I moved to San Francisco. For a second, it feels weird to say, but at the same time, it feels like, yeah, it was always gonna happen. The way things were going for the past few years in the US, the way I was reading and learning about tech, startups, and investing, it was bound to happen sooner or later. And it did happen right after graduation. So yeah, it's definitely an interesting feeling.
I live close to downtown, around FiDi, the Financial District. I've seen a few things like the pier, Golden Gate Park, and the obvious stuff. It's weird how life works and how extraordinary things can become ordinary as you grow as a person.
It's been a week or two since I moved to SF now. One time, when I was walking down the street, I saw a few places I'd seen before. And by before, I mean all the way back to the first time I was ever in SF, around New Year's in 2017. I was here on a family vacation while my sister was in grad school. That was the first time I visited California.
And now I live here. It's just become normal. I mean, obviously it's not a huge thing, but it's still kind of mind-boggling sometimes when I walk down certain streets. I'm like, wow, I came all the way from India just for a vacation here. And now this is where I live. Sometimes it's kind of weird.
But yeah, here I am. A city where tech giants are built, where people talk in millions and billions. People raise money like that, and they win like that. But deep down, there are also tons and tons of people who lose every day or who don't know what the fuck they're doing.
I think there's a weird sort of distinctiveness to San Francisco. I can't quite find the word for it. In the past two weeks, I've met people doing tens of millions in revenue in a month. I've also met highly cocky and arrogant sophomore students who think they're winning because they're doing an internship at big tech. Obviously, none of them are wrong. I don't want to call it hypocrisy. It's just this difference in how people think.
At the same time, I've met people doing a normal finance job in the Financial District, like a junior analyst at Goldman Sachs. And I can't help but wonder how, in the same city, you have no idea what a person could be doing. You could be walking down the street, and the guy next to you could be making a shit ton of money that you have no idea about. But he might be lonely as fuck.
On the same street, you might see a person with a cushy job in the Financial District, tons of friends, and a really nice life. Someone who has absolutely no goals of ever doing a startup, but they're having fun and they're happy.
I think that's part of the cost of being ambitious. You're so driven, you optimize so much, you want to win so much, but you forget to live. I see a lot of that here as well. I'm seeing all sorts of people. I saw one person optimizing his life so much, but I don't think he's living.
Then, at the same time, I met a founder who is absolutely grinding, but he's also having fun along the way. And I'm pretty sure he's the guy who's gonna win in the future.
Then there's the homelessness in San Francisco, which is another thing I wonder about. How can a city be so different? On the same street, you can see two completely different worlds. So yeah, that's one thing about SF so far.
Another thing is that I think this is the only city I've been in where people really, really talk about AI agents and replacing humans this much. More than anywhere else I've been. And that makes sense. It really does when you think about San Francisco and tech. It's the same with Bengaluru in India, London in the UK, or Shanghai in China. Every country has those cities.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that people here are so different. If I go to a poker event, at the same table I could meet a complete drug addict who's doing drugs every other day and wants to try worse and worse drugs. Or I could meet a student who's playing poker and making 500 bucks in minutes. Or someone like me, who's highly ambitious, just moved here, and is exploring and trying to meet new people. Or a founder just letting off some steam at a poker table. It's so fascinating. And yeah, it's kind of weird.
Another thing I realized super early on is that I think this is the time I'm actually adulting. Before this, I was in Tucson. I still had some friends there. And now that I'm finally in adult life, I'm like, wow, college was so much better for meeting new people.
You could meet people in class, in clubs, in bars, this and that, and you'd know, yeah, they're in the same college. You have this sort of inside world, a world of your own when you're in college.
And now you're out in the real world, and you're like, what the fuck. You have to actually live. You have to maintain your social life, your body, your career, your drive, your passion, your growth, your money. Each and every fucking thing. Wow.
There are also moments when I'm thinking, should I not have stopped Finney? I still remember that time. But then I also remember that I made a shit ton of mistakes I shouldn't have made when I was building Finney. I've been going back to that, actually. So yeah, that's something I've been thinking about ever since I moved here.
Another thing is that I was reading this article, and I realized how much friendships change. They go from a team sport to an individual sport when you move out of college. And it's so true.
I used to have a group of four and another group of ten friends in college. Now someone lives here, someone lives there, and everyone's doing their own thing. It's like I can barely maintain relationships with each person separately.
It really does become an individual sport in your twenties when you move somewhere outside of college and you're actually building your life and career. It's kind of fascinating that you realize right after college, oh fuck, college was so easy and different. It was its own world. But now shit is real.
So yeah, it's been quite an experience so far.