

Why I’m Quitting My Job and Leaving San Francisco - endtwist
http://future-bits.com/quitting-and-leaving

======
cwb71
I think Daniel buried the lede on this one: there’s an apartment available in
San Francisco!

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jbail
It sounds like you had held up San Francisco and a startup job as being some
sort of perfect ideal. This type of thinking usually results in feeling
unhappy later.

San Francisco is just one city among many in the world. It may or may not be
right for you. Believing the hype that "NYC is the greatest city on earth" or
"San Fran is the only place where smart developers go" is a surefire recipe
for disappointment.

It's your life and it's up to you to find the balance that makes you happy.
Congrats on realizing this and having the courage to do a 180.

~~~
danielzarick
Yes, you are right that I thought a startup job in San Francisco would be
ideal. However, I have zero issues with San Francisco as a city and lifestyle
(other than cost of living, which I dealt with fine). The decision to leave is
mostly based on how it will serve the next steps in my life. There is a solid
chance I will end up back in San Francisco at some point in life, if only for
a short period.

I need to write a follow-up post about why I decided to leave San Francisco to
start a company.

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Yhippa
"Getting your foot in the door" cost me a large part of my career. I did
something I didn't really have my heart set on at a large financial services
company and the OP is right: it's hard to work on the craft you love at night
while doing your day job. I wish I'd have picked up on this years ago but
that's life.

~~~
JonLim
_> it's hard to work on the craft you love at night while doing your day job_

I was going to comment on this. As someone going through it now (working for
money in the morning, and working on craft in the nights,) it seems that many
of my peers who do the same thing are burning out because they charge on until
2-3am, and get up for work at 6-7am.

You aren't going anywhere faster because you work yourself to death. A solid
3-4 hours at night, some great sleep, and I'm good to go. I just expect the
payoff (of working on the craft) to come much, much slower than if it were my
full time gig.

It works for me, and I take plenty of breaks from working at night because
girlfriend, friends, and family would all leave if I didn't. I just take it
slow and steady.

~~~
polyfractal
I'm in the same boat. It's a love-hate relationship. If I've had a
particularly rough day or just don't feel like working, it's nice to just say
"screw it" and drink a beer, play with the dog and talk to my girlfriend. I
don't feel particularly bad because there is always tomorrow. If you take the
long timeline perspective, it doesn't really matter much if you slack a little
today.

On the other hand, it's easy to become complacent and lose motivation to keep
toiling away. Maintaining a steady regimen of working, even just a little,
each night seems to be the best way to not lose interest. Otherwise it's easy
to continually say to yourself "well, I'll work on it _tomorrow_ " for the
hundredth time in a row.

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tptacek
Welcome back to Chicago! We're a great city from which to operate tech
companies. I still remember moving back to Chicago from San Francisco and how
good it felt to be back where the leaves change color and every coffeshop in
the city isn't filled with people talking about tech products.

~~~
jamesjporter
I'm considering moving from Chicago to California for grad school and the lack
of real seasons is one of a few things that's making me lean towards going out
East (Boston or NYC) instead.

------
Irregardless
> My problem is that I also took a job that wasn’t _exactly_ what I wanted to
> be doing so that I could be in San Francisco, instead of staying where I was
> and honing my craft.

Nothing wrong with that. When it comes to finding a career, learning what you
_don't_ like about a job can be just as valuable as learning what you _do_
like.

A lot of my friends in college already knew exactly what job they wanted the
day they arrived at school (or so they thought). I don't know of a single one
who got the job they'd been striving for and ended up genuinely enjoying it.
Many are now in grad school and still trying to figure out what they _really_
want to do.

------
kjackson2012
Good luck, hopefully you find the experience that you're looking for!

San Francisco has only been considered a hub for startups in the past few
years. Before that, very few companies made their home in the city, and it was
generally down in the South Bay or the Peninsula. Before Twitter, et. al
started moving to SOMA, it was mainly banks, and retail companies like the
Gap, Red Envelope, etc that were up here.

Ever since startups have decided to move to SOMA, the rents have skyrocketed,
from 2000/month for a 1 br to over $3000, all in the span of maybe 18 months.

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fmitchell0
while focusing on short-term, ego-stroking opportunities makes things
exciting, i'd also recommend setting 10-year goals.

what do you want at 30? at 40?

the chain of your short-term decisions should connect to fulfill your ten year
goals. this will help make whatever short-term decision you need to make not
feel so aimless, soul-crushing, or rash.

at the end of the 10 years, you can proudly look back and see how each
opportunity help fulfill a larger purpose.

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flxmglrb
"…my actions felt like they were driven mostly by ego and the desire to be
known in the startup community."

This is not exactly unique for people working in SF as part of the current
boom cycle.

~~~
danielzarick
Exactly. That's another reason I felt the urge to leave, particularly if I was
going to start a business. I didn't want to be influenced by the bad habits of
the Valley and SF. It seemed unnecessary to touch on that in this particular
blog post, but maybe in a future one.

------
necubi
It was great getting to work with you at Twilio. Good luck with everything in
your future!

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mikeleeorg
_In the past, my actions felt like they were driven mostly by ego and the
desire to be known in the startup community. If being out here has taught me
anything, it is that none of that stuff matters (obviously)._

Sounds like this was a great learning opportunity for him. If someone gave him
that advice before he joined Twilio, it's possible he would have ignored it.

Sometimes it takes experiencing something first-hand to truly learn it.

------
ritchiea
What is the craft you love and why does going back to Chicago help you work on
it?

~~~
drstewart
It's not clear in either case. He says that he ideally would like to be a
product designer, but then says it's tough to stand behind a developer and
watch them build code instead of doing it himself.

~~~
danielzarick
Product designer is what I should be doing, and will be doing from here on. In
my definition of product design, the ideal skill-set is a UI designer who
works mostly in front-end code.

~~~
michaelochurch
Good plan. 2 dirty secrets of the software industry:

1\. Programming itself can be more fun than 99% of what people get paid to do,
at least if you're building new stuff and in at least enough of a leadership
role that you're not constantly keeping up with other peoples' changes.

2\. 85% of real-world programming work is crappy maintenance and you need some
independent credibility (e.g. "X who programs") in something else-- product,
data science, finance-- to dodge it and keep getting the good stuff that
builds your career.

~~~
bosie
what do you mean by "product"?

------
MicahWedemeyer
I'd be a little concerned that you're abandoning the network you've built in
SF. I guess it depends on the business you're starting, but when I co-founded
my consulting company, all of our initial clients came from my existing
network.

~~~
tptacek
It's true. Now that he's wandered into a snowy wasteland from which nobody
ever emerges, surely his San Francisco network will never get in touch with
him again; even if they could (I guess there's always telegraphs and morse
code here?), they'll be afraid of catching Yetis from him. Chicago has Yetis
like NYC and SF have bedbugs.

~~~
danielweber
I seriously had problems with my slowly but strongly built network when I
moved from Boston to Charlotte. I still have plenty of references and people I
can ask for help and technical problems, but in terms of finding permanent
jobs or consulting gigs, location matters.

~~~
fourspace
Hey, fellow Charlottean here! I've found a similar situation here, where my SF
network still exists but isn't quite as useful as it was when I was living
there.

------
michaelochurch
I don't think the "cheating" was anything unethical. I wrote about the
pervasiveness of that (anti-)pattern this morning.

[http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/fundamental-s...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/fundamental-
subordinate-dishonesty/)

TL;DR: People have to _seem_ more open to subordinate roles than they actually
are in order to get jobs.

It's not always greener on the software side of the fence, though. Much of the
job is dealing with bad legacy code, which seems to hurt you more if you're a
good designer (cf. first and second design paradox) which your well above-
average writing skills suggest you are.

I like Chicago a lot and think that it's a great place to live. Honestly, I
think the obscene cost of living in New York and San Francisco has a
_negative_ overall impact on the quality of businesses that can be founded,
but that's a rant for another time.

Good luck!

~~~
peacemaker
I would like to hear your thoughts on the cost of living and how it affects
business quality?

I think 'obscene' is the perfect word when talking about the cost of rent in
SF. It's the number one factor in making me consider moving away from the
area.

~~~
michaelochurch
Expensive real estate ruins the culture, makes personal burn rates high, and
creates a sense of transience. You don't feel like you really _belong_ until
you have enough money that you don't need to work and (for most) have ceased
to be a productive part of society.

When people have to beat others down just to afford to live in the city, it's
bad, and most people lack the talent or opportunity to make that amount of
money (300k+, for a family) through decent means.

The transience, I think, is behind a lot of the build-to-flips that are
degenerate gambles on social trends.

Silicon Valley happened _because_ California land was cheap-- at one time.

~~~
tptacek
This was exactly my experience living both in SOMA and in Noe Valley at two
different times in San Francisco. There was never any sense that the place we
lived would be the place we'd be living 5 years from then. There was no
realistic chance we'd ever raise kids there.

~~~
fourspace
You echoed my thoughts exactly about Noe Valley. We absolutely loved living
there, but when it came time to raise a family it wasn't even an option.
That's coming from a couple who both worked at Google! Obscene indeed.

I absolutely love SF, but I never felt like home there. I think what we were
missing was that sense of permanence, resulting from the high cost of housing
(and therefore lack of future options).

------
joey_muller
It's cool. You're still young. You'll look back at these years and realize how
much you really learned with Jeff and the gang at Twilio. Keep writing and
reaching out to people and above all have fun. Chicago is a pretty nice backup
city. :)

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hnriot
How on earth does someone quitting their job and moving back home constitute
news on hn??? I realize tumblr's down, but this really is a lame story. Good
luck to the guy, but seriously, this is not newsworthy.

~~~
danielzarick
Read the other comments. You'll see why I wrote the post... other people are
dealing with the same problems and questions that I dealt with, and reading
about other people who have figured it out is reassuring.

~~~
hnriot
I would imagine that many others also have to go grocery shopping this week,
but that doesn't make it newsworthy.

I find trying to use hn as your support group a little distasteful.

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enoughisenough
Why in hell is this on HN?

~~~
colkassad
This is actually a fairly typical representation of what has always been on
Hacker News. Why the hell are you surprised?

