Going to California
My takes on visiting Silicon Valley.
The Present
I’m sitting in the airport. It is Monday, January 31st, and I arrived Saturday at like 7am after a 7 hour layover in Phoenix. ASU was disgusting. San Francisco was eye opening; I felt like I unlocked something, a large jigsaw piece fell into place (writing this as I’m listening to the Radiohead song). It is true that some things can’t be seen in movies or read and that they need to be experienced.
On Saturday, quickly after arrival, I caught up with Calvin Works and met Lucas Oliveira at Saint Frank Coffee on Polk. I really believe that I am not built for private equity. It is brute force, which is me, but that is not a field that I want to compete in. I am too high in openness to experience and must work on the fringes, where the world is changing.
Christian and I then checked out Stanford, Gates Building, then went on to return to the hotel and sleep off a tiring trip. We awoke and then tried to get into various bars. We found a place, and I had a michelada (instant heartburn). We got back and slept off a long day. Sunday, we checked out John Muir National Forest, the marina (utopia), met up with Oscar Cortes (love that guy) and spent a lot of time working on stuff. Today (Monday), I was able to speak to Michael Sun (and Walter Phillips) and Matthew Rastovac. Sadly, I wasn’t able to catch up with Juanito, such is life. Now, I sit in the airport in Phoenix and type through another layover.
Reflections
San Francisco was surreal in nature, beauty, and character. It really does feel like an advanced west. Californians, and Michael Sun agrees on this, Californians share in some sense of delusion (or optimism?) Many are so optimistic about the future, and I think it is because it is a city entranced with ideas, who many believe to be undeniably true. This “optimism” in the human race, I contrast, with the stark dichotomy that is conservatism, which believes in the pessimism in the human race. Conservatives structure a government to limit the central authority of a state so that the power of the people can be actualized in a marketplace with greater efficiency. I think that the It is highly honorable, but Californians only need to refer to the tenderloin to see why this may not be reality. It is this shared sense of delusion and ignorance to the facts of reality that this way of life continues.
Further, this city TRULY lives, breathes, and dies tech. In a way that is actually kind of weird. This is a city where every industrious nerd from high school seems to end up, in a shared pursuit of changing the world. It is a direct contrast to the city of industrious traditionalists that is New York. I’m not sure where I belong, but it seems like a more meaningful deal to build something in SF given my overweight interest in autonomy and openness to experience. I just don’t know how one can get a foothold in this city, especially as a finance bro?
All in all, San Francisco, I will return for you, I just don’t know when. I see value in checking out New York, breathing in the electricity, meeting other amazing finance people, and paying off student loans.