Does Your Startup Need To Be In San Francisco?

**Michael Seibel** (0:00)
We're working together, we're in the same room right now. We get to live in the same area, even though our personal decisions about where we live are wildly different. We have very different lives.

**Dalton Caldwell** (0:08)
I don't have a yard, I have kids too. All right, this is Michael Seibel with Dalton Caldwell, and today we're going to talk about, does your startup need to be in San Francisco?
Oh, man, we're just waiting in to the debate of the moment. So, why don't you kick it off? You've got a controversial view here. How about this? Yes.

**Michael Seibel** (0:32)
Usually, in these videos, you and I just agree on everything.

**Dalton Caldwell** (0:35)
It's boring.

**Michael Seibel** (0:37)
We disagree strongly. We have a different opinion here.

**Dalton Caldwell** (0:40)
I'm confident you're wrong.

**Michael Seibel** (0:43)
Good start. So, let me start by saying, I don't think everyone's startup needs to be in San Francisco to be successful.

**Dalton Caldwell** (0:51)
Oh, no.

**Michael Seibel** (0:51)
And that you could build a successful startup and not live in San Francisco.

**Dalton Caldwell** (0:55)
Please.

**Michael Seibel** (0:56)
Okay.

**Dalton Caldwell** (0:56)
Please share.

**Michael Seibel** (0:57)
So, a lot of the reasons that folks read the discourse about San Francisco and, man, there's a lot of discourse, is they're very fixated on the lifestyle of living in downtown San Francisco. They see all the photos on Twitter. They hear the stories. It's all over national media. My parents know all about San Francisco politics. My dad's like, so, how's it going in San Francisco?
So, for me personally, I actually prefer to not live in a dense city.
I like living in a place that is warm and bright and sunny, and I can walk around, and the birds are singing, and there's trees everywhere. I kind of like living in a boring place, personally, I'm speaking for myself, where there's not a lot of distraction, and I can just kind of focus on the work I'm doing, then really intense stuff going on around me all the time. Also, as you know, I got small children, and just for my lifestyle and the happiness of my family, I prefer to live just in a different environment.

**Dalton Caldwell** (1:59)
You like having a yard?

**Michael Seibel** (2:00)
I do. Okay, so I enjoy those things.
And then also, I think sometimes what people forget, especially that aren't in the Bay Area, is how the actual big employers for most folks in tech are not in the San Francisco area. Google and Facebook and Apple, the Apple HQ is in Cupertino, nowhere near the San Francisco.

**Dalton Caldwell** (2:20)
All those old, boring companies.

**Michael Seibel** (2:22)
And so clearly, in the history of this stuff, all these great companies were built outside of San Francisco. Like, if we actually look, how many of the most epic companies in the world in tech were actually built in San Francisco?

**Dalton Caldwell** (2:32)
Yes.

**Michael Seibel** (2:32)
It's actually not that many. And so to argue that every company has to be in San Francisco is factually wrong.

**Dalton Caldwell** (2:38)
Fair. And here's why you're wrong.
Okay, so I live on Market Street in downtown San Francisco. Just to be clear, for me, growing up, living in a city was aspirational. So I spent my high school and middle school years in a suburb of New York. And when you do that, you know-

**Michael Seibel** (3:04)
That means New Jersey, right? Whenever someone says a suburb-

**Dalton Caldwell** (3:06)
Thank you.

**Michael Seibel** (3:09)
They're like, well, you know, upstate.

**Dalton Caldwell** (3:14)
Middle school and high school in New Jersey. And when you're growing up in a suburb in New Jersey, you know where you are is not worthy action. That's true. You know, almost by definition.
And at least for me, I perceived getting to the city as part of growing up, becoming an adult. That was a big part of my mentality.
Two, I like nice restaurants and nice bars, and those things don't exist in the suburbs. I know someone's going to be in the comments saying, like, but in my suburb, there's like, no, no, it doesn't. Sorry. It's just good for where you live. Another thing that I like, especially as a startup founder, I liked having a chip on the shoulder.
I liked being in a place where there are things I couldn't afford, where there are places I couldn't go unless I was more successful, where I could kind of see what success could get me. And I always felt like the suburb tried to hide that away. Like everyone was in the same kind of house in the development. And like, we all have our own space, we can't see each other. Like I liked seeing what if we were to make it, what I might be able to get. That was really amazing. Also, I spent my first kind of nine years living in a city in Brooklyn. So, I was used to living in an apartment, that was never weird for me.