

Ask HN: Startup ecosystems: SF vs. Seattle - cstanley

For those of you who are familiar with SF &amp; Seattle, I&#x27;d love to hear your opinion about which startup ecosystem you think is better to work in and why? I understand this is going to be different for everyone due to their varied experience - but just imagine filling out an Amazon product review for each city. I&#x27;m just looking for some simple data points as I&#x27;m not familiar with working in any of the cities and am considering a career move into one of them.<p>A more structured way to answer, may be to list pros&#x2F;cons of each city relative to each other.
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DonSheu
SV's concentration of investors and startups is unparalleled. There's strong
evidence to support this beyond qualitative assertions anybody may make.

But I believe that SV/SF is hitting against constraints. Of course history
shows us during gold rushes, there's plenty of people willing to suffer poor
conditions to pursue the perception of easy riches.

Seattle has a big limitation for startups because of the lack of ready angel
investors. Any startup beginning in Seattle and unable to close a notable
angel investor have a hard time raising an angel round. Though SV investors
and VCs are showing a willingness to support early stage Seattle startups.
A16z has made investments in Offerup and Distelli.

There is a lot of high quality engineering talent available in Seattle. Though
many tend towards conservative choices for careers. Recruiting engineers into
a startup requires some work. Though once a team's built, there's not the same
velocity on job turnover that's typical of SF/SV.

Also for recent grads, Seattle offers a great lifestyle that shares a lot of
attributes with SF and Portland. Housing is of high quality and available.
Thanks to Modernist Cuisine by Nathan Myhrvold, many rising culinary stars are
visiting Seattle in a form of a pilgrimage.

There's a lot of promise in Seattle. Many in the community are dedicated to
growing the startup ecosystem. New Tech is a good meetup with great organizers
in Red Russak and Brett Greene. I have nurtured my Python user group PuPPy for
a year now. We're approaching 1000 members and hold monthly meetings that draw
well in excess of 100 attendees at every event.

It's a personal choice. Like choosing a school, I'd recommend a visit. But I'd
recommend making several trips over a period of time before making a
commitment to either destination.

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rifung
I've worked in both (Not SF necessarily but San Jose). San Jose definitely has
way more start ups to choose from.

I don't really know what you're looking for, but if I found an equally good
job in both areas, I would rather stay in Seattle because the rent is much
more reasonable and there's no state income tax. Weather in CA can't be beat
though, unless you actually like rain or having seasons.

There are significantly more start ups in the Bay Area though. In Seattle,
it's very common to meet people who work at Microsoft or Amazon. In San Jose,
almost everyone is working at some start up and knows how to program. It's
both kind of neat and also a bit annoying. Every start up thinks it's going to
be the next big thing. There's way too much kool aid for my tastes, and I
found the lack of diversity not to my tastes.

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akg_67
If you are looking for startup ecosystem, there is no city, including Seattle,
that come even close to SF Bay Area. Seattle startup ecosystem is very small,
lacks diversity in ideas, people, and connections and primarily Amazon and
Microsoft network-centric.

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SeaDude
Do not come to Seattle. There's no room and the tech sucks.

Love,

A local

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nickstefan12
says pretty much everyone in any desirable city ;)

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projectramo
Real estate prices: just look at the prices on Zillow or something. To borrow
some Jerry Fodor: 1\. Obtaining Seattle real estate is remotely plausible. 2\.
Remotely plausible is better than not at all.

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gesman
I'd take fog rather then rain :)

