[asnyc]

Relocated from Bay area to NYC 7 years back - Back then, options were limited primarily to the financial sector. Right now, options are getting better , but still much lesser than the bay area

- You can find dev centers for most of the big companies such as Google/FB/Twitter etc. but their sizes and requirements are much lesser than Bay area. They are mostly satellite offices, and operate as such.

- You can find quite a few startups, but again they are not as many as Bay area and not as established as well.

- Of course there is the financial sector, which has lots of jobs - but expect a big culture difference, its highly competitive and cutthroat.

Housing: ========

I am not aware of how expensive Bay area housing is - but you can find pretty good houses an hour from NYC at < 500-600K, which is pretty good. Same is true of rent - If you are willing to commute 45-75 minutes, you can find lots of good affordable options. Public transport is better than Bay area, that makes commute easier.

Last but not the least, NYC has a unique global feel which is unparalleled :)

[indescions_2017]

There's also a burgeoning AI Hub coalescing. Although it has yet to assume critical mass. Facebook FAIR lab, Google Brain, Cornell Tech, NYU Futures Lab, Two Sigma, and hundreds of fintech experiments as well as a deep bench of VC activity. Many of the world's foremost AI researchers enjoy doing a stint here. Marinating in the frenetic, and admittedly neurotic, intellectual cross-pollination only NYC affords ;)

If any are interested there will be an NYAI Meetup tomorrow night, 6pm Tues Oct 24 at Rise in midtown with IBM Watson's Ruchir Puri presenting on "Reinventing Businesses with AI". Who knows? You may even wind up meeting your future YC team mates ;)

https://www.meetup.com/NYAImeetup/events/244178308/

[apohn]

> I am not aware of how expensive Bay area housing is - but you can find pretty good houses an hour from NYC at < 500-600K

I'm not trying to get in an argument, but just want to add some perspective. The quality of house varies quite greatly at 500-600K in a 60 minute range of Manhattan. Property taxes in the areas outside NYC are among highest in the nation. This was one of the reasons I left the NYC area recently - we saw so many 600K+ houses that badly needed to be renovated. The property taxes didn't help make the case. Lots of people want to live close to public transportation with a 75 minute or less commute.

I know somebody's going to look on Zillow and say "Look, I just found a 500K house in NJ that's awesome" Unlike some other parts of the country, the quality of area/house varies a lot in the NYC area. I wouldn't recommend deciding any home is awesome unless you've actually seen it in real life!

[asnyc]

Yes indeed, quality varies a lot - there are lots of options, need to search around. I believe this will be true of every area in US

[apohn]

Let me reframe.

If you want to leave the Bay Area because of the cost of living, the NYC area may not be the answer. The price of a home ($/sqfoot) may be cheaper in the suburbs of NYC than SF/SV, but property taxes are extremely high (e.g. > 2%) in areas that are commutable (unless you think 2+ hours each way is a good commute) to NYC. You may also end up in a situation where you need a car to commute to the train station, you pay for parking at the train station, and then you have one or more passes (e.g. Subway + Train Pass) to get to your job. So your total monthly living costs may be close to your costs of owning a home in the bay area.