I moved to San Francisco and am feeling completely out of my element by how smart people are here

Just go hang out in the tenderloin district. You’ll feel smart again. Just be careful where you step and don’t leave any valuables in your car.

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.

With the AI companies and universities here, there is just such a high % of really smart people. People I never thought I would meet

Ha! There’s an IG page dedicated to the tenderloin district, total sh*t show!

You got to be a real dummie to live in expensive socialist San Fransicko with all the drugged up homeless gheys. I is one of the smartest guys in my red town! Own a truck, some guns, and a single wide in the nicest RV park in the whole durned county! I fully expect to get a promotion to key holder at the feed store next month. I see a lot less farmers in here these days but I hear the stock market is up so everyone must be doing good. The President says so and I believe him!

Two of my kids moved there in different years for jobs. They got used to how so many people were smart, partly by finding that the techies often have narrow expertise and need the skills of others at work and outside of it. What was harder to get used to was the price of housing, even rentals. Biggest surprise was a high number of discourteous drivers. The roads are not mellow.

Vizzini: I can't compete with you physically, and I'm far smarter than you.
Westley: You're that smart?
Vizzini: Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?
Westley: Yes.
Vizzini: Idiots.

You were also the second poster in the thread. I am the third.

Just go hang out with the junkies who are taking craps on the sidewalk and you will feel at least like an intellectual equal.

Smart people in San Francisco?

Imposdible. They are Democrats.

IIRC, he called them morans.

We are. Good by Texas. Ah hem..

That kind of stereotyping cost Democrats two of the last three presidential elections. We can debate whether or not it is wiser to spend a million bucks on a 1200 square foot townhouse with no yard in a left coast city or live in a 5,000 square foot palace on acreage with water rights in fly over country at the same cost with lower taxes, less crime and less pollution. And whether or not the guy who spends all day writing code in a cubicle and fights traffic for an hour each day but is incapable of fixing his car or hanging drywall is really that much more intelligent than the guy who owns a pickup and does commercial construction for a living.

It’s also worth reminding you that California has one of the lowest literacy rates in the country.

Lots of illegals.

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.

People aren't smarter than average in SF. You just learned to came from an area of idiots...