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0 pointsanon2918mo ago0 comments

This is basically correct. The culture in PDX is totally different.

0 comments

How does it compare to Silicon Valley?

It's a very laid-back place - more of a "you're missing out on life if you're not enjoying nature every weekend" type of place. Lots of new parents in the mid-to-late 30s (I think the highest proportion of any major city, actually.)

I think what hampers Oregon is that there isn't much non-Intel investment in R&D in the Portland region as well, compared to the Bay Area – there used to be a graduate institute funded by Tek et al., but that never got sustained. [1] The local academic medical research center is well-regarded and otherwise wouldn't have trouble attracting talent if it wasn't for the salaries.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Graduate_Institute

elihu8mo ago

I was a student at OGI back when it was still a thing. Then a lot of the DARPA grant money dried up because of the Iraq war (they wanted research that could be applied to weapons in the short term, not basic research into operating systems and programming languages).

They merged with OHSU, but it turned out OHSU was about as broke as they were, so most of the CS faculty migrated en-masse to PSU and took all their grad students (myself included) along with them. (It turns out grants generally go to the principle investigator, not the school. So if your advisor moves schools, their funding goes with them.)

dheera8mo ago

> salaries

Yeah, this is going to be the ultimate deciding factor. When local companies don't pay enough to live and Bay Area companies are paying upto 10X+ the compensation (for AI roles) people are going to make the move.

toasterlovin8mo ago

Silicon Valley is filled with people who moved there to start businesses. Portland is filled with people who moved there for a better quality of life.

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