"Meanwhile, here, no matter what you’re doing, those you meet will almost always be in finance or startups."
Well, except for the taxi drivers, the restaurant workers, the police, the teachers, the students, the grocers, the bike messengers, the lawyers, the house cleaners, the fire fighters, the ...
I know it's just one anecdote, but a Subway employee in SOMA once asked me if I knew anyone that would hire him as a DBA. The feeling in SF is that the tech world is inescapable, which some people seem to like.
I moved to SF two years ago. Since then I've had a discussion with the cashier at Taco Bell about the differences in the way browsers render on different mobile OS's. Had a discussion with a banker that learned Ruby to help with some of his reporting...
That's a bit pedantic. It's pretty clear that the point the author is trying to make is that relative to other cities, a ton of people work in finance or startups so you will encounter a lot more of them. Not that every single person in the city falls into those two categories.
This whole article is written very clearly with a very specific audience in mind. "You will be come an early adopter!" Well, maybe. I guess if you work in tech and know people who work in tech, yes. But as you noted, there are plenty of people who don't.
I think the implication from the original was that you don't really meet the other people, in that sure, you encounter them, but they somehow don't matter or are less interesting.
I don't think the poster meant that, so I wanted to call it out to encourage us techies to see that we are part of a larger culture and context.
We depend on a hell of a lot of people, and a lot of infrastructure that's not just for us, but keeps the entire city going.
Well, except for the taxi drivers, the restaurant workers, the police, the teachers, the students, the grocers, the bike messengers, the lawyers, the house cleaners, the fire fighters, the ...