On San Francisco

I had a splendid time. The weather was impeccable. It was so energizing to meet acquaintances and friends I haven't seen in a long time.

Some observations:

They also just cook with water.

Talent begets talent. Ambition begets ambition begets greatness. (Not a new idea: paulgraham.com/cities.)

I was at a birthday party at a house, and it was so funny. I just pulled my laptop out and showed what I've been working on. Response: "Yeah, that's essentially building your own harness."

Meta's Muse launched last week, and all of these chatbots. I'm not sure the agentic wave will change the penetration of US dominance in the tech world that much, because it's already massive if you look at Google. It might even be a bit of a zero-sum game. But it's definitely going to manifest and harden the grip and the stronghold the US has on consumer spend and the ad and tech industry, also in Europe.

I'm definitely jealous that people are moving there. But my realization is that I've seen an absolutely biased group of people: very hard working, top 0.1% Germans moving to SF and actually getting funding. So yes, one can be jealous of the top 1% founders who already exited and are now moving to SF.

I met the cream of the crop. You do a master's at Stanford, you get into YC, it doesn't work out, you pivot, you switch co-founders, and then you finally link up with your buddy who already exited a company in Germany and raised money independently. You double the valuation of your company without any dilution because investors are so keen to back you from both sides, from SF and from Berlin.

Aside from the profiles I met during my time in VC, which were just very flashy, this is still pretty damn good talent. Even at random dinners. Everyone is a founder.

Also: everyone is building hardware these days.

I always thought the single market in America is helpful for building. Now I definitely know it is. I met someone doing autonomous refueling for drones, which seems to me like such a niche problem. But if you have the American defense apparatus behind you, with an Iran war and big airports, even a refuel truck can be a venture case.

Another observation: everyone is fucking rich. Everyday things are not that expensive in my opinion, going to Trader Joe's is okay. I'll see the difference to New York price-wise because I just landed here. Housing is crazy pricey from what I've heard. But everyone is wealthy. I was invited to a dinner as a plus one, didn't even know the host, and he cooked fucking steak and tuna. This guy must have spent five, six hundred dollars on ingredients alone, which is absolutely bonkers to me. In Germany you chip in 20 or 30 euros for a dinner and you eat spaghetti with pesto, for lack of a better example.

Now that some weeks have passed, I enjoyed this part of the trip way more than NYC.