The Bay Area is cursed(sashachapin.substack.com)
sashachapin.substack.com
The Bay Area is cursed
https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/the-bay-area-is-cursed
32 comments
The bay area is a bit unique though in that the physical space you occupy is covered in signifiers of tech. Virtually every billboard on the 101 and virtually every ad at SFO and San Jose Airport are some AI thing now. As you drive around you see waymos and corporate busses constantly. It is difficult to avoid tech campuses. Housing stock disproportionately targets high paying single people. When you ride the caltrain it is impossible not to overhear people talking about software engineering.
Yes, you can find community among non-tech people. The bay area is large and there are plenty of other people doing other things. SF is filled with cultural spaces. But my experience of the south bay is pretty dire if you want to escape the gaze of tech.
Yes, you can find community among non-tech people. The bay area is large and there are plenty of other people doing other things. SF is filled with cultural spaces. But my experience of the south bay is pretty dire if you want to escape the gaze of tech.
> Virtually every billboard on the 101 and virtually every ad at SFO and San Jose Airport are some AI thing now.
Ads are meaningless drivel. If you let the ads shown on billboards around you affect your life experience and how you define a place, that's absolutely tragic: I don't even know what to say to that.
> It is difficult to avoid tech campuses.
No it isn't, everyone knows where they are.
> Housing stock disproportionately targets high paying single people.
Every urban center in the US is doing that right now.
> When you ride the caltrain it is impossible not to overhear people talking about software engineering.
That must be so difficult to deal with, gosh, I don't know how you managed to survive it.
> But my experience of the south bay is pretty dire if you want to escape the gaze of tech.
It's not, you're just not trying hard enough.
Ads are meaningless drivel. If you let the ads shown on billboards around you affect your life experience and how you define a place, that's absolutely tragic: I don't even know what to say to that.
> It is difficult to avoid tech campuses.
No it isn't, everyone knows where they are.
> Housing stock disproportionately targets high paying single people.
Every urban center in the US is doing that right now.
> When you ride the caltrain it is impossible not to overhear people talking about software engineering.
That must be so difficult to deal with, gosh, I don't know how you managed to survive it.
> But my experience of the south bay is pretty dire if you want to escape the gaze of tech.
It's not, you're just not trying hard enough.
I found the opposite problem. I tried to hang out with non-tech people, I spent a lot of time hanging out with non-tech people. The kinds of people who I ended up hanging out with, and I recognized that this might just be a me problem, though I certainly tried to avoid pigeonholeding myself, were not great people. The great non-tech people I met didn't stay very long.
I agree with this. It's a critique you'll hear often from intellectual elites who prefer NYC. But most people, even in the bay area, are people with many interests who don't talk about intellectual things all the time!
"Mid-tier cities" are great too and have rich social fabrics if you look for them as well!
"Mid-tier cities" are great too and have rich social fabrics if you look for them as well!
You are not alone, as an outsider who moved 20+ in the last 15yrs, the Bay Area seems to attract a high concentration of awkward and arrogant people. Introverts who focus all their time in computers and careers, so other parts of their lives suffer - dare to point this out, their fragile egos will slash you back, blinding themselves in the process.
So objectively speaking, there is some truth to this concern. Women often complain of tech bros: "the odds are good, but the goods are odd" https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/18uxyd7/is_it_me_o...
So objectively speaking, there is some truth to this concern. Women often complain of tech bros: "the odds are good, but the goods are odd" https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/18uxyd7/is_it_me_o...
The first 51% of happiness is knowing what you like/need/value and not giving a damn if the other side doesn't see it or agree.
Important: values change in time. It's critical be self aware on that point. What used to work will stop working.
Once you get there the world will seem nicer. You'll be nicer too.
Related:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45894588
Important: values change in time. It's critical be self aware on that point. What used to work will stop working.
Once you get there the world will seem nicer. You'll be nicer too.
Related:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45894588
I don't think its all that bad as the writer makes it sound. Most of the people will be moving into PODS[1] and have plenty of dating opportunities and marriage[2]!
[1]For $700 a month, renters will soon be able to live in sleeping pods in San Francisco: https://abc7chicago.com/post/exclusive-san-francisco-sleepin...
[2]They met on that couch at PodShare Westwood a year ago and today they got married! https://www.instagram.com/p/Bzi6Lm0B6rs/#
[1]For $700 a month, renters will soon be able to live in sleeping pods in San Francisco: https://abc7chicago.com/post/exclusive-san-francisco-sleepin...
[2]They met on that couch at PodShare Westwood a year ago and today they got married! https://www.instagram.com/p/Bzi6Lm0B6rs/#
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Not having lived in the Bay Area in this millennium, I have no idea how accurate this is, so I would be curious to hear from any current Bay Area residents.
Living here for twenty years, and having now filled my dance card with every compass direction of the bay, I laughed in familiarity at a bunch of the anecdotes I read. Three notes.
First, I think that the Bay Area tech-like cultures are described accurately — but that the Bay Area non-tech cultures, as in those who are neither within it nor modeling after it, deserve separate consideration. Certainly every local culture I’ve interacted with that is tech-primary or tech-derived has been defective as described, while I also see evidence of thriving non-tech cultures.
Second, no one understands how to bait and tease and flirt other, which certainly aligns with the anecdotes reported by the author about ‘not enough bullying’. I’ve had to exit multiple communities because they’re so intent on putting safety bumpers on every single sharp corner that has ever affected anyone, that I get so dizzy from all the bumpers just in trying to say Hello You Look Nice Is That Wool that I Just Don’t Bother Trying Anymore. I held three long-term relationships spanning two-thirds of my time here and I have been forced to developed a fascinatingly competent filter for people who expect their needs to be discovered and fulfilled without having to bully the world. Local kink is the worst of all worlds: permission required to be flirt, focused on promoting long-term poly and poly-adjacent relationships, and saturated with ‘pillow passive’ subs who assume that service is due them.
Third, the local culture feels like a corpo descendant of the third-wave secular cults such as Landmark or Oprah. It can be distilled trivially into the Three Laws of Bay Cultists, but these are present everywhere in the U.S., but focused into explicit acceptance and preference here. They are:
1. What advances one’s goals is ethical.
2. What hinders one’s goals is unethical.
3. What has no bearing on one’s goals is exempt from ethical consideration.
So, yeah, don’t move here unless you’re forced to. I’m due to leave later this year and it’s not like the local scenes will notice or regret the loss of a ex-tech woman who isn’t interested in talking tech or calendaring poly.
First, I think that the Bay Area tech-like cultures are described accurately — but that the Bay Area non-tech cultures, as in those who are neither within it nor modeling after it, deserve separate consideration. Certainly every local culture I’ve interacted with that is tech-primary or tech-derived has been defective as described, while I also see evidence of thriving non-tech cultures.
Second, no one understands how to bait and tease and flirt other, which certainly aligns with the anecdotes reported by the author about ‘not enough bullying’. I’ve had to exit multiple communities because they’re so intent on putting safety bumpers on every single sharp corner that has ever affected anyone, that I get so dizzy from all the bumpers just in trying to say Hello You Look Nice Is That Wool that I Just Don’t Bother Trying Anymore. I held three long-term relationships spanning two-thirds of my time here and I have been forced to developed a fascinatingly competent filter for people who expect their needs to be discovered and fulfilled without having to bully the world. Local kink is the worst of all worlds: permission required to be flirt, focused on promoting long-term poly and poly-adjacent relationships, and saturated with ‘pillow passive’ subs who assume that service is due them.
Third, the local culture feels like a corpo descendant of the third-wave secular cults such as Landmark or Oprah. It can be distilled trivially into the Three Laws of Bay Cultists, but these are present everywhere in the U.S., but focused into explicit acceptance and preference here. They are:
1. What advances one’s goals is ethical.
2. What hinders one’s goals is unethical.
3. What has no bearing on one’s goals is exempt from ethical consideration.
So, yeah, don’t move here unless you’re forced to. I’m due to leave later this year and it’s not like the local scenes will notice or regret the loss of a ex-tech woman who isn’t interested in talking tech or calendaring poly.
If you are looking for white people culture you won't find it. Young demography is mostly ORM males, I guess that's true across other age groups also.
>ORM males
Object-Relational Mapping males?
Object-Relational Mapping males?
Where do you find that then?
On one hand it often feels like the tech industrial complex is all consuming here. When you fly you can sit and watch 12 different billboard ads in a row for different companies all claiming to be the "foundation of enterprise AI". All the money is there. On the other hand objectively most people are not tech bros. Even if literally all office workers were (and they're not), people need to eat, get around, shop, get their plumbing fixed, their teeth cleaned, etc etc. Your perception of the normalcy is probably mostly dictated by your willingness to engage with normal people activities, and perhaps your command of Spanish.
I don't know about the dating scene, but Bay Area has the costliest slums on the planet. Living arrangement are at par with slums in Mumbai, but cost $4569/month. It is usually the size of master bedroom closet of any other home in the rest of US.
Nobody Goes There Anymore, It’s Too Crowded - Yogi Berra
Nobody Goes There Anymore, It’s Too Crowded - Yogi Berra
This is honestly incredibly wrong. My family is from Mumbai. Like literally the indigenous people of Mumbai and I grew up in CA and lived many years in the bay. The idea that anywhere in India is remotely comparable to the bay area (except for gated communities) is honestly the sort of deranged take that many online Indian nationals make. But for people who have actually been to both cities the difference is obvious.
There is nothing like Dharavi in the bay area. There is some visible poverty in the bay, but it's not at that scale at all . Not to mention the functioning animal control, flood control, etc.
There is nothing like Dharavi in the bay area. There is some visible poverty in the bay, but it's not at that scale at all . Not to mention the functioning animal control, flood control, etc.
I live in Mumbai City. I've walked inside Dharavi and Matunga Labour Camp many times.
I've visited the Bay Area. The only time I've been scared for my life is when I wandered the streets of San Francisco.
I agree with you that Mumbai has many problems, and you may call me deranged all you want, but trying to diminish the very obvious problems the Bay Area has (some much worse than Mumbai) is not going to do you any favors.
I've visited the Bay Area. The only time I've been scared for my life is when I wandered the streets of San Francisco.
I agree with you that Mumbai has many problems, and you may call me deranged all you want, but trying to diminish the very obvious problems the Bay Area has (some much worse than Mumbai) is not going to do you any favors.
Yeah sure Mumbai is safer than America when it comes to crime. All India is, contrary to popular belief (India has a very low homicide rate compared to the USA). But when it comes to accidental deaths or preventable deaths due to infra, it's not close and you are more likely to die a preventable death in India.
Rent in Dharavi is $4/month[1]. Not $4000 - $5000 for pretty much the same square footage and nearly identical neighbourhoods. If you are a resident of Atherton or Los Altos Hills, you probably never noticed how the rest of Bay Area is. Dharavi also has functional public transport. Bay area has 'bullet' trains that take 1 - 2 hours to go 30 miles. Almost all of bay area is in the mobile home parks/zones, which is for all intents and purposes considered slums anywhere in the US and are pretty far off from the main city and suburbs (and horrible school district). Usually, rent at these places is a couple of hundred dollars, but in bay area, these are a few thousand dollars.
Source: I lived in the bay area (all 3 bays). I also lived in ~20 other cities all over US.
[1]From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/world/06/dharavi_slum/...
Today's Dharavi bears no resemblance to the fishing village it once was. A city within a city, it is one unending stretch of narrow dirty lanes, open sewers and cramped huts.
In a city where house rents are among the highest in the world, Dharavi provides a cheap and affordable option to those who move to Mumbai to earn their living.
Rents here can be as low as 185 rupees ($4/£2.20) per month. As Dharavi is located between Mumbai's two main suburban rail lines, most people find it convenient for work.
Even in the smallest of rooms, there is usually a cooking gas stove and continuous electricity.
Source: I lived in the bay area (all 3 bays). I also lived in ~20 other cities all over US.
[1]From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/world/06/dharavi_slum/...
Today's Dharavi bears no resemblance to the fishing village it once was. A city within a city, it is one unending stretch of narrow dirty lanes, open sewers and cramped huts.
In a city where house rents are among the highest in the world, Dharavi provides a cheap and affordable option to those who move to Mumbai to earn their living.
Rents here can be as low as 185 rupees ($4/£2.20) per month. As Dharavi is located between Mumbai's two main suburban rail lines, most people find it convenient for work.
Even in the smallest of rooms, there is usually a cooking gas stove and continuous electricity.
My grandparents bungalow is literally a block away from Dharavi. Guys... You are completely off base on this one. Everything you say is right about cheapness and such, but let's be honest about where you'd rather live. The increase in bay area prices is from the fact that it's a nicer place to live due to the infrastructure
> The increase in bay area prices is from the fact that it's a nicer place to live due to the infrastructure
Is it because the high speed trains for public transit? Or is it the mobile home parks + landfills + sewage processing plants? https://www.reddit.com/r/SanJose/comments/orsaky/why_does_mi...
This claim is understandable for NYC, NYC has a subway. The money you don't spend on car payment + insurance + gas, plus the convenience helps justify the higher rent/mortgage.
Is it because the high speed trains for public transit? Or is it the mobile home parks + landfills + sewage processing plants? https://www.reddit.com/r/SanJose/comments/orsaky/why_does_mi...
This claim is understandable for NYC, NYC has a subway. The money you don't spend on car payment + insurance + gas, plus the convenience helps justify the higher rent/mortgage.
The jobs, the buzz, the popularity... That's all part of it. Mumbai has some of that appeal within India obviously. In SF you are competing with the world. I'm not sure why there is such an unwillingness to admit Mumbai and SF are on different levels of desirability. Mumbai also has a lot less infrastructure. Many people don't have 24/7 water. The crosswalks in SF and San Jose exist and work. The sidewalks are usable and not falling apart. Why is this even up for debate.
> Why is this even up for debate
There was a time when this wasn't. The thing is that it _is_ now, especially for people in the upper-middle class and above, who can and do live a WAY better life in Mumbai, however much you try to deny it. There are people who've told me they wouldn't bother living in the Bay Area had it not been for the money, weather and inertia. I am now also seeing a lot of NRIs who are grasping at straws to justify their living in California, something which they didn't even need to bother with 20 years ago.
> The crosswalks in SF and San Jose exist
I find it funny that you have to reach all the way to crosswalks to make a point. The places where you cross the road? What makes you think they don't exist in Mumbai? What about so many places in the US where you cannot even walk on the road if you don't have a car?
You can try and convince people who haven't been to Mumbai at all, or don't live there regularly. People who are well-off, have lived in both places, and especially those who might _now_ consider starting a life in the States: you'll pretty much need to provide a utopia or an extremely high-paying job to convince them to move there. Mumbai is hell, there is no denying that, and even locals will not fight you on it; I personally would not try to convince a non-local to consider Mumbai as a place to live. The problem is that the Bay Area is not the heaven, perceived or real, it used to be any more.
There was a time when this wasn't. The thing is that it _is_ now, especially for people in the upper-middle class and above, who can and do live a WAY better life in Mumbai, however much you try to deny it. There are people who've told me they wouldn't bother living in the Bay Area had it not been for the money, weather and inertia. I am now also seeing a lot of NRIs who are grasping at straws to justify their living in California, something which they didn't even need to bother with 20 years ago.
> The crosswalks in SF and San Jose exist
I find it funny that you have to reach all the way to crosswalks to make a point. The places where you cross the road? What makes you think they don't exist in Mumbai? What about so many places in the US where you cannot even walk on the road if you don't have a car?
You can try and convince people who haven't been to Mumbai at all, or don't live there regularly. People who are well-off, have lived in both places, and especially those who might _now_ consider starting a life in the States: you'll pretty much need to provide a utopia or an extremely high-paying job to convince them to move there. Mumbai is hell, there is no denying that, and even locals will not fight you on it; I personally would not try to convince a non-local to consider Mumbai as a place to live. The problem is that the Bay Area is not the heaven, perceived or real, it used to be any more.
I mean perhaps fair enough. Mumbai is looking really nice these days. Legitimately to the point where i think it would be fun to visit (as opposed to our visits growing up which I dreaded).
> What makes you think they don't exist in Mumbai?
Attempting to walk in Mumbai lol.
> The problem is that the Bay Area is not the heaven, perceived or real, it used to be any more.
Fair enough. It has a lot of problems but the class of problems is different. You are probably correct that those working in tech probably live better in Mumbai than the bay area. I mean having any money at all means having domestic staff and such.
> What makes you think they don't exist in Mumbai?
Attempting to walk in Mumbai lol.
> The problem is that the Bay Area is not the heaven, perceived or real, it used to be any more.
Fair enough. It has a lot of problems but the class of problems is different. You are probably correct that those working in tech probably live better in Mumbai than the bay area. I mean having any money at all means having domestic staff and such.
> having domestic staff and such
You need to realize that it's far more than this.
Current status of transport is... quite good. Metros have been built, more are incoming. Sea Link and Atal Setu mean that it's a lot easier to get to the office areas. Taxis, Rickshaws, Buses, Uber/Rapido solve last-mile issues. Populace has genuinely started to fight for cleaner air and better quality of life (Gen Z is publicly calling out companies with a bad work culture). Almost every new home >= 2 bedrooms will have a washer, dryer and a Roomba (some will also have a dishwasher) - significantly reducing the need for most of domestic help (who are increasingly demanding higher wages to offset cost of living). RERA making things at least a bit more transparent when it comes to real-estate activities, RBI in general doing good regulation for at least consumer-oriented finance. The biggest laggard in moving things online (the government) is moving many operations bit-by-bit to online/mobile. There's an explosion of entertainment, food and shopping options. I see a lot more luxury cars on the road than before. Online shopping and payment options are way better than anything in the US. There are enough career options to lead a good life if you're talented - no need to leave the country for that [1]. And I'm talking only about what's already happened, not some imagined future.
> working in tech probably live better in Mumbai
For tech maybe not - you need to go to Bangalore/Hyderabad/NCR for that. Mumbai is better for business and finance-related stuff.
> Attempting to walk in Mumbai lol.
Well, at least one can walk, and can find options to see/shop/do within walking distance. The times I visited the US, outside of NYC, Boston, Chicago and a few college towns, everything else required a car to reach anything important. There were many roads with no sidewalks.
> to the point where i think it would be fun to visit (as opposed to our visits growing up which I dreaded).
I hear you. Not being from this environment for a few years can be a bit overwhelming for people's senses. But locals are used to it.
[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-15/india-s-i...
You need to realize that it's far more than this.
Current status of transport is... quite good. Metros have been built, more are incoming. Sea Link and Atal Setu mean that it's a lot easier to get to the office areas. Taxis, Rickshaws, Buses, Uber/Rapido solve last-mile issues. Populace has genuinely started to fight for cleaner air and better quality of life (Gen Z is publicly calling out companies with a bad work culture). Almost every new home >= 2 bedrooms will have a washer, dryer and a Roomba (some will also have a dishwasher) - significantly reducing the need for most of domestic help (who are increasingly demanding higher wages to offset cost of living). RERA making things at least a bit more transparent when it comes to real-estate activities, RBI in general doing good regulation for at least consumer-oriented finance. The biggest laggard in moving things online (the government) is moving many operations bit-by-bit to online/mobile. There's an explosion of entertainment, food and shopping options. I see a lot more luxury cars on the road than before. Online shopping and payment options are way better than anything in the US. There are enough career options to lead a good life if you're talented - no need to leave the country for that [1]. And I'm talking only about what's already happened, not some imagined future.
> working in tech probably live better in Mumbai
For tech maybe not - you need to go to Bangalore/Hyderabad/NCR for that. Mumbai is better for business and finance-related stuff.
> Attempting to walk in Mumbai lol.
Well, at least one can walk, and can find options to see/shop/do within walking distance. The times I visited the US, outside of NYC, Boston, Chicago and a few college towns, everything else required a car to reach anything important. There were many roads with no sidewalks.
> to the point where i think it would be fun to visit (as opposed to our visits growing up which I dreaded).
I hear you. Not being from this environment for a few years can be a bit overwhelming for people's senses. But locals are used to it.
[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-15/india-s-i...
I grew up in south SJ and lived in the area for 39 years. I couldn't afford to buy a house where I grew up which wasn't particularly special, it was perpetually haphazardly crappy with uneven sidewalks, terrible roads, and unkempt yards. The core issues for the housing affordability problem are Prop 13, lack of new housing supply, and the gentrification by almost every rich person in the world buying up property and turning it into a Tulip mania. SF is even more insane with delusional and FOMO people obsessed with living there but without the funds or long term plan to afford living there.
Given that tech is now a prime enabler of authoritarianism, I have no love left for SV or doe-eyed engineers lacking a conscience or ethical compass as to what they're actually doing or how they're helping and/or harming society. The Peter Thiel orbiters I met skewed towards Machiavellian creeps, as were about 1/3 of startup people whose "aura" screamed a-hole. There were way too many people I met who were only in software engineering and startups for a big pay{check,day} without much else in the way of curiosity, taste, hobbies, social skills, or critical thinking skills... so not many hacker+painters who could sell something or throw a good party too. The engineers just didn't seem to realize that if they're not also real owners then they're just the help and eagerly fired and replaced with cheaper substitutes. Worker-owned co-ops or meaningful equity or such an employee is wasting their life toiling for someone else who will throw them away and/or underpay them.
Oh well, the zeitgeist of the homebrew computer club sold-out and left the building 3 decades ago.
Given that tech is now a prime enabler of authoritarianism, I have no love left for SV or doe-eyed engineers lacking a conscience or ethical compass as to what they're actually doing or how they're helping and/or harming society. The Peter Thiel orbiters I met skewed towards Machiavellian creeps, as were about 1/3 of startup people whose "aura" screamed a-hole. There were way too many people I met who were only in software engineering and startups for a big pay{check,day} without much else in the way of curiosity, taste, hobbies, social skills, or critical thinking skills... so not many hacker+painters who could sell something or throw a good party too. The engineers just didn't seem to realize that if they're not also real owners then they're just the help and eagerly fired and replaced with cheaper substitutes. Worker-owned co-ops or meaningful equity or such an employee is wasting their life toiling for someone else who will throw them away and/or underpay them.
Oh well, the zeitgeist of the homebrew computer club sold-out and left the building 3 decades ago.
There's definitely two bay areas that exist, one full of the people who think SF as an idea of pure capitalism and hedonism who wish to build a tech orgy utopia and then the one where everyone else lives, screaming too $hort's favorite word in a market street interview, commuting 3 hours from antioch to sweep the floors at a hillsborough estate, or going to "the view" with their SO after eating a oreily autoparts taco truct in their localities preferred hilltop
Not cursed. Just not for you.
So stop doing that.
"Tech people" are not even a plurality in the greater bay area, let alone a majority. If all you see is tech people everywhere you go, that's your fault. Maybe take some responsibility for your outcomes, and go more interesting places, instead of deciding a metropolis of millions of people is somehow beneath you...