Re:Ask HN: Visiting Palo Alto this summer. What should a gee...
by gms on Monday May 28, 2012 @11:00PM
(#4035747)
First thing is not to expect much. Your first reaction will be 'Is this it? Suburbia and McMansions?'. And you will be right.
The factor that makes it a 'tech hub' is the people (take them away and Palo Alto becomes utterly uninteresting), so you might want to see if any interesting tech types have time to meet with you (if you care to).
Since you're there for a while you should also take the train to San Francisco. Most of the startups there are in SoMa, so you should walk around there if you want to get a feel for what it's like.
The factor that makes it a 'tech hub' is the people (take them away and Palo Alto becomes utterly uninteresting), so you might want to see if any interesting tech types have time to meet with you (if you care to).
Having said that, this thread might have things of interest to see: http://www.quora.com/Palo-Alto-CA/How-shall-I-spend-my-day-i...
Since you're there for a while you should also take the train to San Francisco. Most of the startups there are in SoMa, so you should walk around there if you want to get a feel for what it's like.