> Can someone explain to me why California would believe Sam Altman plans to stay in California?
The simple answer is unless developing LLMs becomes commoditised, the best place in the world to do it is in San Francisco. You don't take your manufacturing business out of Shenzhen without very good reason.
Seems a little easier than that, though, because there are no supply chains involved (other than for the data centers, but those are already not in SF). Why else would the CA government be worried?
There's books written about the Bay Area and the factors that make (or made) it uniquely suited for developing new technologies. There's even college courses about it. Some of it's surely provincial fluff, but it's undeniable that California has been an essential incubator for a whole series of world-changing, fortune-making technologies.
I don't want to downplay the network effects here, but it's in CA entirely by coincidence. SV is in CA because William Shockley's family is there, which is why he founded Shockley Semiconductor there. It could have been somewhere else. The 2nd largest tech hub is in Seattle. It's there because that's were Bill Gates is from. Is SF the best place to start a startup if you want in office talent in 2025. 100% yes, but that has nothing to do with the Bay Area and everything to do with accidents of history.
> that has nothing to do with the Bay Area and everything to do with accidents of history
I think you’re wrong. But that’s irrelevant. The fact that it exists now is what gives it staying power. One of the surest bets I’ve seen in seed and Series A investing is when a market has one or two competitors in a cluster and the rest outside. The insiders win. Always. It’s the easiest bulldozing strategy that exists.
> I think you’re wrong. But that’s irrelevant.
It's on you to prove the parent wrong and you provided nothing to explain why the Bay Area is special beyond history/staying power.
> It's on you to prove the parent wrong and you provided nothing to explain why the Bay Area is special beyond history/staying power
I’m literally saying it’s irrelevant due to incumbency effects. If someone is doing something AI outside the Bay Area, a decent business is to copy and outraise them.
> I think you’re wrong. But that’s irrelevant. The fact that it exists now is what gives it staying power.
You said OP was wrong to say "that has nothing to do with the Bay Area and everything to do with accidents of history" but that it's irrelevant anyway because the area has incumbency effects. Those are 2 separate things, something that you claim to be wrong but irrelevant, and something you say is true.
I agree with the second point, incumbency is a heavy weight to dislodge. But why would OP be wrong to say there's nothing intrinsic to the place that give it power?
I think OP is completely correct, the Bay Area as a place itself isn't special, it's those historical accidental decisions that now make it a hard to dislodge incumbent. But this detail is very important because if "the place" doesn't have some intrinsic power, like some unique natural resource, geography, climate, etc. that just can't be replicated elsewhere, then it can be replicated elsewhere.
In fewer words, "the place" having something unique means immovability. Incumbency just means inertia. Inertia isn't what it use to be. Detroit was the place for building cars just a few decades ago. One accidental decision, one bad policy can send an incumbent on a slow roll down. The Bay Area itself has nothing that reasonably can't be replicated elsewhere, unlike for example an oil field which you have or you don't.
Municipalities trying to make their own Silicon... Alley, Beach, Hills, Slopes, Forest, Prairie, Bayou, Desert, Roundabout, Docks, Glen, Fen, Cape, Oasis, (and more!) with varying degrees of success, so I don't know that it is unreasonably replicatible. Despite all those efforts, OpenAI and Anthropic both are heavy hitters in the AI industry, and they are both headquartered in San Francisco.
Naturally, nothing lasts forever. Not Silicon Valley, not the USA, not the Holy Roman Empire. Some things do last quite a while though. If we look all the way back to Hewett-Packard, though now a shadow of its former self, it was established in 1939.
Exactly. No one is arguing the historical & material reasons as to why Bay Area is the birthing place of many technological revolutions. The Bay Area is special because of said history/staying power - which has systemic downstream advantages that cannot be replicated. 60% of total VC funding is in the Bay Area alone. Being surrounded by Stanford, Berkeley, etc gives the region a constant flow of world class engineers. Theres just no other region like it and won't be for a very long time.
> No one is arguing the historical & material reasons as to why Bay Area is the birthing place of many technological revolutions.
You're kinda missing the bigger picture - the fact that Bay Area was not always a tech hub, and became one at some point for various reason - which can happen in any other place (and has).
> which has systemic downstream advantages that cannot be replicated.
Seems like a very baseless and meaningless statement.
> Being surrounded by Stanford, Berkeley, etc gives the region a constant flow of world class engineers.
Except for the fact that the vast majority pf Bay Area tech talent does not come from Stanford or Berkeley, and is being outsourced at ever increasing rates.
> Theres just no other region like it and won't be for a very long time.
If you say so.
Yeah except for it has always been a tech hub because the term "tech hub" didn't exist before the Bay Area? I mean the first message sent over the precursor to the internet was from UCLA to the Stanford Research Institute in 1969, and the SF Bay Area having some of the first infrastructure for high-speed internet was a key factor into its position as the tech hub. Mind you this is all preceded by Hewlett Packard 30 years earlier setting the stage for the semiconductor revolution, and even this is preceded by 100 years with Leland Stanford. To much to talk about here as to why there is a unique mix of private capital, industry/government collusion, university research and development, and more that are entrenched in the region.
The makeup of tech companies employees doesn't remotely tell the full story of the advantages of the UC system, Stanford, and other universities in CA through research that feed into SV as the leading tech hub that cannot be replicated (See example of the invention of the internet above). I mean hell, 4 UC alum won nobel prizes this year alone, one of which was the chief scientist at Google's quantum AI.
But yeah sure, if we're talking in the context of "anything is possible" then yeah I concede, it can happen anywhere. Kind of a boring insight. The point is that no - it hasn't happened anywhere else to the extent of the bay area despite cities trying to for the past 30 years- and it won't happen for a very long time because of the converging mechanisms that took place over the past 100 years.
Places where technological innovation and development happen have existed long before the internet and semiconductors. The industrial revolution didn't originate or center around the Bay Area.
> The makeup of tech companies employees doesn't remotely tell the full story...
What? You made the argument that Bay Area has some kind of special access to tech talent because of Stanford - I simply pointed out that the vast majority of Bay Area tech employees are not from Stanford (not to mention many Stanford alums leave California).
> UC system, Stanford, and other universities in CA through research that feed into SV as the leading tech hub that cannot be replicated
Really? MIT, Harvard, Yale, Georgia Tech, Waterloo don't exist?
> I mean hell, 4 UC alum won nobel prizes this year alone, one of which was the chief scientist at Google's quantum AI.
And several google/deepmind employees from/educated in UK won a nobel prize in 2024... what's your point?
> Kind of a boring insight.
Nah, the same old 'bay area cause bay area' insight is what's boring.
It was more true (but still very boring) 10 years ago, not anymore.
> Places where technological innovation and development happen have existed long before the internet and semiconductors. The industrial revolution didn't originate or center around the Bay Area.
You said tech hub. By all definitions of the term the Bay Area was the first. Nor did I say the industrial revolution originated around the Bay Area?
> What? You made the argument that Bay Area has some kind of special access to tech talent because of Stanford - I simply pointed out that the vast majority of Bay Area tech employees are not from Stanford (not to mention many Stanford alums leave California).
You tend to do this a lot. "Many Stanford alums leave California" and "talent is being outsourced at ever increasing rates". Just vague generalizations that offer nothing to the overall conversation.
I made the argument that being close to these universities gives the region a constant flow of world class engineers and researchers. This is true whether or not they work for Bay Area tech companies you understand this right? Regardless, out of the reported feeder schools into tech 5 out of the top 10 are California universities.
> MIT, Harvard, Yale, Georgia Tech, Waterloo don't exist?
You just named universities from 5 different states/regions? Please keep up.
> And several google/deepmind employees from/educated in UK won a nobel prize in 2024... what's your point?
They weren't from the same school? The UC system altogether has over 150 nobel prizes and thats before including private institutions like Stanford, Caltech, USC, and others. Thus exemplifying the unique system dedicated to research and technology consolidated in one region..
> It was more true (but still very boring) 10 years ago, not anymore.
Going to be honest man from interacting with you it seems like you have a chip on your shoulder about the bay. I don't even live there I live in LA. It shouldn't bug you to point out the objective fact that the unique confluence of geographic location, surrounding education system and research institutions, compounded wealth from prior historical industrial/technological windfalls, makes SV the premiere tech hub that is consistently on the forefront of burgeoning technologies - not by accident.
Are you also confused as to why NYC is the finance capital of the world? Do you think Toronto could usurp it one day if they just try hard enough?
> You said tech hub.
No, you said tech hub. Which is short of 'technology hub', which is not just limited to mobile apps.
> You tend to do this a lot. "Many Stanford alums leave California" and "talent is being outsourced at ever increasing rates". Just vague generalizations that offer nothing to the overall conversation.
Those aren't generalizations, those are very specific statements, which go directly against your vague generalizations ('oh but there are good universities in the area for tech talent therefore its impossible to replicate'), and which you apparently can't disagree with because they are obviously true.
> I made the argument that being close to these universities gives the region a constant flow of world class engineers and researchers.
Nope, what you said is that because these universities are located in that area - no other region could possibly compete. And I gave you very specific examples of why that's not true.
> You just named universities from 5 different states/regions? Please keep up.
Yeah.. some of the leading universities for tech talent in the world... which are not in California... (which according to you is impossible)... please keep up.
> makes SV the premiere tech hub that is consistently on the forefront of burgeoning technologies
I never said SV is not a major tech hub. I actually said the opposite. What I disagreed with is your baseless assertion that no other region could possibly compete, or that tech companies have to be in SV to succeeded (which is obviously false, and which I see you shifting the goalposts on now)
> Are you also confused as to why NYC is the finance capital of the world?
Maybe you should rewind to back when NYC wasn't a major finance hub, then apply your same reasoning - 'NYC couldn't possibly become a finance hub, because London is the finance hub'.
Your arguments are self-contradictory and not logical.
It goes back way way further than that. The special mix of government funded technology, ruthless entrepreneurship, and social engineering predates Shockley by almost 100 years.
Start by figuring out who Leland Stanford is and how he got rich. Read the book ‘Palo Alto’ if you’re looking for a good starting point.
Yeah it’s quite bold to suggest that Shockley would have done the same thing outside the environment of the Bay Area rather than that someone other than Shockley would have done what he did in California if he wasn’t there or that even if he did it outside California that people inside California still industrialize it. It’s a very individualistic view of progress which is uniquely American and unlikely to capture how stuff happens given that multiple discoveries often happen simultaneously by people working on the problem (eg calculus and Newton vs Leibniz).
The truth is the Bay Area has structural reasons why SV happened and why the same thing has failed to replicate to any significant degree outside the Bay Area.
Just borrowed thanks for the rec!
Yep, I would highly recommend reading the Secret History of Silicon Valley for those that are interested: https://steveblank.com/secret-history/
Shockley Semi was founded 16 years after Hewlett Packard, so you have to keep reaching backwards.
Not entirely by coincidence. Yes Shockley was from CA, but as late as the 1980, two places were competing to be the center: Boston's Route 128 ("America's Technology Highway") or Silicon Valley.
Silicon Valley won out because the CA constitution explicitly prohibits non-competes (which MA allows), leading to more rapid innovation. Very likely the infamous Traitorous Eight who left Shockley Semiconductor to found Fairchild could not have done that if noncompetes could be enforced.
Non-competes are one aspect, absolutely. However that's can't be the whole story because that applies to all of California and it's a decently sized state, with a lot of other areas. Any part of the southern California basin, San Diego, and Sacramento. If we include smaller areas (because silicon valley was once just apple orchards, that list gets longer.
> There's books written
Which?
except developing AI is very much a knowledge exercise with very little dependency on location.
You don't move your manufacturing business out of Shenzhen because the entire hard supply chain from mining, refining, manufacturing, test, ship and trade are all there. You can't move a refinery that easily much less the entire supply chain.
Sure, but most of the country’s AI talent is concentrated there. Not to mention venture capital.
What’s the advantage of moving? Maybe lower taxes and a cheaper rent.
That seems like a small price to pay compared to the hundreds of billions they’re putting into data centers.
They're concentrated there because they've been asked to concentrate there. That can change on a dime.
It's not like data centers are mainly in SF.
You've got it backwards.
Well paid engineers congregate in California because it's a nice place to live if you can afford it.
Therefore if you want to hire the best engineers, and want an in-office work culture, you need to go to California.
Well paid engineers congregate in CA because that's where the companies that hire well paid engineers congregate, and they (mostly) want those well paid engineers to come to the office every couple of days. I don't know how you could get the causality so completely backwards on this.
Depends on the type of engineer - NYC for fintech is also a top spot, Boston for robotics, etc...
Anecdotal evidence: I moved to CA twice as an engineer.
Once to get my masters after college. Stayed for 13 years. Left during COVID.
Second time to raise kids.
Our reasons include weather, intellectual atmosphere, safety (in many regards), schools, and job opportunities.
The geo area sandwiched between Berkeley and Stanford is only rivaled by Boston. You think Stanford and Berkeley are in the Bay because they’re told to?
And I would also question: what’s the point of living in US if you’re not in California? Once you decide to not live in CA, a bunch of other countries rank better than other US states. Such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand.
If I were to not live in CA, even the imperial units would quickly become annoying.
How many other places, inside and outside the U.S., have you lived?
I think you're wrong. The concentration is for a host of reasons. Witness the large number of cities and countries that have tried to create a local Silicon Valley competitor unsuccessfully over the last 25 years.
The data centers I think prove this point, and disprove yours -- huge spend has gone into data centers, but places like Wenatchee remain stubbornly not Silicon Valley.
Intel has not made Portland into SV. Austin, while a tech hub and one of the US supply chain centers for hardware, is multiple orders of magnitude less productive than SV for tech startups. Productive as in numbers of unicorns, total value creation, however you want to spin it.
> That can change on a dime.
People tried very hard to change it between 2020-2023 and utterly failed.
Cries in the number of "next Silicon Valley" in the last 30 years.
Silicon Alley, Beach, Hills, Slopes, Forest, Prairie, Bayou, Desert, Roundabout, Docks, Glen, Fen, Cape, Oasis... and that's not the complete list!
The Texas Stock Exchange launches next year and I predict we will see a lot of tech try to move to launch there given txse claim to have lower compliance and less esg needs.
> Texas Stock Exchange launches next year
The TXSE was launched by an energy magnate [1] and "is financed by institutional investors including Charles Schwab, Fortress, BlackRock, and Citadel Securities" [2]. It's a direct response to the NASDAQ and NYSE putting their feet down on carbon emissions.
Nothing about its structure requires a company be incorporated in Texas much less based there [3]--those restrictions would go against the reason it was founded.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelcy_Warren
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Stock_Exchange
[3] https://www.hunton.com/insights/legal/a-comparative-analysis...
I learned recently that Nasdaq imposes DEI on companies as a requirement of listing.
The 5th circuit struck those rules down last year.
I doubt it. The state where a company is incorporated or has its headquarters located doesn't impact where it can list shares. There are several foreign companies with no significant US operations which are listed on US stock markets just to gain access to capital.
Not to mention that the actual trading will happen in New Jersey
You know that Nasdaq isn't in Silicon Valley right? Lots of companies are based in the valley, listed in either CA or Delaware and go on to list in NYC now. There's no compelling reason for them to move to Texas.
As for the compliance thing it remains to be seen, but generally companies in low-compliance jurisdictions trade at a "fraud discount" to compensate investors for the likelihood of untoward shenanigans that would be prevented by that compliance.
Stock exchange aside, being able to build buildings without getting held of years or even decades for an endangered tree frog, and also employees being able to afford housing are kind of important to companies. Texas has its downsides, for sure, but it would be silly to pretend there aren't other reasons for companies to move there that have nothing to do with the new stock exchange.
It’s frauds all the way down
downvoted -- this is a low quality comment, and worse, it's uninformed. Texas may be lower reg than NASDAQ at launch, and it may compete for business that way, and consumers may or may not like this and may or may not benefit from it.
However, post Sarbox US is vastly more regulated than the markets that "built" Silicon Valley, and there are many costs to corporations, founders and employees of that heavier regulation -- including a radically less friendly public capital market for companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
That still doesn't explain the value of Sam Altman's pinky promise.
> doesn't explain the value of Sam Altman's pinky promise
The MOU [1] requires OpenAI "provide at least 21 days’ prior written notice to the Attorney General before consenting to: (a) a change of control of the PBC; (b) any change to the PBC mission as set out in the PBC Delaware charter; (c) any amendment to the PBC Delaware charter that would remove the NFP’s sole right, as holder of the Class N shares, to appoint PBC directors or otherwise reduces in any material respect the rights of the Class N shares; or (d) the relocation of the headquarters of the NFP or PBC outside of California" [1].
The meat appears to be in the agreements by OpenAI to not change its ownership and control structure. California's real leverage would be in re-opening this dispute, though ¶ 22 seems to water down that power somewhat. (Maybe go after the donors?)
[1] https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/Final... ¶ 19
The location you're physically sitting in doesn't really matter. Saying 'san francisco cause san francisco' is also kinda boring and meaningless.
> location you're physically sitting in doesn't really matter
Of course it does.
The benefits of proximity to business clusters [1] is well researched [2]. There is no evidence remote work has dampened that tendency; if anything, as evidenced by AI, the effect seems to have increased.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_cluster#Cluster_effec...
[2] https://www.isc.hbs.edu/competitiveness-economic-development...
You're linking to pre-covid studies, that mention some types of benefits (for specific reasons like logistics benefits for businesses relying on physical materials/goos, or physical access to people for the purposes of networking), for some kinds of industries, and also mention that these benefits are not seen for some industries.
> Sometimes cluster strategies still do not produce enough of a positive impact to be justified in certain industries.
Let's take a step back and look at the fundamentals of a tech company who's employees are remote - what are the specific benefits of having a San Francisco office?
> linking to pre-covid studies
I'm linking to studies summarising a century of work. There is no evidence Covid changed this.
Exhibit A for Covid having not changed this is the continuing supremacy of Silicon Valley (tech), Shenzhen (manufacturing) and New York (finance) as industrial clusters that others have tried to replicate (everyone, America and Miami, respectively) and failed.
> Let's take a step back and look at the fundamentals of a tech company who's employees are remote - what are the specific benefits of having a San Francisco office?
Proximity to investors. Proximity to customers. Proximity to a skilled employee pool. Proxomity to acquirers. (A lot of deals happen at cocktail parties and ski trips.)
By the way, I'm not arguing anyone needs an office. Just people physically and and proximate to the cluster.
> Exhibit A for Covid having not changed this is the continuing supremacy of Silicon Valley (tech)
You mean like when China built chatgpt 4 in a weekend and open-sourced it for giggles?
> Shenzhen (manufacturing)
..or you mean how US manufacturing 'clusters' almost completely disappeared/replaced by Chinese ones?
> Proximity to investors. Proximity to customers. Proximity to a skilled employee pool. Proxomity to acquirers.
Right, cause you have to physically pet every investor on the head to fundraise, your remote employees must be in san fran cause network latency interferes with their windows remote desktop workflow, and, for some reason, you have to be physically close to your customers when you're selling your web-only llm wrapper saas.
> You mean like when China built chatgpt 4 in a weekend and open-sourced it for giggles?
DeepSeek R1 is an amazing feat. It's not at the same level as other large frontier models from American companies, just close enough to make them sweat.
> ..or you mean how US manufacturing 'clusters' almost completely disappeared/replaced by Chinese ones?
The value of goods manufactured in the US has never been higher. US manufacturing focuses on goods at the top of the value chain: jetliners, cars, semiconductors, medical scanners, and other advanced electronics. These tend to cluster in a few places - for example, Long Beach is a hub of space and avionics manufacturing, Texas has the "Silicon Prarie," and Boeing in Everett is one of the major employers in the region. Manufacturing has disappeared as a share of GDP, but that's not because we make less stuff.
> Right, cause you have to physically pet every investor on the head to fundraise, your remote employees must be in san fran cause network latency interferes with their windows remote desktop workflow, and, for some reason, you have to be physically close to your customers when you're selling your web-only llm wrapper saas.
You sound sarcastic, but YES. You do generally have to physically be present to make deals. It is obviously theoretically possible to run a world-leading software company fully remote. Despite that, most of them are in-person at least a few days a week. If you want to take advantage of SV's easy VC money, you absolutely have to be present.
Companies are not purely about the numbers. A lot of business is imprecise and heavily dependent on things like just plain LIKING the people you're in bed with, and unfortunately there is no substitute for being in the same room as someone to make a decision like that.
> Manufacturing has disappeared as a share of GDP, but that's not because we make less stuff.
We assemble. The actual parts are largely made overseas.
Because location matters, assemblers in China are able to do better work at a much lower price, see every Chinese EV company, or Chinese drone companies.
Heck in China you can buy a competent Chinese EV motorscooter for less than a kids bicycle in America.
> We assemble. The actual parts are largely made overseas.
It really depends on the product and the supply chains involved. Lots of parts make trips through multiple countries, and even the US multiple times.
But yes, I agree that agglomeration matters a ton.
> It's not at the same level as other large frontier models from American companies
Cool story
> The value of goods manufactured in the US has never been higher... Manufacturing has disappeared as a share of GDP, but that's not because we make less stuff.
You're seriously going to try to argue how US manufacturing (which was the greatest share of global manufacturing by far) didn't decline, to support a point about how China (Shenzhen) is apparently an unreplicable manufacturing hub due to 'cluster effect'? It's funny that you don't see the contradiction. For the record, US manufacturing as a share of global manufacturing has significantly declined over the years. [0][1]
" > The United States' share of global manufacturing activity declined from 28% in 2002, following the end of the 2001 U.S. recession, to 16.5% in 2011
> China displaced the United States as the largest manufacturing country in 2010
> Manufacturing output, measured in each country's local currency adjusted for inflation, has been growing more slowly in the United States than in China, South Korea, Germany, and Mexico "
> You do generally have to physically be present to make deals.
If you need to be physically present for a meeting, you make a trip. There is absolutely zero benefit to living in close proximity to investors the rest of the time.
> It is obviously theoretically possible to run a world-leading software company fully remote.
It is obviously not just theoretically possible, and many companies do so.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_St... [1] https://www.bcg.com/press/21september2023-north-american-com...
> Cool story
I am not going to link you benchmarks or revenue numbers. You can find those yourself, if you actually care about being right.
> It's funny that you don't see the contradiction. For the record, US manufacturing as a share of global manufacturing has significantly declined over the years. [0][1]
Yes, because China is _cheap_ and _dense_ and has a billion newly-minted middle-class members. Do you expect them to import everything from the US and just ignore the vast labor pool within a few metro stops of any given factory?
> to support a point about how China (Shenzhen) is apparently an unreplicable manufacturing hub due to 'cluster effect'?
The Pearl River Delta, which Shenzen is part of, has almost 90 million people and a world-class transit system. It's across the water from Hong Kong, a global financial center, and is bordered by factory-filled cities on the other side.
Yes, that makes it nearly impossible for other places to become Shenzen. Even within China it's special.
> If you need to be physically present for a meeting, you make a trip. There is absolutely zero benefit to living in close proximity to investors the rest of the time.
Right, because if you're doing business you can get by with a single investor meeting a year, right? There's no downside in time lost, money spent, ease of access, etc.? You think there's no benefit to, say, playing tennis on weekends with your buddy from college who now works at a VC?
> You're seriously going to try to argue how US manufacturing (which was the greatest share of global manufacturing by far) didn't decline
Why the hell does it matter what percentage of global manufacturing is done in the US? You cannot ask the average American (one of the wealthiest people in the world) to work in a sweatshop making T-shirts. You cannot ask the average American to work for minimum wage tightening screws in iPhones.
You can, as it turns out, ask them to work a robotic assembly line to build a car or weld on a jetliner - because you can pay them much more, and because there are enough of them in an area to run a factory. Aggregation benefits are even more important for manufacturing than they are for software.
> Yes, that makes it nearly impossible for other places to become Shenzen. Even within China it's special.
You're skipping n = 1 and jumping straight to k. How did modern Shenzen become what it is? Through specific reasons like infrastructure investment, or because it was always a 'manufacturing cluster'? By your logic Shenzen must have been the manufacturing hub of the world since before the dawn of time... since it's 'impossible for any place to become Shenzen'.
> Right, because if you're doing business you can get by with a single investor meeting a year, right?
Because the only way to meet and communicate in 2025 is in person?
> There's no downside in time lost, money spent, ease of access, etc.?
All of these are better remote/digitally in most cases.
> You're skipping n = 1 and jumping straight to k. How did modern Shenzen become what it is? Through specific reasons like infrastructure investment, or because it was always a 'manufacturing cluster'? By your logic Shenzen must have been the manufacturing hub of the world since before the dawn of time... since it's 'impossible for any place to become Shenzen'.
Sure, any region in a rapidly developing and very dense country, with a large preexisting financial hub nearby, 50 years ago, could have become Shenzen. There was only one of those, and consequently there is only one Shenzen. How far back do you want me to go? Should I discuss the agglomeration effects enjoyed by the Han Dynasty?
> Because the only way to meet and communicate in 2025 is in person?
Why don't you try using that logic on someone you're convincing to give you a large sum of money and report back? The real world does not work this way, and that is why there is still only one Silicon Valley. I've made this point several times now and can point to the status quo to back it up.
> All of these are better remote/digitally in most cases.
I work partially remote. I intentionally schedule my meetings in person because I find that to be significantly better than a video call. I am definitely not alone, and for startups it is even more advantageous to physically be in the same room as the entire rest of the company.
> There was only one of those, and consequently there is only one Shenzen.
Really? There was only one rapidly developing, densely populated region with a financial hub nearby (why does the proximity of finance even matter?), in the entire world in the last 50 years (why 50 years)? Are you sure about that? (you are 100% wrong)
> I intentionally schedule my meetings in person because I find that to be significantly better than a video call.
Sounds like a you problem. Also the fact that you are 'partially remote' and you still schedule your meetings to be in person tells me: a) you do not have very many meetings b) you work with a fairly narrow scope of people who you can physically get into the same room on a regular basis.
I meet with founders, investors, tech leaders, and many various stakeholders on a regular basis. It would be absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to have these meetings in person.
> for startups it is even more advantageous to physically be in the same room as the entire rest of the company.
If you say so, but the record number of fully remote startups that keep popping up at ever increasing rates says the opposite.
> Why don't you try using that logic on someone you're convincing to give you a large sum of money and report back?
Been there done that. If you need to meet in person to make final agreements/sign you can travel. Vast majority of communications/negotiations around fundraising and related happens digitally today.
> There was only one rapidly developing, densely populated region with a financial hub nearby (why does the proximity of finance even matter?
Because if you want to build factories you need capital. This is not rocket science. Much easier to get a loan when there are a billion bankers across the bridge.
Yes, there was only one place with all the ingredients to become Shenzen. Believe it or not, global financial centers are not commonly found in developing countries. Why don't you propose some alternatives, I'll wait.
> Sounds like a you problem. Also the fact that you are 'partially remote' and you still schedule your meetings to be in person tells me: a) you do not have very many meetings b) you work with a fairly narrow scope of people who you can physically get into the same room on a regular basis.
I have plenty of meetings, and I don't know what you're smoking if you think that more than a large conference room's worth of people could all participate in a meeting. Neither of these disqualifies what I'm saying.
> If you say so, but the record number of fully remote startups that keep popping up at ever increasing rates says the opposite.
And how many of these are becoming wildly successful, compared to in-person companies located in desirable cities?
> Vast majority of communications/negotiations around fundraising and related happens digitally today.
[citation needed]
Also it doesn't count if the numbers get worked out over email but the handshake was in person.
> You mean like when China built chatgpt 4 in a weekend and open-sourced it for giggles?
Link?
It's hyperbole, but they're referring to Deepseek-r1.
This is the opposite of true. It's actively wrong. Location is almost everything; people move to financial and tech centers for a reason -- it matters where you are and who you know.
nah
also, where you are and who you know are very different things
> where you are and who you know are very different things
Different but related. Getting a purposeful introduction involves a lot more friction than being invited to someone's home for dinner with their colleagues and contacts.
You seem to assume dinner parties and in-person social engineering is the key to success.
I guess I have a different opinion - the tech, the product, the efficiency is the key to success.
This is so funny to imply that you (living in East Jesus, Texas) have a better or similar opportunity to me (living in SF) in making more relationships and connections to AI related companies, engineers, investors, customers, acquirers, scientists, etc.
I live a lot further from SF than Texas, yet I've been working fully remote for SF tech companies (among others) for 10+ years.
If I need to meet someone in person, I make a trip (~few times a year)
It's true that I can't brownnose/service random tech talking heads in person on a daily basis tho, which is what I assume you mean by 'relationships and connections' lmao
Okay so what you're doing is contradicting the objective advantages/benefits of living near the epicenter of a specific industry with a purely anecdotal example of 10+ years experience in jobs from said epicenter, with the expendable income to travel (domestic/international) for in-person meetings, then defining networking to a disingenuously generalization because it reinforces your opinion.
What if I were to tell you that you can make meaningful relationships and connections w/o "brown nosing/servicing" and its easier to do so in the center of a specific industry?
I'm giving you a specific example of why it's not necessary to be in any particular location to work in tech, or network, collaborate, communicate with other tech people.
Directly contradicting your baseless assertion about how you have to be in SF for those reasons.
Literally a specific, physical example and you're talking about 'defining networking to a disingenuously generalization' ...
You are disingenuous.