What is it like to work in Silicon Valley?

Ryan Burgess
Welcome to a brand new episode of the front end Happy Hour Podcast. I'm not sure why we haven't covered this at all yet as a topic before, but I realized it'd be fun to talk about what it's like to work and live in Silicon Valley. I know it has been an interesting world for me when I moved out here. I think it's been over 10 years now, and I know others have interesting perspectives and experiences to share. So in this episode, we are talking about what it's like to work and live in Silicon Valley. This episode is sponsored by Wix studio devs. This one's for you. I've got 30 seconds to tell you about Wix studio, the web platform for agencies and enterprises. So here are a few things you can do in 30 seconds or less on studio, integrate, extend and write custom scripts in a VS code based IDE, leverage zero setup, Dev, test and production environments, ship faster with an AI code assistant, and work with Wix headless APIs on any tech stack. Time's up, but the list keeps on going. Step into Wix studio and see for yourself. Before we dive into the topic, let's give introductions of today's panelists. Stacey. You want to start it off? Sure?

Stacy London
I'm Stacy London. I'm a principal front end engineer at Atlassian

Jem Young
gem. Jem Young, engineering manager at Netflix.

Ryan Burgess
Hi, gustas,

Augustus Yuan
hi. My name is gusta I'm

Ryan Burgess
an ex software engineer at Twitch, and I'm Ryan Burgess, the host of front end happy hour.

Augustus Yuan
All right,

Ryan Burgess
let's start. I'm curious for all of you, what was your first impression when you stepped foot into Silicon Valley, when you arrived? What was the biggest surprise for you?

Stacy London
I came out here for, like, a trip once before we moved out here for my for my job at Atlassian, or to San Francisco. Specifically, I came out like a year or two before for a conference. I think that's actually where I met Ryan and Jem, and I'm trying to remember, yeah, it was, it was such a long time ago, but came out for the conference. And I guess one thing that totally struck me that was just weird about this place is I would go like, you go out to dinner, or you go anywhere, and inevitably you would hear someone talking about tech around you, which was so, so different than moved out here from from Wisconsin, which has just a mix of a lot of different, you know, people and jobs. And so it's just the concentration of people in tech around here, where you just happen to overhear constant talking about venture capital investment and blah, blah, blah, like you just, you couldn't help but hear that everywhere you go. And it was I just, I found it very weird, almost like, not necessarily off putting, but just very strange. It was a new experience.

Ryan Burgess
I remember that Stacy your trip there, because I think I had just that year, moved to Silicon Valley at that time, like I'd moved out to the Bay Area. And, yeah, we did meet at a conference, and I think it was Ryan anklem that had introduced us both. I think I just met Ryan at that same time. But yeah, I remember we even went to like, you know, happy hour and things like that after the conference, and it's a different world. I think that was within my first few months being in Silicon Valley, and I know exactly what you're talking about. So

Augustus Yuan
my experience before Silicon Valley, like I was still in school, but my first job was a student web developer at the University of Washington. So, very, very, very old stack, and not as Silicon Valley us. You know, we were, we weren't even on Git. We were on, like, subversion for version control, SBN for version control. It was like, very heavy PHP stack. And then also, like, just thinking of what working was like. My family's very into the finance industry, so when I came here, just like, it's very like crazy to see some of the offices that employers had like, when I came to feel like on sites and stuff, it was just like, felt like a playground, almost like it's just so surreal to see like, so much investment put into providing, like, an environment for someone to I don't know Well, I later understood it was to make the workplace feel fun, so that you freaking live there as much as you can, or something like that. But like that, that was, like a huge shock for me, because I've never seen that. Yeah. I

Ryan Burgess
mean, Augustus, like, think about our days at Evernote too. Like there was, I mean, the office was beautiful, and we had some really great things, like, I mean, I remember you making some pretty good lattes and things at the coffee machine, because it was like, we're spoiled. We got like, training on that. But then even, like, there's like, ping pong and and things like that, it's just like, is it? Do. Different world, where you're like, yeah, no, that's like, built into your work life, where there's things to do and kind of keep you there maybe longer. But I like to think in the positive manner on it, where I'm like, it just gives you ability to free up your mind, but also build up, like, relationships with your team and colleagues. But I think it also has a negative aspect where it's, like, it keeps you there longer at that the job, yeah,

Stacy London
I guess this was the office thing. I think one thing I struck me immediately too, is you going to the various offices, and a lot of them would have, like, full on bars with, like, top shelf stuff, and like, the alcohol culture was very weird. You know, like in in Wisconsin, it's like, yeah, people would go to happy hours and stuff. But like in the office, having a bar with like that is super Not a thing. And so like coming out here that was very weird to me, to see people like hanging out at work and drinking, it was like, what is happening? That's a good

Ryan Burgess
point. Because, like, I feel like I've been at offices where there's, like, kegs on tap and things like that. But then there's even been, like, places like Dropbox, I'll never forget where they had like, full on bartenders and, like, chefs and everything. And I mean, granted, there's, that's not just Dropbox. There's many companies like that, but that was my first taste of that where I was like, wow, this is like, a full on party that's happening, and you got served very well. You're right. Like, it wasn't cheap alcohol that you were drinking.

Jem Young
My impressions were a little different, I think, because I was coming from New York, which has its own tech culture and startup culture. So some of that was kind of familiar like to going out drinking and having fun and partying and all that from I think any startup anywhere kind of has the same, same culture. Some of my first impressions getting here were, I wasn't really impressed, because I think I ended up in San Mateo, which is not really a very scenic place to be. It doesn't feel very techy. It just feels like urban sprawl more. And anybody's been to San Mateo knows that is what I'm talking about. There. There's

Ryan Burgess
some good restaurants there. Jeff, there is.

Jem Young
I remember driving down one on one and thinking like, oh, wow, there's Evernote. Oh wow, there's Dropbox. And like, seeing the names of companies that you've heard of, and you're just like, casually passing them by. And I thought that was a really cool first impression of just, you know, all the companies and software that we use that you hear of, there they are. They're all right. Here people are working. And seeing the buildings is pretty cool. And then just randomly driving around San Francisco, you'll just Francisco, you'll just see just offices everywhere, like, Oh, wow. Like, uh, driving off in barcadero in San Francisco, you'll see Mozilla just right there, um, just casually passing by. And then there's Google right there. So I always thought that was pretty cool. It just depends on where you end up in, in Silicon Valley, on maybe your first impressions jump.

Stacy London
That was something else I remember too. Is seeing all the billboards around that were all tech focused. It was just like, does your AI need a split up? You know, just like you're reading them, you're like, what? Only if you were in tech, and only if you were very deep in tech, would you even understand what the billboards were saying, Oh,

Ryan Burgess
they're terrible, Stacy, yeah, like, they're, they're like, they're so far removed from anyone. It's like, you have to be deep level into that technology to even be like, Oh, I get that ad. It's either a

Augustus Yuan
tech billboard or it's the Shen Yun. What is it like, the guy like that. Like, I don't know why I see that billboard, like, all the time. Like,

Ryan Burgess
gem was the first time you were in Silicon Valley. Was it for your interview at Netflix? Or, like, when you mentioned that you were in San Mateo? What was that for? Yeah,

Jem Young
it was a interview for a company. It wasn't Netflix at the time. It was pre, pre Netflix. It was one of those. I had two. I ended up with two offers. One was in San Francisco and one was in New York. And I went with the New York one at the time. I think part of it was San Mateo. Wasn't that impressive. But also New York's a fantastic place to be when you're young and single and making money. So probably more so than San Francisco, in my opinion. So yeah, but eventually I ended up here a couple years. I

Ryan Burgess
mean, I don't disagree with you. I mean, I think, like, when I first moved out to Silicon Valley, San Mateo is where I landed for the first like, it was only a few months, but it was like, that's where I ended up, and that's why I like joke and say, like, I'm like, there's some decent restaurants, but yeah, it's like, you get it gets old quick where I'm like, Yeah, I want to be in a city. And that's what led me to at least move to San Francisco at the time, I'd be curious to know, how does the work culture of. Silicon Valley differ from other places that you all have worked.

Augustus Yuan
This might just be me, but I feel like there's this extra feeling of hustling that's that happens like, and I don't know, like, sometimes I'm trying not to confuse it with like, extreme passion to like, deliver something, but it's people are just so like, you know, maybe Passion, Passion is the right word. Like, people are just so passionate to get stuff done, get stuff shipped. And, you know, especially like when Silicon Valley was first born, the whole motto that meta Facebook created, like, move fast, bake, break things like, I feel like everyone kind of resonated and made that like the motto or something, and they really took it to heart. So they rather move quickly and figure things out, like don't work that way, rather than taking some time. So I don't know there's always, to me, it felt like there's always this kind of rush where, like, when the work culture, it's like, if something needed to get done, they try to do it as quickly as possible. And that was kind of the air that I always kind of felt. I don't know if anyone else feels that way, yeah,

Stacy London
I think one thing I noticed pretty quickly was that a lot of people, my coworkers and stuff, like a lot of people, very much intentionally chose to move here and be here to go deep in into tech, in a way that, like is rewarded, and people get excited about it. So there's this like excitement surrounding you with, you know, what you're working on in the tech. And I'm trying to, trying to feel like what was different, I guess, just that you use the word passion Augustus, but people kind of, I mean, a lot of people here wrap their identities around tech and being excellent at their career and really deep in it, and spending maybe time outside of work, doing like they're really, really wrapped up in it. And good and bad, right? Like that can be, like, bad for people, but it also can be good, like, so for me, the good part about that was just, I was working with people who are excited about JavaScript, and we could have really awesome conversations about JavaScript that I sometimes couldn't find, you know, in some of my other jobs where they weren't, it wasn't software companies that I was working for primarily. And so, like, you'd find some people that were excited, but, like, it was just a different people's job. Had a job for different reasons.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, what I liked about it, I think it's a double edged sword, I'll say. But what I liked about it, too, when I kind of moved out here, was having people like you would go for coffee and you'd overhear people talking about like, JavaScript or the latest react framework or whatever it was. And in some ways, I'm like, Oh, that's so cool. Like, you can kind of get excited about being immersed in that. And then there's times where I'm like, Yeah, I just want to get my coffee. Like, I don't want to talk about the latest, you know, framework, and what that has to do with the implications of the web. But I think in some ways, I've thoroughly enjoyed it at the start. I don't know, there's times where I'm like, I just want to disconnect and not want to hear about it. But then there's times where I'm like, Yeah, I love that. I can just walk into a coffee shop and I kind of overhear people talking about AI or, you know, whatever the latest and greatest thing is. And it's kind of cool to overhear that, but at the same time, sometimes you need a break, so it is the double edged sword. Sorry.

Augustus Yuan
Okay, this actually reminds me. I went on a hike recently, and there's this family behind me speaking a completely different language. I don't even know what the language was, but I could just hear certain phrases that I guess didn't have a translation, like transformer or like vector. And I'm like, these guys are talking about AI, like, I don't even know the language, but I know that's amazing. I know those two keywords

Stacy London
because I can't stand sometimes hiking around here because, like, shut up about tech. Like, just enjoy some trees and some fresh air. Like, shut up about it. That's exactly, yeah, that's so funny.

Augustus Yuan
That's exactly what I was thinking. Like, I actually we purposely went on that hike to kind of unplug, you know, like, get away from that. And just hearing that, I was, like, just laughing in my head, like, I'm like, 99.9%

Jem Young
sure that's Stacy to your to your point on people's identity are wrapped up in kind of what they do and where they work. That's so true, which is good, I think when you're young and passionate and you're like, Yeah, we're changing the world with my Uber for cats idea, it's gonna be revolutionary. And like, no matter what, you can't talk them out of that. And that's, that's cool. I think it's, it's good to be that passionate. I think we're all there. But over time, I think I have grown tired of. Of that as like, the yardstick for like, your value as an individual was always like, Oh, where do you work? Every like, every party or social interaction was like, Oh, hey, what do you do for a living? And I was like, what? For a while? I was like, Oh, that's cool. Like, I work at Netflix and people like, whoa. And I was like, Yeah, but over time, it just becomes kind of empty. And, you know, I'd rather meet people who have other pursuits and like, Oh, you just happen to work in tech. Cool. Yeah, that's cool. Me too. So now, when people ask what I do, I was like, I work in tech. That's it. And I think there's a big difference in different areas around the Bay Area. So there, the main areas are kind of San Francisco, the peninsula, going all the way down the San Jose, then you have the East Bay. I live in the East Bay, and it's refreshing to live here, because nobody cares where you work, like nobody gives a flying crap about what tech company you work at. And people are, like, much more authentic here in San Francisco. That's not usually the vibe. It's always like, Oh, where do you work? What kind of car are you driving? So I'll say that for the Bay Area, there's something for everybody. And that's something I do love in Silicon Valley, is like, there's probably a town out there that has a little bit of something for you, if you like more woodsy, there's there's towns for that. If you want to live in the city, there's towns for that. You want to live by the beach, there's towns for that too. And that's something that, when I first moved here, everybody's like, the weather, the weather. And I was like, How good can the weather be? Oh, man, I would never I, I would not trade Silicon Valley weather for anything. It is incredible. People that have never lived here, you don't know what you're missing. It's great all year round.

Ryan Burgess
like, amazing in a sense, because it's not like, so hot that it's unbearable, but it's not so cold, like it's this perfect balance. I agree with you, gem. I feel like

Augustus Yuan
that kind of goes into the whole hustling, like you're always networking, like people just constantly like, Oh, where do you work? Oh, you work for a big tech company. Let's be friends, kind of thing. I can attest with gem, also living in the East Bay Lake, people don't really care where you work, and I prefer that so much more. It's like, yeah, like, you know, get to know someone for who they are, you know, not, not their job or their title or something like

Ryan Burgess
that. I'd be curious, though, because all of us kind of Augustus, I think you kind of like we're in this world a little bit and already for your career, but I would say for gem Stacy and myself, we all moved into Silicon Valley. And how did being in Silicon Valley affect your career? Positive or negative? Positive

Stacy London
for sure. Just a ton of doors opened, like as soon as I put a company that people recognized on my resume and where I was, you know, the LinkedIn recruiting stream started flowing in. And it does. It was not flowing in like that before. So that was very noticeable. So I guess in that way, you know, we're talking about name dropping, but I guess like that, that for some recruiters, you know, that immediately makes you more valuable somehow, because you've got this, this recognizable name on your resume. So it opened a lot more doors where people are reaching out to me, to, like, talk to them, as opposed to just, like, applying to places that you you want to

Augustus Yuan
for me specifically, like, I feel pretty fortunate, you know, because I don't know what was before, other than maybe University of Washington student web developer, but I'll say that, like, from a growth perspective, I feel being in Silicon Valley like hyper, hyper grew me to some extent, because, and that's kind of like on me or you as an individual too, like, it's just being in an environment where there's so many tech companies, like all those tech talks that companies sometimes do, like, I know net, I think Ryan, maybe you even ran them, like, there's these Netflix talks where they talked about, there's just this like culture of sharing information that tech companies have, and if you make the effort to go to them, I feel like you learn so much, and you just have a great environment to, dare I say, network with every to network with others, get to know people you know. And I think that really helped me grow like both as an individual and in my career, because I just get so much exposure. And I don't think I would get that like working somewhere else, necessarily.

Ryan Burgess
I like that. You call that out Augustus like I think that networking is important wherever you are. It truly is. I think it time and time again. I think it's so important to spend a little bit of time networking. I don't know what that looks like for everybody. It varies. It really, truly does. But in some way, shape or form, networking is important. And I think when being in Silicon Valley, I think there's a lot of opportunities to really go to a networking event almost every single night, and maybe. That's like, better, worse, me saying that, but like, there is absolutely a lot of opportunities to go to, like, Jem said, like going down Embarcadero, and you're like, Oh, there's the Mozilla office. Well, Mozilla would have different meetups, and you could go and listen to some amazing talks and get free pizza, and, you know, drinks and all the fun stuff. And I think that in itself, was kind of cool, like I would say, when I first moved out here, I attended a lot of various meetups and networking events, and I loved it. I was like, holy shit. I am talking with some amazing folks really understanding what they're doing, what the types of things that they're trying to solve, and I love that aspect of it, then the same side of is like, eventually I'm like, Okay, I've, I've gone to a bunch of these, you know, they're all kind of the same, but at the same time, I'm like, it's kind of cool to have that opportunity to just really go and interact with people, to talk about the problems and challenges that they're dealing with, that you're probably dealing with as well.

Jem Young
It's helpful to be around here, I think for your career. It was something we debated during the pandemic, when a lot of people were moving away. Me and my partner had that discussion, which was like, Should we move too? And the conclusion we came to was, nah. The fact is, the offices are here, and the people that make decisions live here, so there's always gonna be some element of remote work, which is a good thing. But I think, as we see now, looking back four years in, we see return to office and things like that. It was a good call to say here, because that's kind of, I see more and more of those requirements, but overall it is some job security knowing, you know, I can just leave and go get another job somewhere else. Granted, the market's very different than when it was all those years ago. But still, all the companies are here, and I now know plenty of people, so there's definitely an influence from being here and just kind of getting out and about, being social and knowing people, you feel a little bit better about your job, job prospects.

Ryan Burgess
What about company cultures, working in companies in other areas of the US or like I was in Canada before moving to Silicon Valley. What are you all feeling about like, how does it feel differ between company culture in Silicon Valley versus other places that you've worked? It's kind

Stacy London
of a tough one, because for me, I've worked at Atlassian the whole time that I've lived in San Francisco. And Atlassian is it was founded in Australia and headquartered in Sydney. And so these offices are, you know, opened up later, and so that the culture was coming from Australia. So I think that just made it a little bit different. Like, I don't think the culture totally matched a lot of the like Silicon Valley stereotypes or tropes. It in some ways, yes, but a lot of ways, I think it was different. I don't know that I've had, like, the I don't know the standard, like, culture of Silicon Valley. I don't think I've worked in it truly.

Ryan Burgess
What is the standard?

Augustus Yuan
Though, I'm

Ryan Burgess
like, I don't know. Even as you say that, Mike, I'm like, what is it? I'm like, I agree with all the things you're saying, Stacy, but I'm like, yeah, what is that, quote, unquote, like, standard Silicon Valley culture, I don't

Stacy London
know. I mean, like, the show Silicon Valley, right? Like, there's the, like, a lot of stuff in that show that it's, you know, trying to make fun of, you know, the culture, some of it's pretty based off of

Augustus Yuan
truth. Oh, it totally is. We

Ryan Burgess
may not have Kid Rock presenting at our, like, you know, conferences, but there's definitely times where I'm like, well, Evernote, I remember, I can't remember. I think Augustus, were you there? When, like, MC Hammer was there? You know, it's like, there, there's absolutely plays into the fact that, like, that kind of shit happens. But it's, it is different, like, it's, it's not fully, or at least, I don't picture it as exactly though it's portrayed, yeah,

Stacy London
like there was never, like, what was some like, work event where there were strippers. It's like that. Thank God for me. And like, like, thankfully. Oh my.

Ryan Burgess
I mean, come on, Augustus. Like, some of the, some of the Silicon Valley companies have definitely, you know, opened her eyes to things like, they've

Stacy London
made the news. Yes,

Ryan Burgess
Stacy, that's a good way to put it. They have made the news.

Augustus Yuan
Yes, I wasn't surprised about it, but that Stacy may have experienced it. That's why I had big I was like, Oh my No, she can't stop Yeah,

Stacy London
I have not experienced that, thankfully.

Augustus Yuan
Great. Point, yeah, Augustus,

Ryan Burgess
what do you guys think culture wise?

Augustus Yuan
I guess there's two things kind of related to the hustling thing. It's like, you know, people don't mind working more than the typical nine to five. In fact, they sometimes love it. Maybe that's partly because the office is amazing. Has better furniture than your own place or something like that, and people just love to work there non stop, which is totally, you know, I honestly it's up to you, but hopefully, like you can respect others about other people's boundaries. I think that's like, what's more important, if you want to do it, go for it, right? That's like, one distinction that I noticed, like my old manager in Seattle, like, five hits done, you know, like, I'm out of here. One thing that shocked some of my family is, I guess, the tenure, the typical tenure. I don't know if this is like, culture specific, but it's like, it's pretty common for people to, like, hop around and like, that's okay. I think that's like a big shock to other industries. Like, I remember when I first got a job, my dad's like, Oh, son, you're gonna probably be there for 10 years, 20, if you're, you know, if you really committed, but at least 10. And I remember, like, while I was Evernote, like, I had a recruiter call me, he's like, wow, Augustus, I see you've been there for a really long time, two to three years. That's that's a long time. Like, is it? Is it a long time? And I don't know if this, what this recruiter said was true, but this recruiter told me, like, the average tenure he saw sometimes was like, six months. He saw people hop a lot. I was like, I don't know how true that is, but that, okay, maybe that one's a

Ryan Burgess
little I think the like, I think it's usually the two year marker. Like, it's like, you know, one and a half two years is like that. That's the marker where it's like, people are leaving at that point. But I agree with you, Augustus, where I feel like my parents have said the same thing, where they're like, oh, around a bunch and it's like, yeah, because you know why I get increases in compensation for leaving right? Like, I think it's should be rewarded for staying at a company when you know the ins and outs so much better it's but anyways, that's just not how it works, typically, so historically, actually, probably before Silicon Valley, that was more my mentality was, I jumped around every two years. I was jumping to a new company, new role being in Silicon Valley. I didn't do that as much, maybe just being at Netflix. I moved around a bunch internally, but it it's just felt like I didn't do that as much. It was just odd, because I actually think it's probably more beneficial to to jump around.

Jem Young
I'd say, uh, maybe not so much on company culture, maybe general culture. Tech is respected. It's a it's like a respected field to be in which other other places I've worked or have visited, that's not necessarily the case where, like, tech or it is the cost center for the company, and they're not viewed as, like, wow, they're doing super cool stuff and working on these hard problems, whereas Here people are doing the same thing, but they're, it's well known, like, these are hard problems. They're respected for it. So it's like, oh, you're, you're assisted men at, I don't know, Bed Bath and Beyond in Ohio, people are like, cool nerd, but people say you're assistant, and you're like, oh, wow, that's really hard, like all those servers and managing the complexity. So I think that's a general change, versus maybe other parts outside of not Silicon Valley, but also include New York, maybe Austin, like other there's other tech hubs around the country where it's a bit more respected. That, to me, is like one of the bigger changes,

Ryan Burgess
that's a good call, to Jeff too. Is that, like, we keep, you know, referencing Silicon Valley, but like, there are a lot of tech hubs that popped up. It's not just the Silicon Valley area that has a lot of amazing jobs. And so that, I think is a good call up.

Stacy London
One thing I think, culturally, I noticed is just, it's very young compared to my prior jobs in the Midwest, the jobs I had the Midwest, the age range of people working were every like, all the age ranges all the way up to, like, close to retirement, you know, kind of age range. I don't see that as much here, for sure. Like, it's very young. And maybe it's because as soon as you get into different stages of life, sometimes, you know, if you, know, if you, let's say, you want to have kids and stuff, like, it's extremely expensive to have kids here, and like, purchase a home, like all that. You know, American picket, white picket fence thing. Like, it's very difficult to do that here. And so maybe that contributes to that. You know, people just move somewhere else where they can afford more. You know. Know, not have to pay crazy amounts of money for school, like, all that kind of stuff. So I feel like it's very young here. I

Ryan Burgess
think that's a good call. Stacy. I was sitting there going like, Oh, is that true? But I think, like, I've still had a decent mix, but you're right. I think at a higher percentage, it probably skews a bit younger. And to, like, you said, it is the cost of living for schools and all that nonsense that goes along with having children and a family. It adds up very quickly. I think there's also just a lot more energy that goes into, like, all right, yeah. Like, I want to, like, make it big in creating this tech company, or, you know, building this thing. And I think that all goes with it, and that people often do that for a short period and then say, like, I want to get out. I want to go, like, live a different life in a maybe slower environment. Nothing bad with that, but like that might be a reason why they go to a different part of even the US. It's

Jem Young
also the the older, the more experience you have in tech, and maybe the older you get, by consequence, the the higher the drop off rate of people that are just burnt out on tech. It's a like, every everywhere has this like, I think in New York, it'd be finance. We it's for us as tech. But every industry kind of eats young people and discover, and people discover like if they're cut out for it or not. And Silicon Valley is that for tech. And a lot of people get here working for startups, maybe try to work their way into a bigger company, if that's what they want, and then they might discover it's not for them, and then they leave and do something else. So I agree. I think it does skew a little younger, but that's kind of just the consequence of a lot of things, but a lot of it's burnout, because that is part of the the hustle and grind and work culture all the time. And there's, there's plenty of those people that are maybe not the best role models for others, fair

Ryan Burgess
enough. Jem, that's that's a good call out. Uh, I'd be curious for all of you, too. I think that there's, like, pros and cons. Honestly, with anything you know, we always talk about as engineering, there's trade offs. But I think absolutely, with living in and working in Silicon Valley, there's pros and cons. I would love to hear your thoughts on, like, what are some of the pros for you all, what are some of the cons? Like, what are some of the things that you wish would change?

Augustus Yuan
I think if you are in a career in tech, there are, like, a lot of pros, like, just being here, you're in, like, an incredible environment. There's so much competition, and that kind of breeds, like, really sick, like, good success, quite honestly. So, like, there's just so much opportunity here if you are working in tech. I think one of the biggest cons, less career related, but more personal related, is, like, you know, if you want to raise a family or get a house, it's just, it's just very different, right? Like, I'll be honest, getting a house here is very, very, very expensive, and, well, I don't have kids, but I know people who have kids, and it seems, it seems kind of stressful. You know, part of that hustle mentality, talk about, it impacts the kids too. You know, like a lot of parents are very, very driven, and they push that on their kids. And I'll be honest, there's a lot of schools here that are, some of them are really good, but then they're also extremely competitive too, which I think we could do a whole episode on, quite honestly, like schools like, I just recently learned, like, how many schools you have to apply to, and, yeah, just, just to get your kid in, which is surreal to me. It's like, Oh, I thought that was a college, college thing, but I guess it's a preschool elementary school thing too. Now that that is, I'm glad you called it.

Ryan Burgess
What are these? I'm glad you called up preschool to Augustus, because, yeah, it's not, we're talking like high schools or something. It's like, literally, preschool is like, you have to apply to try and get in. Yeah, yeah.

Augustus Yuan
I don't even know what is assessed if we're a preschool kid, but I think

Jem Young
some of the pros we discussed in terms of career mobility, even just being inspired by seeing other people working on hard problems is like a really good feeling, and people that understand the things you're working on actually is pretty cool. Not. I don't know if I'd invest in that heavily, but it's a nice kind of pro. Some of the cons are the Silicon Valley, and people that live here are, we'll say, socially liberal, but fiscally conservative. And what I mean by that is, there's such a massive wealth gap in tech when, like tech is a very small percentage of people in Silicon Valley, there's still just everything else there would be in any other city. Tax may be a little overweighted, but by percentage, it's not it's not anything extraordinarily hard, like 50% of people are not working in tech or something like that. In San Francisco has the highest concentration of billionaires of anywhere in the world any city. Yet it's also a city that can't solve its homelessness problem and. That's true across San Jose, Oakland, everywhere. And, like, it doesn't make sense, like, how there's so much people making money, the median cost in in San Jose for a home is $2 million $2 million and that's the median cost. And that's true for like, two Bay Area counties too. So like, who can afford to work there. Most people don't work at Google or meta or the big companies. Most people are, you know, making regular good money, but not for the Bay Area. And that always gets me as like this just really big discrepancy in how we run, how the like, the whole, the whole area, is run. And something I really, I still struggle to rectify today, in terms of, like, we could fix this really easily. We have the money, we have the wealth, and we have the smart people to do it, yet there's just, like, a general unwillingness to solve that problem, so that those are things that give me pause. And I'd say, are cons in the Bay Area, but I will say, if you're young and you're like, I don't care about any of that. I don't have kids, I'm gonna live in a tiny apartment and hustle hard. It's a great place to live,

Ryan Burgess
I mean. And also, if you can get past all that gem, the weather is amazing.

Stacy London
Yeah, the pros, the weather thing, I guess, like, it's, I hate talking about weather. It sounds like boring person in the world, but, like, but it is huge. I one of the things that keeps me in this area, out outside of tech, is being able to explore California. It is so beautiful there. It's epically beautiful. Oceans, cliffs, redwoods, sequoias, like mountains, desert, High Plains. There's like every different ecosystem all within, like, not that far you can drive to all these different ecosystems. So even though I'm in a big city, it's very close to actually getting out and exploring and being in nature. And I I treasure that a lot, like, the ridiculous amount of rent that I spend is worth being able to do that. So, like, that's that for me is a huge Pro, which has nothing to do with tech, but, but I'm thankful tech brought me out here so that I could do that. I could experience that. And then the cons, I mean, the cons are like, I don't think we can stay here forever, because, like, even though I make the most money I've ever made my entire life, I'm I still am so fiscally conservative from my Midwestern, you know, penny pinching upbringings, that I'm, like, buying a house is fiscally irresponsible. I could not even fathom putting, you know, like, so, like, the American dream feels a little out of reach for me, even though I'm making the most money I've ever made. So that's like crazy, that sort of bonkers to me, and that's like a bit of a con. And then same thing that Jem said, it's very soul crushing to see how the disparity of wealth and what's happening with the houseless population, it's that it's hard to reconcile that and not you can't not think about it as you walk around the city.

Ryan Burgess
I think it's even mind boggling to me when I've seen like interns or new grads, and they're coming into Silicon Valley making like money that took me, like, I don't know, 10 years to make like, you know, in my career, probably more. And, you know, they're making really good money, and all the power to them, that's so cool, but it's like, not enough to even live off of, which is so sad, like they're making money that I would have just like, dreamed of, like when I first started, and they're living in apartments with like, 510 other people, like, it's crazy town. Like, it's like, what? Like, you know, they're making hundreds of 1000s of dollars, like, we're talking like, a lot of money earlier in their career. And they're like, Yeah, but I still have to share this, like, four bedroom apartment, or, like, we have, you know, multiple people sleeping in the, like, living room. That's sad. Like, I think that, to me, is like, there's something wrong. Granted, yes, you get past that as you keep getting paid more money in Silicon Valley. But like, that's the early days where people are getting paid a ton of money, like, it's not just a little bit of money, they're getting paid lots, and they're still like, you know, just kind of living it like how I'd picture me making literally nothing, and they're making quite a lot of money, and still having to live like that. And I think that, to me is it's just it feels off.

Augustus Yuan
What's shocking is, none of this surprises me. I think that's the most shocking thing. It's really, really crazy, all right.

Ryan Burgess
Well, before we dive into pics, I would love to hear some quick words of advice for someone who's maybe thinking about moving to Silicon Valley. Maybe they're applying for roles right now. So maybe they're working remotely for a Silicon Valley company, but maybe they're actually moving to Silicon Valley for their role. I'd be curious. What advice would you give them all if

Jem Young
you if you get an offer in Silicon Valley and you're looking for where to move, South San Francisco is not San Francisco. It is not the southern part of San Francisco. It is an entirely different city. It's, it's not even, I don't even think it's connected. No, it's

Augustus Yuan
not like,

Ryan Burgess
I don't think there's any way that you can get to it easily.

Jem Young
Yeah, that almost got me because I was like, Oh, wow. Rents so cheap in South San Francisco compared to San Francisco. Learn, learn your lesson. It's kind of depressing. Jem,

Ryan Burgess
you're, you're not the only one. I remember an engineer I worked with at Evernote went through that same thing like so many people have been like, well, it's cheaper and there's nothing wrong with South San Francisco, but you're not in San Francisco at all.

Jem Young
I'll add another one on there. Don't underestimate your commute. If you're like, oh, it's only 10 miles away. Oh, man, yeah. Oh, let me live by the beach in North Bay, and I have to get to, I don't know, Redwood City. Good luck with that. That's the hour and a half in the morning. One way, do not underestimate that. The traffic here is terrible. It is terrible, and we won't invest in good public transportation because people love their their houses. Yeah, I learned that lesson too.

Augustus Yuan
Yeah, I think we forgot to talk about that. But traffic here is crazy. That is a huge thing. I can't believe we that is a huge thing. Traffic here is nothing like anywhere else except maybe LA. I heard LA is pretty crazy too. LA is pretty bad.

Ryan Burgess
I've definitely suffered through that. I think LA is worse, but I still feel like the Bay Area is really bad.

Stacy London
We'll talk about weather again. Here's some advice if, if you're moving to San Francisco and you're thinking about neighborhoods, if you are a person like we talked about how the weather is beautiful and there's a lot of sunshine and it's, you know, good temperatures, it also is very foggy, depending on where you live in the city. So if you're like, trying to figure out where you want to live, and maybe you have seasonal affective disorder, or maybe you don't you want to see the sunshine more often than not, like, say, on the east side of the peninsula, not the west side, because you're going to get a lot of fog on the west side, those kind of things. There's, like, a little detail, but it can really matter. You know, if you get really bummed out by gray skies all the time. I mean,

Ryan Burgess
we have our own little app, Stacy too, that is like the, you know, it's like, it's like San Francisco has so many microclimates that it's just like, we actually have an app that it shows you what the weather is in all the different areas, because it can vary so drastically. I think that's a great piece of advice, just to feel like, especially moving to San Francisco, it's like an area can make all the difference in what that weather is, all right. Well, that's probably a good time for us to dive into pics for this episode. In each episode the front end Happy Hour podcast, we'd like to choose picks of things that we just found interesting. Want to share with all of you. Stacey, you want to start us off? Sure?

Stacy London
So one pick today. It's a song called ritual evocation by John Hopkins. It's a it's a collab. So it's like a bunch of different people. Valenia, seven rays, ish, Sharif, hashes, you may. I'm not even pronouncing any of these names, right, probably, but it's an awesome collab. The it's an album, a new album that's coming out, and it was described as like a 41 minute electronic Symphony built from cavernous subs, hypnotic drumming and transcendent, melodic interplay. It's a really great song to listen to with your headphones on, and if you want to maybe step away from tech and do a little meditation and calm yourself. It's a great song for that

Ryan Burgess
which we all need once in a while. I like that. Stacy Augustus, what do you have for us?

Augustus Yuan
Oh yes, I have two picks. One pick maybe was better in the boot camp. It's kind of related to that episode, but I think it's still relevant. Still relevant. It's from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I don't know how many people remember. There is this boot camp called lambda school that had these kind of predatory maybe predatory is not the right word, but they had these pretty misleading like promises of like helping students, like, don't pay anything, but then they take a huge cut of your salary. Well, it just so happens actually this year, in April, there's a huge hammer that got swung on them. I think the parent company is called Bloom tech, and so there's a huge win for all the graduates. Like a lot of them, all their agreements are like, not they're not being forced. Depending on when they got graduated, the companies are getting fined tremendously for for that. So it's just like, ao, not okay. And just a reminder for if you're taking on a boot camp and I really read the contract, really understand what you're getting yourself into, I'm super happy for all these people who like. Have to, like, commit. I think they had to give like, 50% of their salary for a few years after they graduated. That was, like, the agreement for a lot of these people. And so a lot of them after this, they don't have to do that. So yeah, so that's my first pick. There will be a link. You can read more about it. And then my second pick, which haven't done a front end pick for a while, or maybe we have, I don't remember, but it's deep into the so react 19 release candidates out which, if you don't know react 19 as a compiler, that's part of it now. And they actually have this thing called playground dot react dot dev that is so cool. It takes your code and shows you what the compiler does, side by side, how it transpiles Your code. It's just like, I just thought it was such a cool tool that they made for the release of it. So things worth checking out.

Ryan Burgess
Very cool. I have not seen that. That's really cool. Jim, what do you have for us this episode? Ironically,

Jem Young
I don't have any picks. I'm looking through all the things, and I think I just been working a lot, so there's nothing of interesting to share with you all. Unfortunately, gem,

Ryan Burgess
I expected Valley silicon a pick for this episode.

Jem Young
Yeah, I don't know. It's just off my game. I don't think. I think it's first time I've ever not had a pic. So all right, maybe I should rethink my life right now.

Ryan Burgess
You know that can happen though. We all go through those times where it's just like, Yeah, I've been so deep in work and like, life, and yeah, it's tough. I only have one pick for this episode, and Jem it's gonna be funny, because it's like, I was trying to pull out different picks for this episode as well. And I was like, Oh, we haven't picked the the video that you and I did where we talked about, like, going into leadership and like, what that's like, and really sharing our perspectives of what that looks like. And so I'm gonna pick that is, like our YouTube video that we had done where we had a discussion, where it was like, yeah, what does that look like? What have we experienced? You know, how do we think about leadership? I really enjoyed it. I had a blast doing it. So I hope others enjoy watching it. So I'm gonna make that my pick. So yes, Jim, I feel like I like was trying to find pics, and it was really hard this week, so I stole that one. All right. Well, thank you all for listening to our episode as always. You can find us on whatever you like to listen to, front end, Happy Hour on we, you know, available on all the things you listen to, podcasts on Ah, but we are also on YouTube at front end. HH, as well as Twitter at front end. HH, yes, it's still Twitter. It's not x. I don't know where that thing is coming from, but it is still Twitter. It will redirect to some x.com but it's still Twitter. Any last words, ding, ding. That works for me. I.