[tx]

Last time I've been to Silicon Valley it was 2003 and I hated it: the place had no soul compared to our beloved Austin. Then I got hired by a kick-ass Austin startup staffed by some ex-SV (and ex-Seattle) residents who acted like moving to Austin was the best move they ever did.

Fast forward to 08 and I have started to think about moving to SV again due to supposedly better "startup climate" and my recent trip to the startup school cured me again: no way in hell I'll ever live there, despite their 200+ VCs and "energy" that PS was writing about: that's not enough to compensate for the overall dullness. Silicon Valley simply isn't inspiring: one of the reasons I want to work for myself is because I despise the corporate environment (walls of cubicles). Guess what - the entire SV feels like a wall of cubicles, even when you're not at work.

[rms]

I am planning a move to the area but I have concluded that you need to live in SF. Even if you have to work in SV, this is one of the few parts of the country where it is really worth it to just suck it up and handle the commute.

[SwellJoe]

I could not possibly disagree more. I will never again commute more than ten minutes each way. An hour a day is over 6% of my waking life...and the SF to Palo Alto or Mountain View commute is over an hour each way during rush hour (and about 50 minutes any other time). So not worth it.

When I lived in Austin, I had a pretty long commute to the office and hated it. I treated the symptoms of the disease by buying a 350Z, which I figured I would love to drive. Guess what? After a few months I didn't even like driving the 350Z. If that aint a shame, I don't know what is. When I moved to the valley, I sold my Z. I don't have a car now. If I can't walk or ride my bike or catch a train or hitch a ride, I don't go. And it's proven to be a very nice year and a half.

Of course, in a startup, you can choose where you work, and if I didn't have other reasons for being in Mountain View I would choose to work in SF (my girlfriend also refuses to commute a long distance and she works at Google...a five minute commute from here).