was very, very different.
The thing that we really struggled with in New England was the "Townies" and the culture. There really are two different classes of people in New England:
We never found to many Gownies like us to hang out with, and spent most of our time hanging out at work/school with the townies. And, while they're really nice people, hardworking, fun accents. They tend to be rather insular against outsiders. We were there for 3 years, and I don't have any friends I'd consider going back and visiting.So, where you live in Boston-land is important. I think that if you're living in the East Side of Providence, or Harvard Square in Cambridge, it can make all the difference in your social life. It's really hard to get a vibe about that until you've lived there. Each town has a distinct flavor, and a distinct attitude towards outsiders. Choose wisely.
Silicon Valley: I've almost lived here longer than anywhere else I've ever lived: 3 years. And, I'm not planning on moving anywhere in the near future. I really like it here, and I'm not moving away unless I have to. That's never happened to me ever before. (I've moved over 25 times in 35 years.)
The people are great. The chance to meet other people and make friends with others that are doing the same things is astounding. I started http://hackersandfounders.com as a meetup group, and it's doubled in size every month but the last. There's just a ton of hackers interested in founding businesses here.
That means a ton of emotional/cultural support that you really can't put a price tag on. Services are also really easy to come by: like it's really easy to get groceries delivered, getting a maid is rather inexpensive and very much worth it. Prepared foods can be outsourced pretty easily using something like Dream Dinners or Dinner A'Fare. You're never very far from really cool things if you need to take a day trip and get away to recharge the batteries.
And finally, housing. If you're considering moving to SV, you really should take a look at renting a house with someone. We live in San Jose, and we split rent on a 4 bedroom, 2 bath house for $2k. Not only do we have a ton of space and a back yard, we turned the formal living room into the startup office. Not bad, when my friends are paying $1700 for a nice one-two bedrooms in an apartment complex. And, you're away from the fun cultural stuff of San Francisco, but it's only a 75 minute drive without traffic, Mountain View is 30 minutes away, and a bunch of restaurants, coffee shops, movie theaters and a FedEx/Kinko's are 3-4 minutes away. Pretty ideal for a startup if you ask me.