The little things I learned in the valley (opens in new tab)

What the others said. I had similar experiences for basically the first 10 years of my visits to SF - I never really got beyond the Moscone Center / The W Hotel / 3rd Street and that 10-square-block area was my impression of SF.

But having lived here now for almost 2 years, that impression is just so wrong. It's a TINY fraction of SF, and that is not what SF is about. Next time you're here, find a boutique hotel in the Marina, or Pacific Heights, or Russian Hill, or the Mission and Uber over to your conference/meetings (the city's small enough that it's $10-$15 each way).

That's the SF that people love (or hate ;)

You did not get unlucky. The Tenderloin is (rightly) considered the worst part of San Francisco, but this spills out quickly into Union Square and Downtown. I've witnessed homeless guys beating each other with brooms in front of a nice restaurant downtown. I've witnessed the sous chef from a Union Square restaurant getting into a fistfight with a guy on the street who was trying to lift some produce that was getting loaded into his kitchen. You have to be careful not to step on needles in Yerba Buena gardens.

The only reedeming quality about the Tenderloin is that you expect it to be sketchy and disgusting. When one pays out the nose to be at a giant tech conference at Moscone, or spends hundreds of dollars a night on a hotel room in Union Square, one is very surprised how disgusting that part of the city is.

This was exactly how I felt. I just didn't get the charm.

I have lived and traveled to dozens of major cities around the world. I am an above average sized former linebacker and I felt genuinely unsafe almost every time I went out at night in SF and was walking around. It almost as bad as Tijuana.

SF has tons of potential as a city, but the homeless just ruin it. If SF is so great to it's homeless, then why are they everywhere and making everyone uncomfortable?

I don't know if the problem is wealth inequality or a culture in SF that sees homelessness as a viable lifestyle, but it's just sad.

I am not saying get rid of them by kicking them out. I am saying give them a place to live and sleep so they aren't living on the streets, it's just inhumane.

San Francisco is slightly unusual among major American cities in that what could very well be areas of prime real estate downtown along Market street are in fact kind of seedy or even dangerous. It's kind of like what I imagine some parts of Manhattan or downtown DC were like in the late 80's, complete with the run down front-and-center strip clubs and weirdly anachronistic porn theaters.

I don't have a particularly good explanation for this. However, most of what defines SF as a city isn't really along Market St, or even downtown for that matter. It's a city of neighborhoods, and without venturing out from downtown you haven't really experienced what the city has to offer. I moved away last year, and still think of SF as one of the world's most interesting cities.

Union Square is one of the most touristy parts yet with a couple wrong turns you're in some very sketchy areas.

Yeah, you were probably in the Tenderloin. The worst part of the city.

That seems to be largest complaint I hear from tourists. SF takes care of their homeless. Matter of fact, SF programs are so good we have a problem with other states sending their homeless specifically to SF[1]. I'm from Chicago where the homeless don't have nearly the same advantages as they do here in SF(particularly the weather).

There were encampments in Grant Park in Chicago and they were forcibly removed by the police both in '68 and just a few years ago[2]. Which, again, is in stark contrast to something like Golden Gate Park here in SF where there has been a large homeless encampment for at least as long as I have lived here and probably longer[3]. That shit would just not fly in Chicago but I do like that SF actually takes care of everyone and not just the people that know the right people.

[1]http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/09/11/2602391/san-franc...

[2]http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-10-16/news/chi-occup...

[3]http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/despite-improvement-5...

This is a good article on homelessness in SF and the industry that has grown up to support them: http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_4_san-francisco-homeless...

"Finally, the homelessness advocates pulled out their trump card: associating supporters of the Civil Sidewalks law with “business interests.” San Francisco “progressives” regard businessmen as aliens within the body politic whose main function is to provide an inexhaustible well of funds to transfer to the city’s social-services empire. If it weren’t for vigilant politicians, however, the interlopers would constantly seek to duck this ever-growing civic obligation. “If these corporations pay their fair share,” supervisor John Avalos explained in 2009 when introducing a new business tax, “we can generate millions that will go towards keeping health clinics, youth and senior services, and jobs safe for San Franciscans.” (The contradiction between raising business taxes and keeping jobs safe was lost on Avalos.)"

That's because Bloomberg moved all the homeless to the Bronx and outskirts of the city...

Seems like he's missed the elephant in the room.

The tech sector's cogs are moving at an increasingly rapid pace whereas nearly everyone else has been jammed to a standstill or losing ground since 2008. The proliterian hatred of the tech sector is based on jealousy and misplaced blame for the fallout caused by gentrification which follows higher incomes.

The homeless are the most blatant casualties of a depressed economy, but rest assured, there are countless others who suffer without falling onto the streets.

I laughed out loud at the last sentence.

Are you implying that the two are mutually exclusive? Solving homelessness is not an economic problem. There are so many factors involved, that you can have a great economy with low unemployment but tons of homeless people.

The sexy, consumer-focused startups are in SF and where people want to be. Down in Mountain View & Palo Alto is where the VCs, unsexy B2B startups (Box), and accelerators (YC/500) are thriving. 20 something bachelors & DINCs want to live in the city where it's fun and happening whereas mothers/fathers would rather raise a family in the suburbia of the peninsula. I won't deny the trend towards SF as VCs and accelerators are making a presence there but most are not replacing their HQs in the peninsula.

Probably true. However, I do like the "observations from an outsider" perspective. He came to the bay area and spent all his time in SF. Therefore, from at least one persons perspective, SF is Silicon Valley and PA/MV aren't.

"A startup to solve the homeless problem" is the Golden Hammer Antipattern in action.

"We have software startups and they're amazing, so they can solve any problem".

I certainly hope we wasn't referring to a startup to help you avoid the homeless. Taken in context, I believe he's referring to the widening income gap and would therefore not be advocating simply avoiding them.

A startup to fix the homeless problem? Good luck.

Probably avoid streets since his next bullet is "A lot of socially driven business is just pure BS."

Solving the homeless problem would be a socially driven business and that would make it BS and not worth doing.

You don't need to be passionate about the product of your business. Tony Hsieh may not care that much about shoes, but he cares tremendously about customer service and employee satisfaction. He's not making happy shoes, he's making happy customers and happy employees.

Frankly, lots of businesses don't require "passion" in the eros sense about the product. One doesn't become passionate about dry cleaning, or transmission overhauls, or phlebotomy. The vast majority of jobs pay because they're necessary but not interesting. Products that inspire deep passion, like music or farming, rarely pay well, because passion is its own reward.

If you want to make money, become really good at doing something that doesn't inspire passion, preferably something that most people really hate or fear. Get rewarded with pride in quality work, and the pay that comes with doing something that sucks for people who need it done.

He didn't say they can't be successful.

The "future is mobile" thought isn't saying that mobile experiences are superior to desktop experiences. In fact it's almost a tacit acknowledgment of the opposite.

Think about it this way: Google Maps on desktop is IMO much, much more useful than Google Maps on my phone. I can fit a lot more search results, things are much easier to see at a glance, I don't have to zoom in so far to see important map features, etc etc.

But ultimately I still use Maps on my phone a lot more than I do on desktop, because I need maps a lot more while I'm out and about than when I'm sitting still.

Ditto shopping. Surfing Amazon on a desktop is probably always going to be a superior experience to doing it on mobile, but as smartphones get better and connectivity improves, more and more people are going to want to quickly buy something (e.g., notice you need a pack of razors as you're heading out the door - use your phone instead of sitting down at your desktop).

And what we're seeing - at least from the few companies I've had the opportunity to watch this from - is that even traditionally "desktop" use cases are increasingly mobile. Looking for something to do with your significant other this weekend? That used to be a desktop use case, but it's increasingly mobile as well, even though it is of course not an intrinsically or obviously mobile thing to do.

"The future is mobile" means "people want to use this on mobiles, even though it's going to be strictly worse than the desktop experience, so you can either try to close the desktop-mobile UX gap as much as possible or watch your users bleed off to your competitors". The corollary to that is also "you should try to find actual mobile-centric use cases for your product so that your mobile product isn't just a slightly crappier clone of your desktop product".