It’s also worth reminding you that California has one of the lowest literacy rates in the country.
Lots of illegals.
Exactly. Not just the adults either. Overall, CA schoolchildren (including high schoolers) are among the lowest scoring youngsters in the nation, all thanks to rampant illegal immigration. Governor Hair-gel Newsom will tell you that’s a “strength”.
People who never step foot in SF will tell you how terrible it is, but you are correct that it’s one of the few places in the world where you can go and test how your intellect truly competes.
It’s also worth reminding you that California has one of the lowest literacy rates in the country.
San Francisco has an incredibly high percentage of smart and well educated people. This is obvious because pay and land values are really high — which is correlated strongly with a smart and well educated populace.
anyway, op, give it a few weeks. You’re in a new environment, others are comfortable. Learn from the people who are comfortable and don’t be too hard on yourself and you’ll do great.
No doubt San Francisco has it’s share of highly educated individuals, but it also has far more people of average intelligence scraping by who are house poor (most of their income goes to their house with little left for savings). About 11% of the population can actually afford their home in San Francisco. I’ve worked with plenty of people in the Bay Area and Southern California. Many have a lot of letters after their names from fancy schools, and they can typically do one or two things quite well, but I would not say that they overwhelmed me with their intelligence. A number lacked fundamental business knowledge. Very few were capable of straying outside of their comfort zone. Many had far more education than necessary to perform their job.
San Francisco has an incredibly high percentage of smart and well educated people. This is obvious because pay and land values are really high — which is correlated strongly with a smart and well educated populace.
anyway, op, give it a few weeks. You’re in a new environment, others are comfortable. Learn from the people who are comfortable and don’t be too hard on yourself and you’ll do great.
No doubt San Francisco has it’s share of highly educated individuals, but it also has far more people of average intelligence scraping by who are house poor (most of their income goes to their house with little left for savings). About 11% of the population can actually afford their home in San Francisco. I’ve worked with plenty of people in the Bay Area and Southern California. Many have a lot of letters after their names from fancy schools, and they can typically do one or two things quite well, but I would not say that they overwhelmed me with their intelligence. A number lacked fundamental business knowledge. Very few were capable of straying outside of their comfort zone. Many had far more education than necessary to perform their job.
Yes, the housing is so expensive there because it's a hellhole that no one wants to live in.
People are insanely smart here, it feels like the cutting edge of technology. Anyone have similar culture shock moving here?
They are not half as smart as they seem. Don't be cowed by a bunch of poseurs tossing tech buzzwords around. You are probably from a provincial area so yes they will seem amazingly intelligent but they aren't.
Imagine being a libertarian/anarcho-capitalist in SF. I had that experience for a few years. That place is full of socialists, economic illiterates, and emotional thinkers.
San Francisco has an incredibly high percentage of smart and well educated people. This is obvious because pay and land values are really high — which is correlated strongly with a smart and well educated populace.
anyway, op, give it a few weeks. You’re in a new environment, others are comfortable. Learn from the people who are comfortable and don’t be too hard on yourself and you’ll do great.
No doubt San Francisco has it’s share of highly educated individuals, but it also has far more people of average intelligence scraping by who are house poor (most of their income goes to their house with little left for savings). About 11% of the population can actually afford their home in San Francisco. I’ve worked with plenty of people in the Bay Area and Southern California. Many have a lot of letters after their names from fancy schools, and they can typically do one or two things quite well, but I would not say that they overwhelmed me with their intelligence. A number lacked fundamental business knowledge. Very few were capable of straying outside of their comfort zone. Many had far more education than necessary to perform their job.
Unfortunately this is cope.
The market is very good at rewarding intelligence with money.
San Francisco is so rich because it has the most smart people.
No doubt San Francisco has it’s share of highly educated individuals, but it also has far more people of average intelligence scraping by who are house poor (most of their income goes to their house with little left for savings). About 11% of the population can actually afford their home in San Francisco. I’ve worked with plenty of people in the Bay Area and Southern California. Many have a lot of letters after their names from fancy schools, and they can typically do one or two things quite well, but I would not say that they overwhelmed me with their intelligence. A number lacked fundamental business knowledge. Very few were capable of straying outside of their comfort zone. Many had far more education than necessary to perform their job.
Unfortunately this is cope.
The market is very good at rewarding intelligence with money.
San Francisco is so rich because it has the most smart people.
People are insanely smart here, it feels like the cutting edge of technology. Anyone have similar culture shock moving here?
I went to a party at a $6000/month 2bd apartment in the marina like 2 weeks ago and every single person just wanted to tell me how excited they were at the prospect of building AI agents (none of these people work in frontier AI labs), nobody was drinking, the male:female ratio was about 6:1, and the average attendee couldn’t even make eye contact with my shoes.
People are insanely smart here, it feels like the cutting edge of technology. Anyone have similar culture shock moving here?
I went to a party at a $6000/month 2bd apartment in the marina like 2 weeks ago and every single person just wanted to tell me how excited they were at the prospect of building AI agents (none of these people work in frontier AI labs), nobody was drinking, the male:female ratio was about 6:1, and the average attendee couldn’t even make eye contact with my shoes.
The ratio is actually okay. All the dudes are fking queer anyway.
Live your own life. How smart these people are shouldn't affect your life unless you cannot afford to live there because cost of living. If you have constantly compete with these people, you will die before your due time. Live simple life. It's all crap in the end.
I went to a party at a $6000/month 2bd apartment in the marina like 2 weeks ago and every single person just wanted to tell me how excited they were at the prospect of building AI agents (none of these people work in frontier AI labs), nobody was drinking, the male:female ratio was about 6:1, and the average attendee couldn’t even make eye contact with my shoes.
As a fairly new San Francisco resident, I'm giving this post about 50% chance of being true.
I now get a lot of tech stuff in my X feed, and I found this one dude who charges a boatload of money to help some of these tech guys learn how to speak to women.
If you want to go for a run or come up with a running AI agent, email me,
No doubt San Francisco has it’s share of highly educated individuals, but it also has far more people of average intelligence scraping by who are house poor (most of their income goes to their house with little left for savings). About 11% of the population can actually afford their home in San Francisco. I’ve worked with plenty of people in the Bay Area and Southern California. Many have a lot of letters after their names from fancy schools, and they can typically do one or two things quite well, but I would not say that they overwhelmed me with their intelligence. A number lacked fundamental business knowledge. Very few were capable of straying outside of their comfort zone. Many had far more education than necessary to perform their job.
Unfortunately this is cope.
The market is very good at rewarding intelligence with money.
San Francisco is so rich because it has the most smart people.
You can be smart anywhere. Economies of scale play a role in how far your dollar goes. Most (even the smart) have a hard time making ends meet in San Francisco. As Thoreau famously wrote “I would rather sit upon a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion. I have a relative in Marin. His house is valued at $1.4 million. Where I live it might go for $300k. Had another relative whose House was worth $1.7 million. Sold it. Moved out here. Bought some acreage and hasn’t looked back. Sure there are smart people in San Fran. A lot bailed during COVID.
People are insanely smart here, it feels like the cutting edge of technology. Anyone have similar culture shock moving here?
I used to work for an airline and have traveled to many cities in the US. Out of college was offered a job in SF and a major startup that was making it (a house hold name name). SV and SF was a bunch of bros trying being psudo intellectual.
Also all those people talking about how bad SF is from a crime etc. it's Awful it is horrible compared to just 6 years ago. It was never perfect but 10 years ago you didn't have to worry about cars getting broken into near as much. The last 2 rental cars in the bay area I had had obviously been broken into. I thought it might be right wing propaganda but talking to my friends that live there no it's just the way of life. Those rich smart people have found out what happens when you destroy the middle class in a metro and their solutions aren't fixing it. Leaving only the richest and the most destitute. Unless middle use with bay and mountains there aren't many suburbs for middle class and lower class people to live and rent control and no policing means you get a high percentage criminals living in those places. Every place any direction of SF (other than downtown Oakland) is absolutely beautiful but I submit paying almost 2x for food than most other non-costal citys and 3x rent is not financially a smart idea. I was able to have a similar net worth to tech bros without every moving the the bay. Maybe I am just smart but my friends that live there are either intellectual douches that would run companies into the ground if hired (one actually has done that multiple times) as they company hop chasing that pre-ipo goodness only for them to get layed off or the company bought out and their shares delutted.
The average waiter in Europe is smarter than your average tech bro and most things. Also you're average person in Boston is smarter (never lived there but based on anecdotes they seem smarter and the schools back that up). Standford is great! Med school in SF is great. Berkeley produces intellectual idiots and NIMBY Karen's