From: Rich Aberman 

Date: April 25, 2011 2:45:03 PM EDT

To: Scott Kirsner

Cc: Bill Clerico 

Subject: Re: 2 quick questions...

Hey Scott,

Good to hear from you. Answers below:

- Did you think at all about taxes, cost of living, or traffic at all before you moved out to San Francisco (IE, the traditional things that urban economists think matter to people in deciding where they will live or start businesses)?

Not at all. It's like asking somebody who's starving whether they think about the quality of the meat before they kill the cow. For early stage entrepreneurs, it's all about reaching the next step. It's binary, and you do whatever it takes to get there. The focus is 100% on the immediate goal (launching a product and raising money), so you don't even think about those other factors - if you can increase your chances of reaching that immediate next step by 1%, it's worth compromising a ton on almost all of those smaller, later concerns.

Two caveats: I'm sure it's different for later stage companies (that will move offices/cities to save on payroll taxes, etc.); Second, we live in Palo Alto, not San Francisco (where the parking and taxes are a lot worse). 

You can always find inexpensive housing, regardless of the city (I am paying less now than I was when I lived in Boston - but again, im in Palo Alto, not SF).

- How would you compare the "coolness" or energy of the SF scene to Boston? Any moments or anecdotes that float to the surface for you?

In SF, the entrepreneurs are the celebrities. Kevin Rose, Jack Dorsey, Dave Morin, Zuckerberg, etc. - these guys are rockstars. People think they are actually cool. Now compare that to the hot entrepreneurs in Boston - we (you and I) think they are cool people, but they are not part of the general (outside of entrepreneurial circles) in-crowd. They can't cut the line at bars. 

In SV, nobody questions a stanford graduate starting a company (regardless of whether it's a CS undergrad, or GSB student). It's a standard and expected career path. I don't think it's like that in Boston (even at MIT it's not nearly as extreme). 

In Boston, most of my friends were lawyers, accountants, bankers, med students. Here, they are all founders or early stage employees. Almost every one of them. I have a friend that lives in a house with 3 other people - they are all running separate venture-backed startups.  It's so hard to hire in Silicon Valley because everybody wants to be a driver - nobody wants to be a passenger. 

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Rich

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