I knew California would be pretty high up there because of SV but I didn't realize so many people on here live there. For people who are in CA, do you live there because that's where most of the tech start-ups are or because it's a nice place (or both)?
I'm a country boy who grew up in the midwest and came here when a company I worked for in Portland got acquired. I've been stuck here for 8 long years, now, and constantly dream about going somewhere else.
California is fine, the SV is okay, there are certainly jobs and lots of opportunity and at this point I've built quite the network ... but seriously, I miss being able to go outside and see a field of corn from time to time.
Born and raised in the Midwest, moved to SoCal for two years so my wife could complete her master's. We both absolutely hated the area, moved back out to "the sticks" and haven't looked back. Cost of living is lower, quality of life is higher.
Nah. A few minutes outside San Luis Obispo, it's nothing but cows. I live in Cambria, 40 minutes north of SLO. I used to be able to look out my living room window and watch the cows until they turned the East-West ranch into a park. And a few miles north you get zebras.
Came out to San Francisco for an interview, and my wife and I both loved it. A year later, I got another interview out here, landed the job, and we decided to move. We tell people it was 50/50: half for the job, half for the adventure.
We miss our friends in Atlanta, but San Francisco and the surrounding area are stunningly beautiful.
How significant did you feel the change was from Atlanta? And, as a better indicator, where in Atlanta did you live? I'm from North Atlanta, and I 'm curious to hear. PM me if you don't want to share location data with the world.
I grew up in cherokee county, went to UGA for undergrad and GT for grad school. Lived in midtown for a year and East Point for a year (it was cheap!). I came out to CA for a summer in undergrad and fell in love with the parks. Came out again for an internship in grad school and fell in love with a girl. Moved out here in 2007.
Compared to Georgia/Atlanta, the biggest changes I've noticed are:
1) everything is much much more expensive. a house that would be ~$200k-$250k inside the perimeter will cost ~$700k-$800k on the peninsula. houses in the $300-$400k range would probably go for $1-2mm out here. Average restaurant bills are ~$50 for my wife & I for what I would consider pretty "normal" places (we'd probably average $25-30 in comparable Atlanta restaurants). I'm lucky that my wife's job has on-site daycare for only $1500/month. The one exception is veggies--I routinely go to the local farmer's market and walk away with a week's worth of veggies for under $20.
2) at the same time, salaries are a lot higher. even if your housing/expenses take up the same percentage of your paycheck, your disposable income will generally go a lot further (an iPad costs what it costs anywhere in the U.S.) I've bought things since moving West that I probably never would've spent money on living in GA, just because I had that extra disposable income (i.e. flying to the UGA-Arizona State game a few years back). This can be a double-edged sword, though--if you want to do your own thing or start your own company, it will be MUCH harder to do that here than in Atlanta (making $50k in the app store is a hell of a lot cooler in Atlanta than it is in silicon valley)
3) people are generally pretty nice, but not interested at all in getting to know you or chatting randomly. we've been in the same house for 4 years now and barely know the neighbors
4) the amount of stuff within driving distance is really, really incredible--including the excellent state and county parks. people here are MUCH more interested in going outdoors on the weekends (whereas I found in GA people mostly just hang out on the weekends, maybe having a bbq or going to a lake).
5) if you're an engineer and decent at what you do, you'll never want for a job.
6) the work is a lot more high-energy -- i know engineers in ATL who work from 9-5 (or less) and more or less coast through the day... but are smart enough to get all their work done. that sort of attitude does not fly at all in silicon valley. if you feel like you're smarter than everyone around you in Atlanta, move out here and you'll be pleasantly surprised
7) if you're interested in things like hackathons, there's always something going on and it's pretty easy to meet like-minded people
8) the weather's awesome
Holy cow, I'm from Cherokee County (Towne Lake) and went to GT as well! What a small world... I'm debating whether I want to move west after grad school. I'd really like to get involved in a start-up. Although I doubt there's many chemical engineering start-ups compared to software/tech ones.
> People are generally pretty nice, but not interested at all in getting to know you or chatting randomly.
Could you elaborate on this? I've heard things like this from other people.
I don't think it's that people are "mean" or less friendly than in the South--it's just harder to break through with strangers. People in general are a little less outgoing towards strangers (not sure if that's the right word, but can't think of one better) and a little more focused on their own things. That may be because the work culture is so focused--free time is a little more valuable when you're working long hours and people just may not be as willing to stop in a grocery store and chat for half an hour on the best way to cook zucchini.
I guess another way to put it would be that everyone is headed somewhere (and not always a place), whereas living in the South I remember the culture being a lot more about relaxing and waiting for things to come to you. It's not as bad as New York, where everyone is literally headed somewhere, but more like a state of mind--like everyone here is working on a difficult puzzle in their head, even when they're not at the office.
Take a trip out to Tahoe or Yosemite and that mostly shuts off--people you meet on hiking trails and in restaurants/hotels are warm, friendly, and usually pretty chatty.
I grew up in the South too (Memphis, TN) and I live in Silicon Valley. It's kind of hard to elaborate on this, but I would say that Californians keep to themselves more than Southeasterners (people in Texas are a totally different story than SEC states), but when you get to actually know CA folks, they're far nicer people who genuinely care more for their friends and do more for them. Basically, Californians are maybe harder to befriend, but worth way more than you do. That's my anecdotal experience anyway, and some of my favorite people in the world live in Southern states. Really there are great people and terrible people everywhere in the world.
I lived in Midtown for a while, then bought a house in East Point and lived there for six or seven years.
It was a huge change, but mostly because of the lack of social support: it would have been as hard to move anywhere.
We also made a conscious decision to live in San Francisco (first in the Mission, now just South of there in Bernal Heights): if we'd wanted to do suburbs, we could do that just fine in Atlanta for a fraction of the price.
As I mentioned, we owned a house in East Point. We don't realistically expect to be able to buy a house in San Francisco anytime soon, possibly ever, unless we have an unexpected windfall that would take care of a huge downpayment. Then again, our rent of $3k/month (typical for two bedrooms, dogs allowed) would go pretty far in a mortgage if we did manage it.
My intuition (not based on fact) is that for a capable, experienced programmer, Atlanta has relatively high salaries, and relatively low cost of living.
Then again, we have mountains, a vast diversity of state and national parks, the ocean, beautiful views, skiing, walkable neighborhoods with corner stores, no bugs for most of the year (you can leave un-screened windows open!), etc... etc...
This should probably always skew towards CA because of SV, but don't forget that the population of CA is the highest in the US by ~30% to begin with. I imagine there are a ton of people living here who were also born and raised here (myself included)
I'm up in Johnson City and grew up in Knoxville. I love Tennessee, but there is zero tech scene as you know. I do freelancing remotely and it provides a great life for us.
I moved here because I'm in love with San Francisco (and really hated Florida, where I lived before), plus I work in the tech industry. I'd still want to live here even if I wasn't involved in tech.
haha, I love the florida man twitter account! But really, Florida ain't so bad ... I live in Orlando. There's lots of activity going on, lots of meetups, and lots of energy.
> Orlando is in Florida, but I wouldn't call it "Florida". ;)
So what would you call "Florida" then?
> That's like Austin is in Texas, but it ain't "Texas".
That statement is mostly wrong. Yes, Austin is a very unique place. However, I think your perception of what constitutes "Texas" is biased and incorrect, based on that statement and the sentiment that typically underpins it.
haha, very true ... but then, why would any techie want to live anywhere else other than a hub. I don't think you'll be attending many tech meetups in Ocala ;)
I rode my motorcycle to work earlier this week and last week. Could have probably done so in a t-shirt (though I tend to wear a jacket anyways, just for safety) ... this is in February, when much of the northeast was being blasted by snow. A little thermal energy can be a good thing ;)
... in Orlando. That's not really fair to call all of Florida Orlando. Orlando and Tampa have theme parks, college towns, and are much more active than most of Florida from what I gather
I was raised in California and I just happened to enjoy building websites as a kid so it was a no brainer to move to Silicon Valley when I became an adult.
I just wish it wasn't so damn expensive to live here. States like Colorado and Arizona have been on my mind a lot lately since you can get a beautiful house out there for what it costs to buy a condo here.
I was also born and raised in California (Redding to be exact). I've since lived in the bay, NYC, Minneapolis (amazing city BTW just freaky cold winters) and AZ. I'm currently in AZ (for the third time) and am staying. The startup scene out here is frowning and there's a lit of resources and meet ups and like minded folk out here. I highly advise folks to check it out. For what would cost you 1.2-1.8 Million for a house in the Silicon Valley you can get the same here in az for 200-300K with a much larger a pool and a bugger back yard.
The startup scene is definitely growing in AZ. There are plenty of interesting people doing interesting things. The low cost of living, increasing number of awesome meetups, and growing co-working community is a pretty good sign of things to come. I've met passionate entrepreneurs at almost every corner of the state. Just off the top of my head--Flagstaff has NACET; Tucson is leading the open data movement; Chandler has Gangplank; Phoenix has CO+HOOT & SeedSpot; Mesa has a wonderful Hackerspace; and Marana was recently elected a top digital city in 2012.
That said, there's room for improvement. There aren't a lot of people with experience investing in hi-tech (lots hi-tech military stuff, but not the hi-tech that HN normally discusses); as a community, we don't have really good marketing muscle; there are few veterans willing to recycle capital; and not a lot of foreign direct investment because people have this impression that folks from AZ are crazy.
I love that place though. You can live in a goddamn mansion for the prices you pay in SF.
I am in Arizona, and voted appropriately. However, I am actively in the process of relocating to Washington state. I have lived half of my life here, but I am just tired of Arizona. The tech sector here is poor. Local education is bad (reference Intel CFO Gregg Barrett). I love Arizona's geography and weather, but I can't take the toxic politics, anti-education, and pro-white-elderly social climate. It's the social atmosphere amongst the other tech people I know here that I'm really running away from. All the people I know from Ebay/Paypal, TGen, GoDaddy, ASU, etc just seem miserable and I don't blame them, but I won't be amongst them any longer.
I'm in AZ as well, as far as software development goes... the pay:cost-of-living ratio is really good, so is the unemployment rate... we had the bubble bust in late 2001 (just after 9-11), and it recovered a little faster here, compared to California... Though a lot of the jobs in IT are on the more boring side, there are a lot of user groups for everything from .Net and Java to Python or NodeJS.
Nice to see some fellow Arizonans. I agree with the great cost of living to salary ratio, but unfortunately I've ended up in an industry where I really don't want to be. And I'm having a tough time finding something new here.
I just moved to CA from OK last year. I moved for a few reasons. 1) family -- more stuff to do here (understatement) 2) I don't fit in with OK culture (red + religious) 3) career -- I'm a programmer
Funny to find Knoxvillains here. I've looked once or twice for Coursera meet-ups and concluded that K-town was a bit of a tech desert. (Curiously, several pagan/witch meetups are available.)
I knew California would be pretty high up there because of SV but I didn't realize so many people on here live there. For people who are in CA, do you live there because that's where most of the tech start-ups are or because it's a nice place (or both)?