Top 10 Amazing Things about Silicon Valley
I have been vocal on this blog and in my book about many of the things I dislike about Silicon Valley. While I don’t apologize for those critiques and will continue to make them, I’m not always as quick to point out the things that are incredible about this place. Despite my criticisms, the Bay Area is my home now, and I never intend to leave. It’s possible to love something and still want to improve it. In fact, I feel that way about my entire country.
I’m a transplant to the Bay Area. I grew up in Wisconsin, went to college in Chicago and lived in Washington DC after graduation. Like a lot of people, I moved here as part of a mass migration leading up to the late 90s dot-com boom. That was hardly the first wave of relocation to the Bay Area. Going back to the 49ers, the defining quality of San Francisco is that people have always been drawn here seeking opportunity. This pattern of self-selecting risk takers, repeated generation after generation, has created a pretty incredible and unique culture.
I’m in the process of starting another company, so I’m more acutely aware than usual of all the things that make the Bay Area special. So as homage to the place I’ve called home for 25 years, here is my top 10 list of what makes the Bay Area so great, particularly for startups:
10. Access to capital — I’ll start with an obvious observation: Silicon Valley is the undisputed epicenter of venture capital. No place else comes close. From angel investments to private equity buy-outs, every stage of venture investing is represented here with deep pockets, deep networks and deep expertise beyond the capital itself.
9. Acceptance of newcomers — In a city of transplants, nobody shuns a transplant. Whether you’re from Paris, France or Paris, Texas, you can fit right in to the Bay Area. You’ll be judged on the merit of your ideas and your hard work, not the origin of your upbringing.
8. Resources for startups — Hands down, there is no place in the world that makes starting a company easier than in the Bay Area. There’s an entire ecosystem devoted to helping startup companies get off the ground - from co-lo office space at incubators to consultants who can handle everything from accounting to HR. These administrative chores suck your time as an entrepreneur, but they’re as easy as ordering take-out on your phone here.
7. Embracing of diversity — Tech companies have taken heat for a lack of diversity, particularly within engineering organizations which often skew heavily male. There will always be room to improve. But, overall, Silicon Valley companies are incredibly diverse — further they explicitly value and seek diversity. Bay Area companies recognize diversity as a strength and actively promote it. See point #9.
6. Room to fail — This aspect of Bay Area culture is perhaps one if its most unique. If you’ve founded a company and it has failed, that experience doesn’t carry the stigma that it does other places. More often than not, investors and future employers value the lessons you've learned from those failures, and recognize that it makes you better for your next endeavor.
5. People actually help you — It’s amazing to me, but there’s a huge willingness to pay it forward in the Bay Area. Maybe it’s the recognition that we’re all in jobs for an average of about a year and a half and that the shoe may be on the other foot sooner than we think. But, more often than not, people are willing to help - to make introductions, to offer advice, to recommend hires. I appreciate it every day and am always looking for chances to help others, with no strings attached.
4. Crazy-good talent — Hiring in the Bay Area may be expensive, but the talent level is un-rivaled. From the quality of our universities to the experience garnered working here, truly the best and brightest in their respective fields live right here. That access to expertise is critical to the success of so many Bay Area startups — even when it is supplemented with distributed teams and remote offices, a trend that will no doubt continue as salaries, housing expenses, and overall cost of living continue their inexorable rise.
3. Continuous change — The Bay Area is in a constant state of flux. Nothing is allowed to fester. Buildings are renovated, companies come and go, new ideas are spawned. The change can be dizzying at times. I recently returned to a street in San Francisco I worked on only a few years ago, and it was almost unrecognizable with the proliferation of new businesses. But this culture of constant reinvention and innovation is all around us and inspires a culture of continuous improvement.
A magnolia tree on my block in full bloom…in February.
2. Risk tolerance — Another by-product of generations of people self-selecting to come to the Bay Area is a high degree of risk tolerance. After all, these are people who took the chance to come here in the first place. And it’s that risk-loving nature of the people here that drives so much entrepreneurship.
1. The weather — It’s around this time every year that I fully appreciate the weather here. When it’s 75 degrees and sunny in mid-February, it’s hard not to appreciate the best weather perhaps anywhere in the world. Sure we may have earthquakes and floods and forest fires, but it’s pretty damn near perfect the rest of the time. With the cherry blossoms and magnolias in full bloom, in obvious metaphorical significance for a budding startup, it’s easy to believe your company can change the world.