
Where to See Silicon Valley - ssclafani
http://paulgraham.com/seesv.html
======
baguasquirrel
This is spot on, but at least tell them to not take the spots with the outlets
if they're going to visit Red Rock? How we going to work there now?

Edit: Bah. If we're going to out one coffee shop, then why not the others.
There's Dana St, also in Mtn View. Peet's at across El Camino works as a
spillover. Verde Tea has nice drinks but the wifi seems to block you after an
hour and you can't get Google Wifi inside. The other bubble tea place across
from Red Rock is open later than anything else on Castro but it's a bit dingy
inside and you likewise can't pick up Google Wifi inside.

If you work late, there's the Starbucks at El Camino and Lawrence which is
open till 1. Any proprietors here? We need more shops open till 1.

In Palo Alto, there's Philz, which has the best coffee I've ever had in my
life. The Peets up the street is also supposed to be a decent place to hang
out. There's also Mitchell Park which is nearby to both.

In 'tino, there's the Coffee Society. The Peets down the street is also a
surprisingly good place to work, and the Whole Foods has free wifi. There's
also some Donut shop next to the Apple HQ which never seems to close but the
stuff they have there is so-so. But if you just need to get out of the apt to
work, it will do.

In general, the Peets are nicer places to work but the wifi will only last an
hour.

That's all the ones I know. Anyone got any others?

~~~
rantfoil
For a hacker I cannot imagine a more amazing gift to oneself than the gift of
ever-present Internet access via Sprint/Verizon/Whatever via USB dongle or
expresscard.

It's ~$50/month -- but I would definitely give up lattes and buy black coffee
for it.

~~~
zackattack
I personally recommend CLEAR, which works great and has 4G coverage in places
that the website doesn't even say!

~~~
wallflower
CLEAR is great except you cannot stream Netflix

~~~
pmorici
I have Clear and stream Netflix.

~~~
wallflower
Argh. I guess I need to edit the post to say if you are in a good coverage
area (I'm not) - you can stream Netflix with no latency issues.

~~~
pmorici
Ya, it's no FIOS but With 4 bars on my modem's signal indicator Netflix
usually works well. It's a little dodgy when it rains. Try moving your modem
around your house and setting it at different angles. I initially had it in a
position where it got three bars I moved it across the room and set it at a
slightly different angle, now I get 4 bars and it's nearly twice as fast.

------
dcurtis
I'm surprised that San Francisco is only mentioned in passing. This list seems
to me like the old view of Silicon Valley. (Or, maybe, if you had to describe
the valley geographically.)

It feels like the new Silicon Valley is in San Francisco, and that its heart
is in Soma (or the Mission).

~~~
adityakothadiya
SF is primarily a hub of Web-based companies - consumer applications. Though
there are many big players down in Palo Alto/Mountain View. Also, startup
doesn't mean only web-based startup. There are thousands of hardware and
enterprise software companies down in San Jose/Santa Clara.

Here is the stack geographically, that works quite well with stack of
software.

San Fran: Web based apps

Palo Alto/Mountain View/Cupertino: Web based + Desktop based software

Santa Clara: Enterprise + Desktop based software + EDA software + Hardware

San Jose: Hardware

~~~
cpr
Since the biggest employer in San Jose is Adobe, the "hardware" moniker may
not be the best.

~~~
_delirium
Adobe's a big employer, but Cisco is the largest private-sector employer in
San Jose, at least according to the city's numbers:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose,_California#Top_Employ...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose,_California#Top_Employers)

~~~
cpr
Wow, was I off! Thanks for the correction.

------
pvg
What is it with the cromulent word 'atmos'? Second time in a pg article.
Atmosphere too hard to type? Personal shorthand slipping past the proofreader?

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JpwjnMFlJI#t=1m33s>

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
Having worked in television, "atmos" is a semi-technical term with a specific
flavor and specific baggage. This article uses it reasonably (but not
entirely) accurately.

~~~
pvg
Ah, so you're saying it's a silly affectation rather than an abbreviation.

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
In the contexts where I've worked it's a genuine piece of jargon, a technical
term that implies more than would the term "atmosphere".

So when used in that context yes, it's not just an abbreviation, but no, it's
not a silly affectation. It's interesting that PG's usage matches (closely
enough) the baggage-laden jargon version.

~~~
pvg
Right, I meant out-of-context usage (if that's what this is) would be a silly
affectation like if one started inserting technical sailing terms into one's
speech for no good reason, arrr.

------
aiurtourist
Why not _bike_ Silicon Valley? This area is very bike accessible (just stay
off the sidewalks), and lots of engineers love bicycles anyway.

 _Stanford University_ \- You can't drive around Stanford without being cut
off by bikes, so why not ride one? And if you want a good ride while you're in
the area, do "the loop," which is Alpine Rd to Portola Rd to Woodside Dr.

 _University Ave_ \- I'd avoid this on a bike because it's always ridiculously
busy. However, Palo Alto has lots of casual suburbia rides, and note that
Bryant St is a "bicycle boulevard" -- lots of it is usually car-free except
for the locals, and it'll take you to Charleston, which runs into the Google
campus.

 _Sand Hill Road_ \- A good ride with some reasonable hills. Take this road
south to Portola and then try the gold standard of climbs -- Old La Honda Rd.
If you can make it from Portola to the stop sign in less than 30 minutes,
you're in good shape. Less than 18 and you're Lance Armstrong. Don't go _down_
Old La Honda, though -- go north on Skyline a bit and take 84 down since the
visibility and view are better.

 _Castro Street_ \- This place really _wants_ to be a hip, urban center, but
believing whether it is is up to you. Bike here and, like PG said, stop at Red
Rock. Or grab a gyro and some baklava from the Gyro House, which is terribly
underrated.

 _Google_ \- The Google campus is so bike accessible that they provide clown-
like bikes for employees to ride around. Hit up the main campus and see the
dinosaur and, currently, granite head sculpture exhibit. Of course, you should
probably show up with someone who works there and can throw in a free lunch.

 _North of Google_ \- If you're biking from Palo Alto to Google or vice-versa,
cut north through the Shoreline Lake reserve and the Palo Alto Baylands Nature
Preserve. Keep your mouth closed during the spring months so you don't inhale
a cloud of gnats.

 _Skyline Drive_ \- A mixed bag. In the morning this is beautiful, and when
the fog clears you can see the entire valley. It's _epic_. Unfortunately, the
road is used as a testing ground for Porsche and motorcycle lovers -- people
have died, and I have more than one friend who was almost hit.

~~~
whyenot
Instead of following Skyline drive, another (safer?) option is to go up Page
Mill, cross over Skyline, where Page Mill turns into Alpine Road, and then
down through the Douglas-fir and redwoods towards the ocean. Once you get on
the other side of Skyline, there is very little traffic and the views are
tremendous. On the way you'll pass by the Heritage Grove, one of very few
remaining groves of old growth redwoods in our area. Stop for ice cream in
Loma Mar, or if you don't mind the crowds, head to Pescadero and Duarte's for
some artichoke soup and a slice of pie.

~~~
ora600
As a fair warning - going up Page Mill requires being in very good shape. Its
30-60 minutes of climbing, some of it steep.

------
gluejar
You CAN see the city from Stanford, on a clear day. If you go up the dish
trail (counter clockwise) your uphill slog is rewarded, just before you turn
left, by a wonderful view of San Francisco skyscrapers in the distance. On the
rare days of good visibility, it's one of my favorite spots in the world.

~~~
dasil003
If you have a little more time my favorite view is from Skegg's Point near El
Corte de Madera (<http://www.openspace.org/preserves/pr_ecdm.asp>) above
Woodside (Take King's Mountain Rd and turn left at the top onto Skyline).

------
jf
It looks like this was inspired by the Ask:YC question "How do I make the most
out of Startup-school?" (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1753141>).

To that end, if anybody is interested in taking a tour of the Silicon Valley
before or after Startup School, let me know and I'll make it happen. (I've
organized something like this once already. It was a blast:
<http://hackspedition.org/sv>)

~~~
jcnnghm
I'd love to do a tour with other people that are going to Startup School.

~~~
il
Mee too! Maybe 1-2 days before or after Startup School, I imagine many people
will be flying in for a week or so around the event.

------
iamwil
"In case you can't tell, the founders are the ones leaning forward eagerly,
and the investors are the ones sitting back with slightly pained expressions."

I like pg's new humor.

~~~
abossy
I also enjoyed this one: "The buildings are all more or less the same, their
exteriors express very little, and they are arranged in a confusing maze...
These buildings are a pretty accurate reflection of the VC business."

------
idoh
San Andreas Lake came first, and then the fault was discovered and named after
the lake.

(talking about the 280 section of the essay)

~~~
cperciva
I'm pretty sure the San Andreas fault _came_ first. It just wasn't
_discovered_ first.

------
progrium
A friend regarding Hacker Dojo not being mentioned:

    
    
      well, he hasn't visited it.... ever, right? heh
      i mean, i guess you can't blame him
      it's a really long way from yc to the dojo
    

[Google Maps has it at 5 minutes away walking distance]

------
smithbits
I'd add Fry's Electronics and WeirdStuff Warehouse. If you came to the Valley
from the sticks like I did they are wonderful wonderful places.

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
Story of my first trip to Fry's:

Myself and my roommate (another startup guy) were pretty hungover. I think it
was some launch party the night before or just playing Halo with drinking
rules. We were sitting at Gelayo Gusto in Mountain View. We had no furniture
at the time and our TV was this crappy trinitron we got from Good Will. (Keep
in mind, we somehow negotiated a ridiculous deal on a townhouse 3 bootstrapped
entrepreneurs could never afford otherwise). We decided it was time for
furniture or electronics. My roommate suggested we go to Fry's if it were
electronics. I said: What's Fry's? Fast food? His response? Screw furniture,
we're going to get a TV, and you NEED to experience Fry's. $1000 later we
walked out with a 50 inch TV and saved $100 of it to get some lawn chairs + a
tent for the living room. Some of you may have even stayed in this tent
before. It was kind of the guest house we set up, inside the house.

Tent picture: <http://cl.ly/fbb39c0b2477b483de73>

I have a ton of stories like this. My year in silicon valley was without a
doubt the happiest time of my life.

~~~
Psyonic
Great story! Why'd you move away?

------
kbob
I always think it's fun to drive down random streets in the commercial areas
of Mt. View, Sunnyvale and San Jose and see the crazy mix of famous, has-been,
and still unknown companies' signs on the buildings.

~~~
kbob
Here's an example. Java Drive (no relation to the language) in Sunnyvale is
five blocks long. According to Google Maps, the following businesses are on
it. (Plus I'm pretty sure there's at least one Yahoo! building there.)

Supertex

Logic Devices

RGB Networks

Infinera Corporation

NStreams Technologies

CTT

Palo Alto Networks

Net App

I, personally, only recognize Netapp and Yahoo!.

~~~
brk
A guy who used to work for me now works for PAN and their product is very
cool, from what I've seen. You should check them out if you're a network guy
and pay attention to the company in general

------
jasonlbaptiste
Just reading about these places makes me dearly miss the Valley. Outside of
startup culture, it is just an absolutely beautiful place to live. If you
haven't visited, I suggest you do. You won't regret it.

~~~
points
I must have been to a different Valley :/ The majority is dull concrete
sprawl. Each to their own of course, but I can only stand it for a week or 2
before I go insane.

Here's my favorite places though:

University Ave, Frys, Stevens Creek Mall, The Great Mall, Great America Theme
Park

~~~
kroger
Dull concrete? How about lake Tahoe, Yosemite park, Muir Woods park, Monterey
Bay, Black Mountain, and I could go on.

I do miss living in California ;-)

~~~
points
OK, sure. But I think that's the problem. It's either wilderness, or concrete.
Nothing in-between.

~~~
djcapelis
I live in Santa Cruz. It's hardly wilderness but I walk through a forest to
get to my research lab and then am greeted with a view of the ocean when I
leave campus.

When we decide to fuck off for the day and go surfing it's a 10 minute drive.
Counting the beach traffic. It's 40 minutes over the hill into Silicon Valley,
counting the people from the valley who don't know how to drive CA-17.

I think that's as in-between as you can get.

~~~
whyenot
You are at UC Santa Cruz, quite possibly the most beautiful university in the
country. Enjoy the redwoods, the banana slugs and the amazing views of
Monterey bay while you are there.

For comparison, over the hill my office is on a university campus that is
mostly concrete, ringed by areas you may not want to travel alone at night,
and in the fall shrouded under a thick pocket of San Jose's brown smog.

~~~
djcapelis
Correct! It is a joy driving down to Monterey to meet with some of the folks
we collaborate with down there. "Oh no, a meeting? How terrible!"

I am constantly thankful the UC Regents generally chose such beautiful
locations for their campuses. UCSB and UCSD were excellent choices as well.
We'll give them a pass on a few of their other choices. ;)

The point though, is that middle ground does exist in California. As another
example, I grew up in Sonoma County, which is both beautiful and not a
wilderness.

------
_delirium
The coast is cold and foggy? Maybe if you're all the way up in Half Moon Bay.
;-)

It does seem like it's declined in its role in startup culture lately, but
it's spawned a good share of startups--- Seagate, SCO (pre-patent-troll era),
RF Micro, Plantronics, etc., are from the coast. Would be interesting if
anyone had a guess as to why there's less of that now than there was some
years ago. There are still a bunch of profitable (!) indie-game studios, at
least (the folks behind Bridge Builder, Gish, Super Meat Boy, Aether,
Bit.Trip, etc.).

Judging by the commute traffic on 92 & 17, it seems quite a few people who
work in the valley still live on the coast, too, but it's quite possible
they're mostly 9-5 rather than startup types.

~~~
points
This was a large culture shock to me (Coming from the UK). We see California
as some sun drenched beach babe area.

Imagine our shock when we visited some beaches and they were full of fog so
you couldn't see, and the water was yellow and frothy. I guess we were still
too far north, but it seems like to get a half decent beach you have to go
down to Santa Cruz or further.

~~~
_delirium
Yeah, the public image is Los Angeles / San Diego beaches. Santa Cruz is
pretty warm though (well, the air, not the water), and usually sunny. How
close it is depends on where you think of as "silicon valley"; from San
Jose/Cupertino/Saratoga/Los Gatos it's closer than SF is, but gets
increasingly far if you're up in, say, Menlo Park.

You probably don't want to go further south, at least for warmth--- Monterey
and Big Sur are beautiful, but about as cold and foggy as Half Moon Bay.

A tangent: biggest CA culture shock for me was visiting Hollywood and finding
out much of it is closer to a ghetto than to its glamorous mid-20th-c. image.

------
progrium
I'm surprised SuperHappyDevHouse and Hacker Dojo were not mentioned. Many
people, including local press, describe both as microcosms of Silicon Valley
culture.

If you want to _see_ Silicon Valley, sure, go to Palo Alto and drive 280...
but if you want to _experience_ what Silicon Valley is _about_ , you should go
to a SuperHappyDevHouse or visit Hacker Dojo.

~~~
jerf
I live in Michigan, but work for a company headquartered in the Valley and
I've flown out there a few times for them. You might be used to it if you live
there, but it is something worth _seeing_ , trust me. Yes, there's even more
than that, but just the seeing is itself a worthwhile endeavor. The mountains,
the houses, the downtowns, the campuses, definitely worth seeing.

~~~
natch
I agree, but you're entirely missing progrium's point.

I think PG's emphasis on places like Skyline and 280 was trying to help
compensate for the fact that a lot of people come here and stick close to
highway 101, which leads them to think this is an ugly place. But in focusing
so much on the landscape stuff, he left out some of the best people stuff.

~~~
jerf
And I daresay you're missing mine. Making a particular point doesn't obligate
you to make any other particular point. It's OK to just talk about the stuff
there is to see, and it doesn't incur an obligation to talk about the other
"more important" stuff, even discounting the fundamental relativity of "more
important". If you take such logic to its logical conclusion (which I really
mean, as opposed to its illogical conclusion), one can never talk about
anything except matters of immediate life and death.

Yes, you may have _preferred_ that pg talk about something else, but it is
sufficient and OK to talk about the things to see if he wishes to. (It's not
just landscape, either, believe me. The "tour of Silicon Valley corporate
campuses" was almost as interesting for me, if not moreso. I've done the
tourist thing quite a bit all over the place, but that's not something you can
do anywhere else.)

I can't be _missing_ the point if I'm disagreeing with it, now can I? (And no,
I don't think that defense applies to your post.)

~~~
natch
Fair enough.

------
tlrobinson
In case you were wondering where our company name "280 North" came from, see
#9.

------
rdl
I'd include: 1) Hacker Dojo (conveniently near YC!) -- a slightly-more-
corporate hackerspace

2) Computer History Museum

3) Weird Stuff and the other used hardware vendors

4) Drive by the "HP Garage" in Palo Alto

5) Facebook's new offices

6) In-N-Out

7) The Old Pro in Palo Alto

8) Drive by Moffett Field (and go inside if you can; there are events there a
couple times per year)

~~~
progrium
Define "slightly-more-corporate".

~~~
lsc
I would assume the OP means corporate compared to noisebridge. Now, I've never
been to the place but I hear it is even less formal than the dojo.

If the dojo is corporate, though, I'm a CEO.

~~~
rdl
Yeah, corporate compared to noisebridge. Uncorporate compared to most other
places, although I would still say the dojo is a little more corporate than a
lot of other hacker spaces (in a good way).

I like both noisebridge and hacker dojo.

~~~
lsc
I think "corporate" might be the wrong word. I agree, though, that it is much
more business oriented than, say, a linux users group, or many of the other
social places I hang out. It's more like the culture you see on hacker news
than the culture you see on LKML.

but it's very oriented towards small companies; while there are a lot of
people with funding there, we also see a fair amount of bootstrapping.

------
revorad
The Computer History Museum link at the bottom points to the essay itself.
Presumably, it's meant to point to wikipedia or another relevant page.

~~~
noilly
Also, the Gates building (and others) at Stanford has bits of computer history
including a plaque to Vint Cerf and one of Google's lego servers

------
dirtae
Apple fans should make the trip to HQ in Cupertino. Apple operates a company
store here that is, I believe, the only place in the world to buy official
Apple apparel. The 1 Infinite Loop sign makes for a nice photo op.

~~~
djcapelis
Plus I always feel a bit of excitement driving the parts of the roads you can
see on the icon for the maps app on the iPhone.

------
cpr
Sadly, one of the most beautiful spots in the valley was at the old DC Power
Lab (named after someone called "DC Power", but it was the Electric Power
Research Institute before it became the old Stanford AI Lab, and was
eventually torn down).

In its decrepitude, a laser printer startup I helped found (Imagen) lived
among the ruins (we traded space from Stanford for laser printers ;-), and it
was glorious. It was up in the trees not too far from the dish, and we'd work
out on the deck (watch out for holes) under the eucalypti on every fresh Palo
Alto morning. Heaven.

Now I think it's a riding stable.

------
brown9-2
Never noticed before that Google doesn't really seem to like if you try to
look at their offices in Street View:
[http://maps.google.com/maps?q=charleston+road+mountain+view&...](http://maps.google.com/maps?q=charleston+road+mountain+view&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Charleston+Rd,+Mountain+View,+California&ll=37.421107,-122.082873&spn=0.001576,0.002642&t=h&z=19&layer=c&cbll=37.421138,-122.082944&panoid=sNcUHX86GlUgMN9ed037zQ&cbp=12,325.77,,0,-0.12)

~~~
trunnell
On the contrary, googlers lined the street when the street-view-mobile came
by:

[http://maps.google.com/maps?q=charleston+road+mountain+view&...](http://maps.google.com/maps?q=charleston+road+mountain+view&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Charleston+Rd,+Mountain+View,+California&t=h&layer=c&cbll=37.423295,-122.086003&panoid=7bIjlFG04zceRVn6gITkow&cbp=12,167.15,,0,19.54&ll=37.42335,-122.086306&spn=0.001973,0.00284&z=19)

Amusingly, their faces are blurred out even though they clearly _wanted_ to be
in the shot.

The link you gave is to an inner parking lot. It's interesting that it's
"fogged out." I've never seen that elsewhere in Street View.

------
Kliment
Around the start of the Afghanistan war, our high school (I lived in Finland
at the time) invited someone working for the US Embassy to give a talk. The
auditorium was full, as a lot of the students had opinions about the US
involvement in Afghanistan, and mostly negative ones, so there was much
curiosity about what an "official" would say about it to such an audience. The
embassy representative arrived, had a long talk about how much work it was to
get his job, and how cool it was to travel to Europe and live here, and then
stated the purpose of his visit was to show us how beautiful the US is. He
then proceeded to slow hundreds of slides of landscape/sunset/nature photos.
After all this, he evaded the inevitable request for commentary on the war by
stating he had run out of time. This is sort of the feeling I get from this
article. It's a travel guide look at silicon valley, but doesn't have any
depth or insight about the actual effect SV has on startups. This is a great
guide for people who live in the region and want to play tourist for a day.
But how many of those don't know these things?

~~~
philwelch
It's not like pg has neglected to write about the subject:

<http://www.paulgraham.com/kate.html> <http://www.paulgraham.com/maybe.html>
<http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html>
<http://www.paulgraham.com/startuphubs.html>

------
JabavuAdams
Wish I'd had this for my first GDC conference in San Jose.

I went up El Camino Real, and saw fabled places like Palo Alto, but I couldn't
help thinking "This is just like Scarborough" (ugly Toronto suburb). It's just
strip-malls. KFC, Taco Hell, KFC, Taco Hell. What a disappointment!

I guess I expected there to be code and money dripping from the trees, while
pot-smoking surfers built rockets, or something.

------
fady
good article. Yes, SF is full of startups. My half baked ex-stackexchange site
has a nice list: [http://sfanswers.com/questions/429/list-of-start-up-tech-
web...](http://sfanswers.com/questions/429/list-of-start-up-tech-web-
companies-in-san-francisco-bay-area)

------
jasonlbaptiste
This whole list reminds me of an idea I've had for such a long time that I've
wanted to do, just to meet people and provide something useful.

Once a day daily email that highlights great places in an area. These are well
known spots, but there are tons others that I'm sure long time residents
haven't even heard of. Thrillist and all the others seem to focus on
bars/restaurants, but there's just so much more to an area to see. I lived in
the Valley for a year and still never got to see enough. I wish I had one
email a day telling me of places to check out/unique things to see. I'd never
get around to all of them, but it would have made my time there even more
enjoyable.

~~~
stellar678
Weekend Sherpa does pretty much this for the greater Bay Area, and focused on
outdoor-type things.

<http://www.weekendsherpa.com/>

------
msg
I was interviewed in the valley a few years back. I didn't try to go to Google
but I did go to Stanford on a free evening. I had some idea of trying to find
the CS department, or maybe Knuth's house. It was a little late though.

Instead I ended up just wandering around the campus looking at the amazing art
and soaking it in. There's a cast of a Rodin piece called The Gates of Hell
that is unreal. I got to it just after sunset when the lights were starting to
come on.

It was after dark when I left campus, and I took a wrong turn. Suddenly all
the signs were in Spanish, and I was lost in California. I made it out alive
though.

They offered me a job but I ended up in Colorado instead.

------
bemmu
One way of seeing the Google offices is to keep an eye out for hacker events
hosted there. I was able to get in by attending an OpenSocial hackathon, and
met some people who were habitual visitors to their different events.

------
elai
Why hasn't SV built out towards the west and the pacific ocean and instead
built downwards? There seem to be big swaths of unused space there, and for
such an expensive place it seems a bit strange.

~~~
mtviewdave
Look at a map of the Bay Area using Google Maps in "terrain" mode. Everything
between I-280 and the Pacific Ocean is basically mountains.

~~~
elai
I've lived on mountains. Other than having to worry about your soccer balls
going into snowball mode it isn't bad at all.

~~~
_delirium
Quite a few people do live in the mountains, it just isn't particularly high-
density, and a relative lack of good roads reduces the area where even that
low-density development can happen. The Hwy-9 corridor probably has about
50,000 people along it, as the main concentration (if you include Scotts
Valley and the upper part of Los Gatos). There are other people scattered
about, but once you're off the main roads, it starts to get remote enough that
nobody's going to commute to San Jose daily. Lots of interesting "weird"
folks, though, ranging from the lefty types (hippies, pot farmers, etc.) to
the righty types (gun-toting mountain libertarians). Also, Robert Heinlein
built a geometric house up there:
[http://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&q=37.058811,-122.158461&...](http://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&q=37.058811,-122.158461&ie=UTF8&ll=37.058593,-122.158452&spn=0.001785,0.001998&z=19)

------
yurylifshits
I would add Rainbow Mansion <http://www.rainbowmansion.com/>

The ultimate Hacker Villa and the location of many SuperHappyDevHouses

------
yankeeracer73
Some people have already mentioned going to see Apple HQ. I remember driving
on I-280 in the late nineties when Jobs had just gotten back to Apple and they
were doing their Think Different campaign. There was a huge billboard of
Einstein right by the exit to the Apple campus. I had been an Apple fan since
the early eighties; to see this and know their founder was back and they were
doing great things again literally brought a tear to my eye. ;)

------
jaybol
More on that magic 165 University address
<http://milo.com/blog/lucky-165-university-ave/>

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chris_l
This guide comes too late for me! When I visited the area while travelling
through cali 8 years ago I couldn't find a hint of SV... but Stanford's campus
is great.

~~~
jey
Eight years ago would have been right during the bust, when all the overtly
Valley stuff was in hiding.

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hogu
If you're in the bay area there are way better things to see than those
things. those are just famous startup places

~~~
hugh3
True. If you are in any way human, you'll have more fun hanging around San
Francisco than you will standing around in the Google parking lot.

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jcnnghm
Does anyone have advice for getting in and seeing offices at
startups/companies in the valley for people that are coming in for startup
school, tours and whatnot?

I found the info for the Airbnb party on their blog
(<http://blog.airbnb.com/>), that should be cool.

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gregwebs
I found the "condense rain out of fog" statement interesting, thanks! I looked
into it more and have a nitpick: if I understand it correctly, redwoods will
directly absorb (or at least condense onto itself) much of the fog. Rain must
fall under the influence of gravity.

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jmtame
i hope to see sunfire offices on this list some day. it's one of the most
underrated places in mountain view to find other smart, driven hackers. their
mixers are on the level of yc's dinners--i've learned some really interesting
and contrarian advice from the founders of companies who attend those mixers,
a few of them were yc-funded (one in particular that stood out was ngmoco's
methods of generating revenue from free apps). i've also heard some bizarre
ideas, like when the seasteading institute's founder came to speak. salman
khan was at the last mixer i believe.

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natch
One of the best things PG didn't mention is the Book Buyers (used book store
right on Castro in downtown Mountain View) technical books selection. Very
impressive.

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eande
The list sounds more Palo Alto than Silicon Valley. I personally think there
is much more to SV than the 9 items. But I agree on the weather, it is nearly
perfect.

~~~
mike463
I have to agree. I would think the epicenter of Silicon Valley would be more
likely Sunnyvale. It's surrounded by Mountain View, Santa Clara, Cupertino and
North San Jose. Think Apple, Google, Intel, AMD, Lockheed, Nvidia, Cisco,
Adobe, HP, ebay, Yahoo. These are all a small drive from Sunnyvale.

I think Fry's started in Sunnyvale... And Cyberdyne Systems is in Sunnyvale.
;)

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barmstrong
Great list.

While living in Palo Alto I was surprised that there seemed to be more startup
events in the city. SOMA definitely feels like part of the scene too.

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jscore
I would agree that it's nice to work for a company on University/Castro
streets that is before the company moves to some soulless office park.

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jgrahamc
See also <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1759141>

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hasenj
hm, really? Castro street?

Wow! I was there last month and I walked Castro street several times, but I
thought all the "action" was around Stanford University (I didn't go there,
only went to Stanford Shopping Center and the landscape was amazing).

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jey
Dana Street Roasting Co. > Red Rock. :)

~~~
monkeyboy
Not for Hackers. DSRC has no outlets. Or rather, they cover up the outlets.

~~~
evgen
Yeah. It used to have the outlets exposed, but people like me would arrive
around 10am and camp out for most of the day :) At one point my startup
referred to DSRC as "the other conference room." Red Rock had this problem for
a while and then acquired the second floor and this has kept the day campers
from getting in the way of traffic to/from the counter.

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mattmaroon
Next we need where to eat in SV.

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mybbor
Nice, Don't forget to look for the linear accelerator on 280 in Menlo Park.
Endless Loop Drive <http://goo.gl/z2iR> in Sunnyvale. Also, if your on Cal
ave. get your hair done with my girlfriend @ Di Petro Salon. ;)

~~~
pg
Good point. I'll add something about SLAC and The Dish.

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zackattack
Are there any nerd bars where you can talk about jQuery, AdWords campaigns,
etc?

~~~
zackattack
I would also like to hear a place to find a basketball game

