[dmode]

It is surreal to commute and work in SF. I take BART or Caltrain to work and amazed every day to see hundreds of thousands of engineers, product managers, sales people, data scientists get off in Embarcadero and walk to their destination. If you are in tech, it is incredibly energetic. I play “backpack bingo”, where I try to identify someone’s employer from their backpack

[Judgmentality]

> If you are in tech, it is incredibly energetic.

I've never understood this. I'd like to be surrounded by people that don't all do the same thing as me. I want to meet new and interesting people, not expand the bubble around me. I already interact with everyone at work most of my day, now I have to interact with people that fit that mold even when I'm not working?

Different strokes for different folks, but SF has always felt like a bit of a monoculture to me.

[goseeastarwar]

It's great when you're fresh out of school, single, and want to bury yourself in the work.

It's unbelievably annoying after a few years when you're just trying to have dinner with your wife without overhearing someone talking about raising a round at the table next to you.

[atlasunshrugged]

Exactly, after moving to Berlin from SF I couldn't believe that I could overhear conversations about art and music and a thousand other things and not the usual talk about what VC you met and how much X company is valued. Incredibly refreshing

[wjossey]

Part of why I love living in LA. Everyone else is in entertainment which makes all conversations far more entertaining for me :)

[AVTizzle]

Very well said. I've often had trouble putting into words the exact sentiment you just described.

I straddle the communities of tech/startups an the "digital nomad" world, and feel similarly when I go to dense nomad hubs (particularly Chiang Mai).

Too much of one thing gets old really fast.

[eloisant]

It's great the first year, to be surrounded by people like you. Then it feels really boring.

[kilroy123]

I agree and it's also why I refuse to live there. I'm not young and wide-eyed anymore.

[nathankunicki]

The backpack does seem to the be swag of choice for SF tech employees. Everything from Uber to LinkedIn to PlayStation. Tech branded backpacks everywhere.