During Silicon Valley’s hey day, I was fortunate enough to be couch surfing, hostel hopping and eventually apartment renting in San Francisco.

I don’t like to toss the term “magical” around much but that’s what it felt like. If you were a startup founder on a bus you’d be asked by a stranger what you were working on and then they’d introduce you to a VP at LYFT, your ideal customer. That’s not an exaggeration that’s exactly what happened to me.

I’m writing this from Red Jack Saloon on Bay ST in North Beach remembering what it was like to live above this place during the best time to be in Silicon Valley. SV gets lots of flak and especially from me even because something fucked up a national asset.

But holy shit if there was a place that was a cheat code it was here.

I remember reading tweets of companies saying they didn’t need to be in SF and it feels like 1 out of 1,000 made it that posted shit like that (Props to Zapier in Iowa).

People just wanted to help you succeed. They worked non-stop, didn’t sleep and over-tipped their local spots. But really they genuinely bought into helping you on your dream. No bullshit. That’s why “magical” is warranted. It was this understood agreement that you helped everyone here as much as you could if they were here.

That feeling was gone in SF.