Paul Joseph

T Timothy Tran

Kaito

Michelle Inez

Naval

Kumar

sean m

Kumar Abhirup

Ray Lanier

Maulik Bhatt

Stephen Mix

Felex Chen

swyx

Vincent Lam

William Mumper

PARSA

Lucas Chu

Keith

quinn

Sigil Wen

 Hey everyone, this seems like a really generic question, but I'm just genuinely curious how

 people of different backgrounds have been able to break into SF in the past.

 I'm currently a founder who's building in material sourcing.

 It's pretty niche and there doesn't seem to be a lot of overlap on that aspect.

 I would say that this specific solution I'm 

 building is in the realm of SaaS and deep tech.

 But just one thing is that I'm based in Texas 

 and I would just like to hear how other people

 have been able to break into SF in the past with untraditional backgrounds and how SF

 has just contributed towards their growth. I feel like later down the 

 SF would just really be beneficial towards my overall growth as a founder,

 just being able to get the right opportunities.

 In senior year of high school, while school was still going 

 on, I flew from Toronto, Canada to San Francisco, California

 to live with a bunch of cool people in a co-living 

 house called Edify, which Luc Piette actually organized.

 He was on the platform. And Morris Mollish, I met him there.

 He was one of the founders of the house.

 And there were also other people from all these different top schools doing their 

 internships at all these top tier Silicon Valley companies or venture capital firms.

 So it was like a very friendly way to get acquainted and explore San 

 Francisco with a group of buddies who sort of like united through COVID.

 Then the question also is, how do you, aside from going to 

 San Francisco and living with cool people in notable houses,

 how do you be known by people in the Valley before you even go?

 And I think that's a really good question.

 So you're doing something great here where you've 

 opened up an air chat room, you've asked a specific question,

 I've re-chitted because I just found it, and 

 suddenly a lot of people who've broken into Silicon Valley

 are now serendipitously going to come and answer your question.

 Through the power of media, you have media leverage and 

 you can build up your personal brand through the internet.

 The way I did that was, I think during COVID, there 

 a Discord server called Gen Z Mafia which Sud started,

 and I joined it and I remember listening to Justin Khan's Fireside and I was like,

 wow, holy cow, this tech guy who made Twitch is so authentic and so real,

 and he's also sold his company for a billion dollars, what the frick?

 And that Fireside was co-hosted by my friend Sud, who I later became friends with,

 probably like two years after I was part of Gen Z Mafia.

 But it's like a Discord server where a bunch of really interesting people around the world

 who are all Gen Z and interested in technology congregated together.

 There was some Twitter presence as well, some presence on Clubhouse and all these different places,

 but it gave me a lot of exposure to the Valley.

 And one thing I did was, as a high schooler, I just 

 reached out to everyone I thought who was remotely interesting.

 Whenever inspiration struck about what piqued my curiosity in someone,

 I would just authentically reach out to them.

 And I just was on hundreds and hundreds of exploratory meetings,

 learning about different people, sort of like building connections that later compounded.

 I ended up living with a bunch of the people that I 

 called with in different stages of my life from there.

 Sigil, thanks for this story. Do you have any recommended 

 resources for finding more co-living spaces like that in the valley?

 So there is a square mile radius in San Francisco called The Neighborhood.

 It's founded by a guy named Jason Ben, where 

 basically there's like a third space called the SF Commons.

 There are a bunch of different houses. There's so many cool people that live there.

 HF0, the Hacker Fellowship Residency, is at the Alamo Square Mansion.

 There's Mad Sci by my friend Marco Mascaro, which is like a robotics lab.

 And a bunch of people live in different houses there.

 I think they have a Slack where you can find your way in.

 And cool people live there. I think Patrick Halston's in the area.

 But amateurs in the community, like a lot of great technology peeps.

 And it's very serendipitous. You can just walk down the street and find cool people.

 Aside from that, my friend Tom Schultz, oh he's also in the area.

 Thomas Schultz, who's on the platform, is building Solaris.

 I think he just got like a massive office 

 space too on top of all the different leases.

 But yeah, word of mouth is probably the best way 

 to keep up to date with where the hip people are.

 People are still primal and social animals. If you're just to 

 physically live in SF, which is a small area, you will 

 automatically break into SF over time. In fact, it'll be hard not to.

 Thanks, Paul, for asking the question and to Sajil and Naval for responding.

 I've been very curious about that question myself, except for 

 I'm in a very different spot than most folks that are starting out.

 I've been in the banking industry for, I think, close to 

 years now, but looking to get into the technology industry.

 The epiphany I've recently come to is technology 

 drives humanity forward, and I want to play a part in that,

 but still trying to figure my way out on how to break to the other side.

 So would appreciate any perspectives from folks that have changed their 

 career midway, gone into technology, and are finding some success with it. Thanks.

 this may be fairly generic advice but I did

 an MBA and that allowed me to pivot into a new industry and this was bearing

 mind about 15 years ago now so yeah things have changed I don't know if MBAs

 different area so without knowing anything about you

 or your current situation and so forth take that for what it's worth, pinch of salt.

 Thanks for that, Stephen. I did complete my MBA about 

 years ago and unfortunately, or fortunately, continue to

 just stay in the banking industry. So not sure if that's going 

 to be too helpful in me trying to pivot industries at this point.

 I know generally speaking, folks do use the MBA to pivot industries and then, but usually

 they have a narrow window of a year or two right after they've completed the MBA.

 So, but really appreciate your perspective. Thank you.

 So I've been exploring SF, I guess on and off for the 

 past nine years, and I made a lot of mistakes in my time.

 And I guess hood maps is a good way to orient 

 yourself towards the informal social elements of SF.

 People trying to catch water Pokemon, it's hilarious.

 Yeah, basically, don't live here. A lot of the new sort 

 hacker spaces try to base themselves around Hayes Valley.

 Oh, there's this 3D thing. And then I think 

 Solaris is kind of in the northern region as well.

 And what I'm trying to do is essentially make a case 

 for the southern regions being an attractive hacker space.

 And particularly, I guess the edge of Prochero Hill and the Mission.

 So I've set up my own house. There's a bunch 

 of us AI people down here in Selo near OpenAI.

 And if you're an AI, and if you're trying to break into SF, quote 

 unquote, I submit humbly that Mission or South of Market, I guess,

 is just way better than the gentrified, super white areas up here.

 Your judgment, of course, it's up to you where you want to live.

 But way better food here and surprisingly, a 

 lot of startups and a lot of VCs. So consider it.

 So if I wanted to go join a hacker house 

 one of these other co-living spaces, how do

 and then ask if they have rooms or what?

 The best way is to let everyone know that you want to move to San Francisco,

 that you want to live in cool hacker houses and stay with incredible people.

 You could do this by messaging a bunch of your friends,

 and you can also do this by reaching out to people who are leaders.

 But most importantly, you should try and broadcast it to the internet,

 especially if other people retweet it, rechit it, engage.

 Word of mouth really spreads. And yeah, make it so 

 that you get inbound instead of you sending out inbound.

 That's always something that I tend to think about

 when trying to create serendipity for cool opportunities and cool life experiences.

 Yeah, I think it's all in the name. You want to break in, but you 

 also want to break in in such a way that they want you to stay, right?

 So, trips up there for sure. And before trips up there, social media.

 Like follow people that are local to the area, legitimately 

 keep up with what they're doing, try to add value, do both places.

 Because there's plenty of Austin to San Fran 

 connections. And yeah, you just got to break in.

 Like find people that you find interesting. Don't 

 necessarily make it about what you'll get out of it.

 And just, yeah, you got to break in and start talking to people. Good chit chat.

 You know, I would say same advice to you.

 That breaking in means like you come in 

 rather uninvited, but you behave in such a way that

 you form relationships where they want you to stay after you've broken in.

 And if you've been in banking, trust me, 

 there's a million things you could do for people that

 are working in a different industry. Like every business has financial activity, every business has coding.

 So yeah, just break in and do stuff for free and be friendly and like demystify.

 You know what you could do, which I like to do?

 Demystify your own profession because you and I both know there's some BS in there and

 But yeah, so break in and be honest with them.

 You know, at the end of the day, every profession becomes a conspiracy against the lady.

 Give them the inside baseball behind banking. That's what I do with finance.

 Yeah, I think at this particular moment in time you're going to 

 be really skeptical of spending a lot of money on a certification.

 I went to school, I'm very proud of that. 

 I have degrees, I'm proud of those degrees.

 But nowadays the information is more available and the use cases are so fine-tuned and microscopic

 that anything you need to learn you should go through and 

 just learn it, start to finish yourself and then show work.

 And like all men, we should have GitHub repositories. That's the tweet.

 Bro, in San Francisco, you don't need a place to live. You're just homeless, dude.

 It seems like you're in the earlier stages of building something.

 What makes you want to come out to the city?

 If you're at the point where you've found 

 exactly what it is that you want to do and

 it's starting to work well and you want 

 raise money and build a team, then I think

 that San Francisco is the best place for that.

 However, if you're in a place where you 

 an idea but you're generally unclear and you

 still need more time to figure things out, then perhaps continuing to iterate where you

 are makes a lot of sense because when you 

 come out here without a clear idea, it can

 be very easy to get distracted and caught up in the social things that happen within

 the city. But again, if you're exploring though 

 and you're not really 100% certain on what you're

 doing, then San Francisco can also be a 

 good place because there's a lot of ideas that

 you can bump into. But if you're just kind of like, 

 I'm doing this, I want to focus, I don't need to build

 a team yet, I don't need to raise money 