
Differences between San Francisco and London (2014) - Jasamba
http://pulkitagrawal.tumblr.com/post/73939864016/sfvslondon
======
tensor
My view of San Francisco culture as an outsider is actually quite negative
now. For years I thought it was a culture very in line with my own, but after
years of watching and interacting remotely with people from that scene my mind
has changed.

I now feel it's largely dominated by arrogance. Everyone wants to "change the
world" but what they really want is fame and fortune. A San Francisco startup
is hilariously not practical. The article cites working hard and living
frugally, but startup culture is the opposite. It's ludicrous extremes like
having pingpong tables and games and coffee baristas at work. This is not
living "frugally."

Worse though, is the idea that everyone is a temporarily embarrassed Steve
Jobs who is good at everything, even the things they are completely ignorant
of. The disdain for areas they have no expertise in is astonishing.

Meanwhile, the engine fuelling all this, the VCs, have their own agenda,
namely themselves. They feed the culture because it benefits them. Most will
fail, most people are not Steve Jobs. But the VCs just need one or two
successes to make it worth it. It's in their interest to have every possible
upcoming company under their thumb. The VCs message is always clear: you won't
make it without them. You won't make it without being in Silicon Valley. It's
impossible.

It's all very off putting and not at all like the glittering fake picture that
the SV culture likes to paint.

~~~
hueving
>It's ludicrous extremes like having pingpong tables and games and coffee
baristas at work. This is not living "frugally."

If a pingpong table and games are a major expense in your company, you're
already dead. A barista is wasteful, unless he/she is serving coffee to
hundreds of employees that would otherwise waste company time by leaving the
office for a coffee break.

As an engineer, I avoid companies like the plague that refuse basic niceties
in the name of saving money. It's a major indicator that it's going to be a
miserable environment and you will have to fight tooth-and-nail for every
piece of equipment and (even worse) raises/promotions.

~~~
adrianratnapala
Hmm, I work for Google now, and they are the first company I have worked for
with either baristas[1] or ping-pong tables. These are definitely luxurious
perks and not "basic niceties".

But Google is not a frugal startup. It's a giant company offering a big
complicated benefits package.

[1] Free ones that is. Not counting big plants with cafes that charge market
prices and seem to break even.

~~~
hueving
>These are definitely luxurious perks and not "basic niceties".

I don't think you realize how little these items cost when divided out amongst
the number of employees. In particular when you consider the alternative of
them leaving the Google campus for a half hour for a coffee break.

If you think catered lunches and the like are purely perks, then you drank the
Kool-Aid. There is a reason they don't want you bringing free food/snacks home
- it's because when you consume it in the office they are getting a benefit
out of it as well.

> and they are the first company I have worked for with either baristas

It's not because Google is that much nicer. It's just because they realized
early on the return on investment these things provide. This stuff is pretty
much par for the course for newer tech companies in the bay.

~~~
xiphias
I work at Google as well and actually they give us plastic plates to be able
to bring dinner home. Some colleagues of mine use this perk to bring their
baby food so that they don't have to cook at home.

There's a catch though: the dinner is served at 18:15

------
twblalock
I grew up in the San Francisco area, and I know a lot of people who are a much
closer match to what the article describes as London-type people: they work
for large, established companies for a regular paycheck, they have been here a
long time, they are embedded in local professional networks, etc. Some of them
even have to wear suits to work! I guess the author never heard of the
established, large companies in the semiconductor and software industries that
supply the majority of jobs here, not to mention health care, finance, etc.
It's not all startups.

This is the funniest part of the article:

> San Francisco is 6 hours away from the US East Coast and even further from
> Europe and Asia. This leaves it a little isolated and less connected to
> other parts of the world. A noticeable consequence of this is that people
> seem to be less aware of, interested in and knowledgeable about world
> affairs.

The proportion of foreign-born people is higher in the San Francisco area than
anywhere else in the United States with the possible exception of New York
City. The San Francisco area is far more international than the author gives
it credit for. By the way, we are closer to Asia both geographically and
culturally than the East Coast is.

This article does nothing but repeat stereotypes, and it contains no original
ideas.

~~~
JDiculous
I've never lived in SF or Europe, but as an American who's lived in the
suburbs of DC and now NYC, it seems to me that Americans in general are less
internationally conscious than Europeans. Most Europeans I know speak 3+
languages, have studied and lived abroad, and have traveled extensively.
Americans in my experience tend to be more insular and less cultured. And it
makes sense because Europe has so many different countries clustered together,
traveling between them is cheap and easy, and they get 4+ weeks vacation.

~~~
fudged71
Exactly. I'm Canadian, and although my friends travel pretty regularly to the
US/Mexico and sometimes Europe, I was amazed living in London how often my
coworkers would be in other countries. Despite being near the US border, I
rarely see people do weekend trips to the states, but it happens all the time
between european countries it seems. Maybe flight prices have an impact, but
europe just seems completely different culturally with regards to
multiculturalism and leisure travel.

~~~
TomMarius
I don't know if it's true, but the common belief here in Europe is that
interstate/intercontinental flights are cheaper in the USA. Flying from Prague
to Milano costs around $100 with a low-cost airline, if you wait for a good
deal.

~~~
Symbiote
From London, if you're flexible with the destination, it's easy enough to
choose the $50 return deal.

This month, there are flights to France for £5 each way.

[https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/cheap-flights/?from=STN&out-
fr...](https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/cheap-flights/?from=STN&out-from-
date=2017-03-20&out-to-date=2018-03-20&budget=20)

~~~
TomMarius
I know, but the median price is probably higher than this, because London is a
huge international hub and a connection with both the east and the west.
France is also very close to London.

------
kabes
Like others are saying (and actually the article also mentions), it's a very
subjective view. I've also lived in both cities and had quite different
experiences. To me, SF/bay area felt more like a rat race and my friends had a
better work/social balance in London (note that I didn't work in finance). And
while it might look like in SF are "working on causes they relate to." To me
it feels more like people in SF find they have to be on some sort of mission.
Just having a job you like isn't good enough. You need to change the world.

------
adwhit
London is far too diverse for this comparison to make sense. It has ten times
the population of San Francisco. If you think London is a particular way, it
is probably because the bit of London you are in is that way.

~~~
quicklime
The population of San Francisco proper is only ~800k but the population of the
Bay Area as a whole is about 7 million people, which is only slightly less
than Greater London's 8 million.

~~~
bogomipz
Why is this relevant? The Bay area is not San Francisco. The post is comparing
London with San Francisco. San Francisco is tiny compared to London in both
area and population.

~~~
acchow
One of you is talking about SF the city. The other about SF the political
entity.

~~~
bogomipz
San Francisco the political entity what is that? At any rate the blog post
isn't about politics at all.

San Francisco is a city and the "Bay Area" is a region. In London people from
both Chiswick and Hackney which are quite far away from each other both say
they are from London. Someone from Sonoma and someone from Santa Clara don't
say they're from San Francisco.

------
harry-wood
Funny how it ends with _" my very individual perspective (I worked in London
as a management consultant whereas in SF I worked with a startup)"_ ...which
was entirely obvious throughout the whole piece.

------
geodel
Looks more of a "This is the bus/train route I used to take and these are
types of folks, places I saw." Very simplistic view of both cities.

~~~
exergy
Curious, but what else would you have it be? A detailed, scientific comparison
of jobs, club memberships, languages spoken, schools attended...Academic to
the point of tedious?

I thought the whole point of a blog was personal experience? This is what the
author saw and therefore, this is what he can express with honesty.

------
kriro
Here's a comment of a surprised San Francisco traveler that sums up the city
for me: "I was rather surprised that there were so many homeless people. You'd
think the supposed tech center of the world would be...you know...civilized
and able to protect the weakest members of society better."

~~~
nailer
SF is by far the dirtiest first world city I've ever been in - significantly
fouler than the outskirts of Naples, as uncollected garbage is less rank than
SF's human faeces.

------
JamilD
I hear a lot of complaints about SF being too tech-centric and monocultural.
This is only true if you segregate yourself from the SF natives and the
vibrant, diverse community that's existed before the tech booms and busts of
the past two decades.

It's easy to feel like it's just a tech bubble -- there's not much interaction
outside of it. But if you make an effort to step outside the tech-centric
environment, it can be extremely rewarding.

~~~
pmoriarty
Who has time for that? Seems everyone in tech is burning the midnight oil to
get the next MVP out, and have forgotten that life outside of work exists.

Many companies also encourage navel gazing by providing "free" lunches, team
outings, tech-meetups, company happy hours and parties, and other ways of
remaining pretty much in the company and tech social scene.

If you're young and somehow didn't buy in to the many enticements to work
every waking moment, you might have time to socialize with people outside of
tech (if you were interested enough to do so, and actually made an effort to
move out of your comfort zone).

If you're older, you are likely to want to spend your few precious hours
outside of work with your family, and maybe if you're very lucky, with a few
friends, who are probably also in the tech field.

Also, don't forget that many people in tech are famously introverted and
socially phobic. Getting them to socialize at all, much less go out of their
comfort zone and meet people unlike them is a challenge.

~~~
DrScump
There are many bubble-dwellers in SF, but that doesn't make SF a purely bubble
society.

To those who think so, consider this: how many Chinatown natives or longtime
residents have you met for so much as an hour ( _total_ ) of meaningful
conversation?

How many Bayview natives?

North Beach?

How many South Bay natives?

Oakland?

etc.

The bubble myopia can _become_ one's universe if that person doesn't choose to
pop out of the bubble now and then. So to speak.

------
dfraser992
I was in the Bay area during the first bubble, so that's my basis for my
comments. An anthropologist I knew described the Bay area as a place where
'adolescents go to retire', which made a bunch of sense. A sense of the 60s
was still around, with the general wackiness and Folsom Street Fair and the
alt-cultures around. The tech scene was merely the latest incarnation of the
gold-rush mentality.

But now, given everything I have read about the Bay these days, I don't think
I'd want to live there. Apparently all the artists have left, Burning Man is a
corporate event soon to be shut down permanently (given what I've heard about
the cops), money, money, money... too much wanna be zillionaires all hoping to
best buds with Zuckerberg someday. IT culture is not what is was 'back in the
day'. And get off my lawn!

And I have lived in London for seven years, more than I did in SF. I greatly
prefer London. Good public transport, it feels like a place you can live, it's
a real city, not a bunch of suburbs (but now the rents... well, being used to
SF rents when I moved, it was similar).

My take on the article is the guy projects a lot onto the two cities. The tech
scene has all these romantic associations with it and good lord, I am getting
tired of hearing about them. At the end of the day, it just a job for most
people and few startups actually matter (Uber matters because they are
screwing up so much). "Changing the world" only equals working on social
problems like establishing UBI, not running the world's largest BBS so your
grandma can read fake news that is written in Romania or feeding the ADD of
adolescents who like to take pictures of their food. As for financial, that
will always matter until capitalism crashes.

------
leovonl
How can one compare UK and US and say the later has better social mobility?
Ever heard of NHS (1) or council housing? Have you compared tuition fees on
both countries?

While I mostly understand the different atmosphere on both places, and even
agree with some of the points, I have to say the author had to be pretty
immersed in a very particular bubble to have come to this conclusion - which
does not seem to fit reality as all.

(1) Yes, NHS has its problems, but US simply does not have anything like it.

------
inopinatus
I was born in London, I've lived and worked in London, I've returned many
times since to visit family and friends. I recognise the life choices and
cultural norms presented here as only a small fraction of my experience of
modern day Londoners.

I don't know SFO but I suspect the author has a similarly narrow perspective
there.

------
krystiangw
San Francisco's climate is way better. But looks like theare are more
programming jobs in London ( ~ 250 ) vs San Francisco ( ~ 140 )
[https://jobsquery.it/jobs;page=1;tags=;sortBy=PUBLISHED_AT_D...](https://jobsquery.it/jobs;page=1;tags=;sortBy=PUBLISHED_AT_DESC;query=;location=London%2C%20UK)

VS

[https://jobsquery.it/jobs;page=1;tags=;sortBy=PUBLISHED_AT_D...](https://jobsquery.it/jobs;page=1;tags=;sortBy=PUBLISHED_AT_DESC;query=;location=San%20Francisco)

~~~
Wh1zz
London also has more than 10 times the population of SF...

------
shanwang
As a foreigner I have lived in London for more than a decade and have friends
and families living in SF. One interesting I found is although both London and
SF have large number of foreigners/immigrants, in London not one group of
immigrants have dominant majority and deep roots in the city. Immigrants
usually live scattered around the boroughs, this I think makes London more
diverse than many US cities. Because new comers will have to interact with
people of other background and try to fit the culture of where they are
living.

------
whatupmd
This article is 2 years old and it shows. Comparing post-brexit London to San
Francisco falls flat very quickly. Living in London is not living in Europe.

~~~
woof
"Living in London is not living in Europe"

Could you explain that sentence? Please.

------
pmoriarty
_" San Francisco contains a large number of start-ups with small teams where
employees feel like they can have greater impact. Many people found their own
businesses to pursue their passions or are part of larger teams working on
causes they relate to. This leads to a culture of creating impact on others
and of doing something that’s has wider benefit than to just oneself."_

This is more startup and corporate hype than reality. Many startups pretend to
set out to change the world to get funding, try to motivate their employees,
and get good PR. The media is often eager to be fooled and jump on any
bandwagon if there's a story in it, but people who've been in the industry a
while and aren't wet behind the ears have heard such hype repeatedly, and it
gets really old after a while, and is not very convincing.

Most people, whether in SF or anywhere else in the world, work because they
get paid. Sure, it's nice to work on what you love, but relatively few people
achieve that dream in the long run. Much more common is burnout and
disillusionment, not just in tech but in many other careers as well. It often
looks rosy and beautiful when you're fresh out of college, but gets less rosy
with each passing year, unless you happen to win the startup lottery and have
fuck-you money to really work on whatever you want whenver you want, or not,
as the mood strikes you. Otherwise, it's mostly work, not play, and certainly
not saving the world.

~~~
olivermarks
There are also an alarmingly large number of Trustafarians in San Francisco
who are playing at 'being in a start up' rather than admitting they are just
dossing about on a trust fund...

~~~
twblalock
Do you have any evidence to support this assertion, or are you just making
baseless insults?

~~~
olivermarks
I've lived in the bay area for 25 years, I'm in the tech world and I've been
around the block a few times...

------
petegrif
I have lived in both for years. IMHO this is a shallow comparison indeed. Not
to be relied upon.

------
jongold
I lived in London for almost 3 decades; this is exactly why I moved to San
Francisco

------
2dvisio
Luckily the comments are much better than this biased piece of blog post.
Lived in both places. Loved only one. Won't tell you which one.

------
paulhallett
This is almost the exact opposite view of the London I see.

------
known
A country is not made of land; a country is made of its people;

------
lotusko
some opinion like the east and the west

------
teen
> Many of the wealthy in San Francisco are newly rich, directly from their own
> work in building a business. Many of these businesses are public or run
> professionally and so there is less space for heirs and, with the continuing
> fast pace of technological change, plenty of space for new entrants -
> meritocracy, not connections are key.

Uhh not sure what SF you're living in

------
chillaxtian
what a vapid predictable piece of self aggrandization.

~~~
Apocryphon
how so

