

A Visitor's Guide to Silicon Valley - terrisv
http://steveblank.com/2011/02/22/a-visitors-guide-to-silicon-valley/

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ry0ohki
I remember going to the Valley in 2002 and expecting tours of all the famous
companies etc... I made the "pilgrimage" to Apple headquarters, expecting some
sort of museum or something. Security basically escorted me out of the lobby.
Intel does have a little thing you can view at least.

For the most part Silicon Valley is very uninteresting to just visit unless
you like seeing corporate office parks from the outside.

~~~
frisco
That's kind of part of it though. It's a living, working institution. The best
work is going on now. It's not a museum that people come and visit for
historical purposes. Normally when something becomes a tourist attraction it's
well past being a living entity. Intel and Apple are historic, but they're
also well still alive. That's part of the energy of Silicon Valley.

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idlewords
Ditch all the startup stuff and spend a couple of hours reading up on where to
find great Vietnamese food, sushi and burritos. The South Bay is full of
treasures and these are well-documented online by obsessive, hungry people.

~~~
hieu
What's so special about Vietnamese food in the Valley? I'd really like to
know.

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rexf
Vietnamese food is both delicious & cheap in Silicon Valley. I would say it's
authentic in San Jose, but I'm not qualified to judge how legit it is.
Vietnamese food may not be as familiar as other cuisines in America, but it is
one of the best comfort foods.

Pho (Beef Stock with Rice Noodles) - About $6 with satisfying broth and exotic
cuts of beef <http://www.yelp.com/biz/pho-tau-bay-san-jose>

Banh Mi (Very Cheap French Baguettes Sandwiches) - No more than $3[1] and
comes with your choice of meat
[http://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=banh+mi&ns=1&fi...](http://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=banh+mi&ns=1&find_loc=san+jose,+ca)

[1] - Here in NYC, there is a dearth of good Vietnamese food. NYC Banh Mis are
easily $6-8 for a subpar product. Contrast that to paying $2.50 in Milpitas
for a giant Banh Mi.

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orky56
For everything that goes on here, it is surprisingly very...quiet. The people
in Silicon Valley are about execution and then self-promotion rather than the
other way around. So when you have a bunch of dedicated people who are trying
to prove themselves, you have less people showcasing the startup culture.
Living it is more than any charm. This is the ultimate compliment I believe.

You really will be surprised when you see what this place is like considering
it all.

~~~
gnosis
"Quiet" is a very diplomatic term for what Silicon Valley is.

It is a deathly boring suburb hell, with absolutely nothing interesting in it
except for what might go on inside some of those office buildings and private
residences.

There's no culture there. There are virtually no interesting activities
whatsoever, except for work (if you're lucky) and mostly solitary hobbies (at
best).

The place is an embarrassment in pretty much every way except technologically,
and in that the residents are rich enough to keep the streets clean.

~~~
neilk
_Almost_ no culture.... there are always a few people doing cool things no
matter where you go. But in SV it's a lot harder to find them, or see evidence
of them.

SV has one good thing about it. Unintentionally it is the most zen place on
earth, because it will teach you the emptiness of money or moving up the
career ladder -- the entertainments and distractions are so laughably poor and
the treadmill is implacably fast.

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axod
Here's my personal list:

    
    
      * Frys
      * The great mall / Valley fair mall
      * Great America theme park
      * Santa Cruz beach + boardwalk
      * Downtown Palo Alto
      * Tech museum + art museum in San Jose
      * Johnny rockets

~~~
rexf
Three words:

In-N-Out

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axod
Yeah I had In-N-Out once, it was ok enough.

St. Johns is a great burger place just off 101, around Santa Clara. Good
programming bookshop nearby also.

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dotBen
If you only went once you probably didn't get anything from the 'secret' off-
menu. That's part of the In-N-Out experience.

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holychiz
I've been here 10+ years. SV is about people and activities rather than
touristy sights. It's things like Friday night bike party in SJ, midnight
roller-skating in SF (first time for me was pure adrenalin-pumping, flying
down the hills around Union Square with full traffic and barely know how to
brake!). Bay-to-Breakers "race :) ". Inventor Fair. 9:20 Special Swing Lindy
dance club (just watching the dancers is breath-taking in itself). Hiking up
Mission Peak in Milpitas or Rancho San Antonio, Cupertino for some righteous
views of the Bay.

Yeah, this place is about doing things, I guess.

~~~
danielharan
Is Lindy popular among the startup crowd?

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n-ion
I live in Mountain View, and the only thing I think this is missing is the
outdoor activities that living in the bay offers. If you enjoy hiking checkout
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevens_Creek_Reservoir> You'll be able to see
PA to SJ when you get up high enough.

If you dirtbike, check out met-caf or make the trek to Hollister. Totally
worth it.

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localhost3000
This is great. I visited for the first time this past summer and spent most of
the day on CalTrain with no clue where to go other than Stanford.

~~~
sophacles
Mirroring this: I have visited friends twice in Palo Alto. Aside from the
great little restaurants and visiting a couple companies where we had "ins", I
had no idea where to go or what to see. We decided that to really do the
silicon valley right, it takes more than a few days of visit, because all of
the cool stuff is about knowing people doing things.

~~~
gnosis
_"I had no idea where to go or what to see"_

That's because there is nowhere to go. And nothing to see.

The only reason I'd ever voluntarily go to SV is to visit friends unlucky
enough to live there, or to get a job.

~~~
lanstein
I was with you up until the 'get a job' part.

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dholowiski
Wasn't another hn'er starting a wiki about moving to the valley? I know this
is all about visiting but I think it would make a great addition.

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benwerd
That'd be an incredible resource. If it doesn't exist yet, please, someone
create it.

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goodgoblin
This was the link --- <http://svstartup.com>

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evandavid
Thanks! Moving to San Fran in 2 days (from New Zealand). Hopefully there's
some useful stuff in there.

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rdouble
If one is looking for a vacation plan, this is the worst guide to the area I
have ever seen. I suppose it's useful if you're taking a job at Google, and
want a realistic taste of the boring reality your life is to become. I
wouldn't share this with any normal person looking to take a vacation,
though... they would be rightfully pissed off.

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zephjc
It's amusing to see a place I grew up written up as a tourist attraction.

~~~
tudorizer
Lucky devil!

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JacobAldridge
It will be a while before I visit, so much of this content isn't immediately
exciting or relevant - but just providing so much context enhances my
understanding of Valley relationships and geography.

Before, I didn't really know how to connect Palo Alto, Mountain View, and San
Francisco (obviously, because I'd never really tried). Now I know the way to
San Jose!

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benwerd
This really whet my appetite.

I'm moving to the Valley this Spring, about ten years later than I should
have. I've been there just about every year, of course, but it's not the same
as being immersed in it 24/7.

Anyone else about to make the same jump? I'd love to compare notes once I'm
over there with other new settlers.

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anamax
There are dozens of Stanford seminars that anyone can attend. Some, like
ee380.stanford.edu , are online, but you miss out on a lot that way.

If you do a bit of research, you might even take advantage of office hours.

The same is true of UC Berkeley, but it isn't in the valley.

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JabavuAdams
Great! I'll be there next week.

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tastybites
A California subtlety often missed by those who didn't grow up here (and many
that did) is the fact that Silicon Valley started out a lot like the other
'the valley' that grew up with the aerospace / defense industry, the San
Fernando Valley, which have extensive similarities, including small details
like the Fry's electronics and bigger details like the main drags through
town. Ventura Blvd. and 82 are basically the same El Camino Real. The 101
(which parallels Ventura Blvd for quite a distance) is marked as El Camino
Real, as is 82 in Silicon Valley. Both have foundations in the Spanish
missionary trail. They're basically two sections of one very long road.

If you've seen Steve Blank's presentation on the 'secret history' of Silicon
Valley you'll see where I draw the parallels. Lockheed Martin, Rocketdyne,
General Dynamics, Litton, Rockwell, and many others were once based there.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo>

But the divergence was inevitable I suppose - the valley up north has gotten
comparatively nicer in the past 15 years, though, as San Fernando's fortunes
have faded a bit. The SF valley now basically lacks a coherent high technology
business base and all the aerospace and defense has moved out. It's been
replaced by Hollywood entertainment, healthcare, porno, import/export, and a
bunch of other smaller industries and some light manufacturing. It's not
defunct in any way - it's still pretty nice, but it's just not as nice as up
north. Most of the newer wealth is in other areas of LA.

Both are nearly entirely made up of suburban housing and low laying office
parks and are situated just outside of the main urban area. The
biggest/tallest buildings are the chain hotels and a select few office
buildings. Strip malls are everywhere, which is where all the good food is.

It's an interesting kind of an 'alternate reality' in the other end of
California that many people aren't aware of. Personally I'd rather live
bayside in Santa Monica or San Francisco (and have in both), but to each his
own, some people like the suburbs more.

~~~
jacobolus
All the big Southern California aerospace spending was big in WWII and for a
decade or two after (Lockheed, Douglas, Hughes North American Aviation, &c.),
but for various reasons in the 60s congress started moving those contracts
elsewhere, especially throughout the South (e.g. a lot of NASA stuff went to
Florida). Perhaps the kind of tech that was being done in Silicon Valley had a
more plausible transition to non-defense uses, or perhaps defense-related
contracts just continued a bit longer there than in SoCal?

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lhnn
Anyone else notice the first comment on the blog?

I think the counterpoint is an interesting one: SF is an expensive place to
live, and I've never been a fan of California's politics (an opinion,
obviously). Meanwhile, Texas is a beautiful state with millions of people,
half a dozen top notch universities, relatively low taxes and a definitively
cheaper cost of living (outside of Austin proper).

I'm sure SF is nice, and I've love to visit... but there are more places to
work than just there. I also find it interesting that geography plays such an
important part in the startup culture when we're all sitting infront of multi-
megabyte connections capable of HD video and chat.

~~~
drbaskin
I have great personal affinity for Texas but am having trouble coming up with
a list of half a dozen top notch universities. I can come up with three (UT,
TAMU, Rice) and a few more if you set the bar a bit lower, but none of the
these (arguably Rice) is in the league of Stanford, Berkeley, and Caltech, and
only the first three are in the same league as UCLA, UCD, UCSD, UCI and USC.
Even UCSB and UCSC are good.

Perhaps what I'm trying to say is that as wonderful as Texas is, if you're
interested in universities it is sadly lacking. (I mostly know about math
departments, so if I'm really wrong about either state, I would like to know.)

~~~
lhnn
UT, A&M, TTU (Good for Business, Math and Enginnering), Rice, Baylor.... OK,
five. Actually, U of H is picking up the ball in a lot of areas, too.

