The Bay area, also known as “Silicon Valley,” refers to urban areas surrounding the San Francisco Bay in Northern California. It is the home to some of the biggest tech industries in the world today, including Google, Apple, Lyft, Quora, Twitter, Symantec, Facebook, eBay, Zendesk and more. The Bay area boasts an exhilarating amount of venture capital and is also known for fueling young entrepreneurs, most notably the graduates of the Stanford University—the undisputed intellectual heart of the West Coast.
A couple of weeks back, I was in the Bay Area for an onsite interview. At first, I didn’t care about the tech industry and was rather mesmerized by the warm and sunny weather. As an Ohio resident, I feel like the weather here is uncertain at best. When it’s good, it’s really good, but you never know what’s coming next. Things get worse, particularly during the winter. Unlike Ohio, season loses its meaning for Bay area residents, as it’s sunny throughout the year. It may not be ideal for someone who loves seasons.
The Uber driver, who drove me from the San Francisco airport to the city of Sunnyvale, talked about the booming economy of the Golden State. He told me, if California had been a separate country, it alone would be among the 10 largest economies in the world. He was right. Booming tech and manufacturing industries are the major contributors to the GDP which shows no signs of slowing down.
I was told the city of San Francisco never sleeps. Mountain View and Sunnyvale (where I accommodated for a couple of days) felt comparatively quiet. I was surprised by the price of houses and the apartments around the Bay area.
Settling down in the Bay Area can be a bit tricky. I was told one can’t get a house in the Bay area which costs less than a million dollars, even in rural neighborhoods. A single bedroom apartment costs well over $2000. Traffic is not that great if one decides to commute from any distance.
In the Bay Area, you find tech people where ever you go. One day, I had been to a café for coffee, and the two youngsters sitting in front of me were talking about algorithms. My friend told me, it is common in the tech area.
He joked, “As a single man, it is difficult to find a right date, as girls employ ‘no tech’ policy.”
I believe the service industry in the United States is divided into two different cultures: Wall Street and the bay area. The motto of the bay area is to make money by doing something new and novel, while the motto of the Wall Street is to earn a profit by making wise decisions.
The Wall Street culture is closer to finance, commerce, diplomacy, politics and media, whereas the Bay area culture is more synonymous with innovation and technology. As a student of computer science, I fell in love with the Bay Area culture and spirit.
