For the past two weeks I've been in San Francisco, at the very heart of America's technological center. I described last week a small bit of this as well.
Let me describe an account of 96 average hours in SF for me. I…
Played poker with AI researchers.
Heard pitches at a startup pitch event.
Went to a hackathon for voice AI agents.
Cooked up a prototype with a VC buddy.
Put out some fires with my day-to-day consulting/advisory business.
Built my protein pipeline further with good input from folks at a genomics/biotech event.
Had some of the best South Indian food you could ever imagine.
Got stuck in a Waymo briefly (I had to step out and book a new ride, but their support and handling was 10/10).
Mind you, I am new to SF. I know this experience may not be representative or typical (it very well might be). In poker, I tend to enjoy playing rather absurdly, and I joke: “you can’t win if you don’t play”.
I think that’s the same principle that applies to SF: sufficiently driven, sufficiently motivated people, tend to amplify each other. If you play, if you do something, versus just dream about it, your odds of actual success increase extraordinarily.
Many people are transplants from different communities and countries. Many I've found are visiting because of that fleeting zeitgeist of meeting people and having the same experience I had, if not greater. They strive to increase their proverbial luck surface area.
This creates a sort of accretion, a self-selecting nature where people are incredibly competitive and strive to be the best, but are also figuring it out. People are testing lots of different things and very quickly, meaning, their rate of personal evolution skyrockets. If something sticks, and it’s a company, that’s success.
These very same people, you will find hiking and touching grass 25 minutes away from downtown, on the coast overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. In Chinatown enjoying dumplings. Nature is a very close thing in SF, and it’s not a concrete jungle. Humanity and biology are never too far away, is what I’m saying.
In other words, acceleration demands a compounding force - a certain minimum critical mass, a legend that encompasses the reality, a spectrum of outcomes all validated as possible, and people insane enough to play at the table (and not lose their ass long enough).
Let me know what you think and what you want to hear more about.
Be well,
Michael Kirsanov