Will Lawrence

So I’m back full time-ish to the SF Bay Area.  As, often quietly, are so many leaders and execs I’ve known for years. I spent about 60% of my time since lockdown in SoCal, 30% in Palo Alto, and the rest in Misc.  It wasn’t to work at the beach, it was for family reasons.  But still, I like many of us went from someone who never felt they could leave the SF Bay, to some who well, did. The SF Bay Area is back.  It’s clearly the center of the AI Boom, even if many are based outside of it, in Paris and elsewhere.  YCombinator is having a renaissance, with 3 batches of 100s of top tier startups being hatched in Dogpatch in SF.  Most will stay.  Even top European accelerators like EF have come to SF.  Many VCs that for whatever reason left, have returned. New York is great, SoCal and Miami are great places to live and OK for tech, and certainly there are segments of SaaS and B2B where SF isn’t as compelling.  Vertical SaaS and parts of eCommerce may well be so focused on other geos, for example, it’s not worth it to be in SF Bay. But we’ll all kind of back.  At least most of us. It is different though.  That’s the subtle thing: •The SF Bay may no longer make sense for anyone that isn’t truly ambitious.  Better to find a remote job and live in a cheaper, and calmer geo. •It will take years for parts of SF to be nice again.  Some parts are great though.  But SOMA and much of the financial district are still awful.  Palo Alto and the Peninsula are as pretty, sunny, and expensive as ever. •The density isn’t quite there.  But it’s still #1.  Before March 2020, you could reach out your window and see a dozen leading SaaS execs.  The hour after the Stay at Home order went out, I bumped into the President of Atlassian on the street.  That doesn’t really happen anymore, at least for now.    •All VCs will invest anywhere now.  But it’s much easier if you are in SF Bay.  It makes getting to know each other so, so much easier. •Most founders are OK hiring VPs anywhere now — but really, strongly prefer to work together in the office.  It just gives you a leg up as a VP, especially a first-time VP, to be in SF Bay. •It’s by far the easier place to meet up with other CEOs and founders.  You can do it anywhere.  But it’s so much easier in SF Bay. My somewhat obvious learnings.  I’m back.  I miss the beach.  I like it here, but I don’t love it.  It lacks the density of pre-March 2020, that’s underappreciated. But if you are really going for it, I think most B2B founders will really benefit from being here.  And probably most ambitious VPs and VPs-to-be, as well. It’s time.  I’m back.  It might be time for you to come back, too.