Or Seattle, WA or Boston, MA. Additionally Austin, TX and Portland, OR.
Honestly, Bay Area (and especially San Francisco proper, rather than Silicon Valley) do suffer from too many "widget" start-ups, which should be viewed as media companies, solving social problems -- not technology companies. New York and LA start-ups tend to be even worse in that respect.
When I visited Boston, I noticed the start-up scene had a more of a "hard-core tech" feel to it. I saw purely technology start-ups. The people calling themselves entrepreneurs were _engineers_, not marketers and project/product managers (as is often the case in Bay Area; note: that's not to say PMs and markets aren't important!). There was more "ZFS vs. btrfs" talk and less "agile lean customer development start-up" talk.
There's plenty of real tech in the SF Bay -- you just have to have enough sense to look for it since, yes, the signal-to-noise ratio in SF is a lot worse than other tech areas.
Not implying there isn't. Quantitatively, there is likely still more real tech in Bay Area than anywhere else. I am in Bay Area and likely not going anywhere :-) It's the signal-to-noise ratio can be distracting and upsetting for somebody new. I've seen lots of smart young technologists waste away implementing a "business guy's" vision and (after three-four years of nothing but web development) end up unhappy, but with few other career options.
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Get a job somewhere with cooler jobs? Like the SF Bay? Seems like the obvious fix.
Or Seattle, WA or Boston, MA. Additionally Austin, TX and Portland, OR.
Honestly, Bay Area (and especially San Francisco proper, rather than Silicon Valley) do suffer from too many "widget" start-ups, which should be viewed as media companies, solving social problems -- not technology companies. New York and LA start-ups tend to be even worse in that respect.
When I visited Boston, I noticed the start-up scene had a more of a "hard-core tech" feel to it. I saw purely technology start-ups. The people calling themselves entrepreneurs were _engineers_, not marketers and project/product managers (as is often the case in Bay Area; note: that's not to say PMs and markets aren't important!). There was more "ZFS vs. btrfs" talk and less "agile lean customer development start-up" talk.
There's plenty of real tech in the SF Bay -- you just have to have enough sense to look for it since, yes, the signal-to-noise ratio in SF is a lot worse than other tech areas.
Not implying there isn't. Quantitatively, there is likely still more real tech in Bay Area than anywhere else. I am in Bay Area and likely not going anywhere :-) It's the signal-to-noise ratio can be distracting and upsetting for somebody new. I've seen lots of smart young technologists waste away implementing a "business guy's" vision and (after three-four years of nothing but web development) end up unhappy, but with few other career options.