Thread by @weekinclubhouse

👋 We're back! Apologies for our lack of coverage over the last few days, @Twitter decided to suspend our account for no good reason. We're back tonight for TGIF with @garrytan, @eladgil ft @kimmaicutler on Future of SF and starting companies in the cloud! joinclubhouse.com/event/ZxkvQ2EP

.@kimmaicutler's research on remote work within @Initialized's portfolio companies has been featured in WSJ, SF Chronicle, and many more 🔥

.@kimmaicutler: San Francisco is still the most popular city for our portfolio companies to have a HQ in. But the most popular option overall is having no HQ at all. Very interesting second order consequences for cities if this data generalizes beyond pandemic.

.@eladgil: One question I have is - where will the founders live? For many early distributed companies I'm familiar with, the founders/exec teams were still in the Bay Area.

.@kimmaicutler: Cristobal Young, a Stanford professor, did research on tax flight. He found that effects of leaving because of higher taxes is not statistically significant. People stay for reasons beyond just taxes.

.@eladgil: Every year I've been analyzing where are the unicorns. For the most recent 200 new unicorns created, about 1/4 of them are in Silicon Valley. New York is next, and then Shanghai and LA, and then long tail of cities with 1 unicorn each. So still concentrated in SV.

.@eladgil: There may end up being a long tail of cities with a couple of unicorns each. So it'll be possible to make a unicorn from anywhere. But I still wouldn't underestimate the network effects of being in SV. Just like LA/Hollywood still has pull for filmmakers.

.@kimmaicutler: If you're planning on staying in the Bay Area, I encourage you to get involved in local politics. The current political leadership in city and state doesn't have a huge motivation to attract tech talent. And candidates who are holding tech accountable are winning.

.@garrytan: My #1 worry about the Silicon Valley region is housing. Many of the current negatives can be traced to lack of housing development.

.@garrytan: One confusing thing about SF politics is the usual party labels don't make any sense anymore. I don't even know what being a "moderate" in SF means today.

.@kimmaicutler: It's important to also be engaged in politics at the state-level. Whoever the Democrats endorse has a real advantage in local elections.

.@garrytan: I want to signal boost @GrowSF and @SFyimby. Both are doing much-needed work to fix housing (amongst other things).

.@garrytan: Pre-product market fit, I think being physically near people when working is still important. I also think that fully distributed companies will still make a few visits to SF and the Bay Area.

.@garrytan: Even if the current tech leaders are leaving SF, a new generation of techies will come to SF and make it their own.

.@eladgil: It only takes a few "anchor" companies in a metro to make it a tech hub. I think the fact that Google and other large tech co's started offices in NYC helped kickstart the startup ecosystem there.

.@eladgil: Los Angeles, because of SpaceX and other companies, is starting to hit a critical mass like the one in NYC.

.@eladgil: I know a couple of small, pre-product teams that formed a bubble so they can still co-work together. I also know of one company that was distributed and flipped to mostly in-person during covid. Another small company is holding weekly outdoor meetings at a park.

.@eladgil: I still think that for building a new product/company from zero, having everyone in one room is a huge benefit. Maintaining and growing existing products is much easier to do remotely.

.@eladgil: Many companies I'm familiar with took surveys about employee happiness. At the start of the pandemic employees had positive impressions on remote work, but recently has been trending downward. Some companies have even scaled back plans to go fully remote post-pandemic.

.@garrytan: I recommend people use newer tools like @figmadesign and @around_hq that are remote work "native" instead of standard video chat. I was in a 3 hour board meeting on @around_hq and didn't have nearly as much Zoom fatigue as before.

.@eladgil: In November, my chief of staff went through the top 100 unicorns in the US. Half were in the Bay Area, but all 6 companies that said they were going remote-first were in the Bay Area.

Governance matters.

Moving on to $GME and WSB...

.@garrytan: I feel a bit bad for jumping on early to judge @RobinhoodApp when it was likely a liquidity issue, not malice.

.@garrytan: Huge overlap in mentality between r/WallStreetBets and crypto community.

.@eladgil: Combination of lots of global liquidity and huge influx of retail investors led to this. Every trading app copied @RobinhoodApp and added no-commission trading. Huge mass of people who can now move markets.

.@eladgil: One question I've been asking myself - what's the next emergent behavior we'll see? Very hard to imagine last year that a subreddit could take down a hedge fund.

.@garrytan: I've changed my mind on ISAs. Am now much more bullish. I used to debate this a lot with @daltonc, so now I can say:

Dalton, you were right.

.@kimmaicutler: I love this insight from @rubenharris:
The best person to help and mentor you in your career isn't the person at the top. It's the person whose just a few steps ahead of you.

.@eladgil: I find Bitwise super interesting. Financial products will be the first killer use case for crypto and blockchain.

.@kimmaicutler: Many interesting questions around offices as vaccines ramp up. Will offices require vaccination? How often will employees come in? Companies I've talked to are thinking about 2-3 days/wk at the office. What will happen to transit with fewer commutes?

.@eladgil: We're going through a moment in society where everything is amplified like never before. I think Gamestop phenomenon is just an early example.

...and that's a wrap! Thanks to the speakers @garrytan @kimmaicutler @eladgil for a great conversation.

Subscribe to our newsletter to get more Clubhouse highlights 👋
weekinclubhouse.substack.com