Pragmatic Thoughts on a SF Homebase for Startups in 2025
San Francisco used to be the home for all technology, but over the past ~5 years that has quickly changed. I’ve been traveling a lot this year, going where work takes me (several times a month), and for whatever reason I’ve had few reasons to go back to SF, many to travel to NYC, and a few to travel to a few other places in the country.
To me this represents a shift in the geography in tech where SF used to be “the center“ but now it’s just the “fundraising center“ and the rest of the country is where everyone who’s not a VC or CEO raising money lives.
There are a few reasons for this I’ll list (imho):
The remote work genie can’t be put back in the bottle. The best standard we’re going to get are periodic in-person sprint weeks for companies. It’s impossible to mandate a true return to office for senior folks
SF has a very high what I like to call “crime tax“ - which is net effective represented in literal taxes and then implicitly represented in the weekly assaults of founders and employees in the city - resulting in fear, harder recruiting etc etc.
It’s one of the lowest quality of living places in the country with one of the highest costs
I think given this, there’s a reasonable argument for basing startups elsewhere while having CEOs opt to hop on planes more often to find the networks they need for fundraising and BD. I’ve been working with folks in the “middle“ as well as on the east coast that seem to be executing better with happier teams.
What this means for SF (and california generally), I’m not sure. My only thought is that with how mobile most folks are there’s still a lot of risk of collapse of the tax base where the people who have money just move to friendlier metros with law and order and better policies.