Everyone knows why San Francisco is special for tech.
The concentration of founders, engineers, and VCs is unmatched. Venture capital flows everywhere, startups are constantly being built, and with Waymos driving around town, it sometimes feels like you're living a few years into the future.
But there's something else I find fascinating about this city: what it does to the people who spend time here.
I first came to SF in 2019 for a six-month internship at UpMetrics. I was a French business school student with no idea what I wanted to do with my life.
Seven years later, I'm back, running the same trails, catching up with old friends, and realizing just how much those six months influenced the direction my life took.
In SF, I lived with four Harvard alumni working at Facebook, PayPal, and Sequoia.
I discovered the startup world, entrepreneurship podcasts, and a level of ambition I'd never really been exposed to.
At first, I was intimidated by the people around me. But as I got to know them, I realized that while they were more experienced and successful, they weren't necessarily smarter than me. They just had ambitions I hadn't even considered.
After a while, starting a company stopped feeling like something reserved for a handful of exceptional people. It became a realistic possibility.
I even recorded a video promising my future self that I'd take a company public one day.
I still have it. And it's pretty funny to watch now.
There's another side to SF that has little to do with startups.
The city is beautiful. The weather is great (most of the time). You can run through Golden Gate Park, surf at Ocean Beach, cycle across the bridge, or head into the mountains for the weekend.
Add a culture of healthy living and personal growth, and you start looking at your time differently. Every wasted afternoon feels like a missed opportunity to enjoy everything around you.
That's the opportunity cost of paradise: the better your environment, the higher your standards for how you spend your time.
During those six months, I got into running, cycling, yoga, personal finance, and started keeping a daily journal. I also began setting yearly personal goals and being more deliberate about how I spent my time.
I still journal every day, run as much as I can, and have since completed an Ironman and several ultramarathons.
Most of those habits started here.
There's something liberating about being on the other side of the world, away from your usual routines.
By 2pm, France is asleep. You have a lot of time to yourself, away from the usual social expectations and the path you were supposed to follow.
When I arrived, I barely knew how to code.
At UpMetrics, I met Otto, whose data role I was taking over as he transitioned into software engineering. He installed Python on my laptop and helped me get started.
Then Covid hit.
With plenty of time on my hands, I started spending two hours every morning learning Python on DataCamp. Eventually, I took on freelance data projects, kept coding when I returned to France, pursued a master's in data science, and became a software engineer.
Would I have followed the same path if I'd stayed in France? Maybe. But I suspect it would have been harder to step away from the trajectory I was already on.
Seven years later, I'm back on those same trails. And I'm struck by how much of my life today started with small, seemingly insignificant things that happened here.
There's still no IPO, though we've recently raised $6M at Verso. That video from 2019 still makes me laugh.
But the biggest thing I took away from San Francisco wasn't a career plan or a set of habits. It was a simple change in mindset.
Being around people who aim high makes you wonder: why not me?
And honestly, why not you?