It’s a good question. I believe SF will rebound as a city, and that it remains the indispensable center of the global technology ecosystem.
My level of certainty is such that I’m personally betting my livelihood and savings on it by building a startup here.
It’s really hard to uproot an ecosystem where multiple stakeholders are co-located (founders, developers, ML engineers, VCs, accelerators, executives experienced with tech business models) and move them elsewhere.
The specific cultural factors around openness to experience, centrality to internet culture, and global orientation are difficult to find or replicate in other cities.
But the short term disruptions are going to be painful due to the shift to remote work.
Right now this is compounded by very bad policy (saying this as a registered member of the DSA. This is not a left vs. right issue.)
We need basic enforcement of laws and provision of city services to allow the city to recover in a reasonable time frame.
My level of certainty is such that I’m personally betting my livelihood and savings on it by building a startup here.
It’s really hard to uproot an ecosystem where multiple stakeholders are co-located (founders, developers, ML engineers, VCs, accelerators, executives experienced with tech business models) and move them elsewhere.
The specific cultural factors around openness to experience, centrality to internet culture, and global orientation are difficult to find or replicate in other cities.
But the short term disruptions are going to be painful due to the shift to remote work.
Right now this is compounded by very bad policy (saying this as a registered member of the DSA. This is not a left vs. right issue.)
We need basic enforcement of laws and provision of city services to allow the city to recover in a reasonable time frame.