Thread by @zaoyang

I'm moving to Miami from the bay area.

Five things make this possible:
* Zoom as clearing house for investments
* Housing policies in the Miami-Texas region
* Community with culture
* Startup incubators backed by seasoned operators
* Ambitious local talent

2/ The dynamics of investing has changed. SV used to be the local clearing house where everyone has to go to SV for 2-3 weeks to raise their rounds and even to stay to build relationships for investors.

3/ What ends up happening in practice is that people end up moving to the bay area. However, the net migration of companies has stopped. YC batches went from 80% in the bay area to now 5% in the bay area throughout the pandemic. I've been investing in YC comp pre and post.

4/ California has proposition 13, but this with tech salaries from tech monopolies with lack of housing keeps housing prices high. The result: risk averse employees, remote first companies already based in SV, and lack of art, music, and culinary variety.

5/ The housing prices prices out musicians, artists, and chefs. They go to places that have pro housing policies like Miami. In Miami, you can go to a music festival, eat at great restaurants, go to lil Cuba/Argentina, and then go St Barts for a day trip.

6/ Community needs density. SF had density and culture and that's why people went there, but because of rampant crime, (my cars got broken into 5 times in SF, friends I know have their places broken into or punched in the street in good areas), feces, and syringes. It's too much.

7/ Why not LA? Everything is too spread out, community needs density. Why not Austin? (cedar fever, no public lands, not enough proximity to water). Why not Seattle/Denver? (too cold) Why not Nashville? (culture, and proximity to beach)

8/ As a result of this being the second homes of many people from LA, NYC, latin america, and europe, Miami has now been an unusual melting point that's quite refreshing for someone that is just in a monoculture of technology in SF.

9/ One thing that is not mentioned often is that there are three operators that are incubating startups in Miami. @JoinAtomic @jackabraham @rabois @jonoringer Backed with hundreds of millions of dollars, companies like Openstore are simply the beginning.

10/ One thing people mention is the hustle culture and the green lambos. @rabois pointed out to me that this is a sign of a merit based culture. People are accepting of success and emulate it. Whereas Cali has developed a culture against merit. I tend to agree.

11/ Other people mention the rising waters, hurricanes, and hot summers. I'm not sure if you've noticed but there are wildfires every year in California and the government doesn't do anything. In Miami, they are aware of climate change and actively build infrastructure.

12/ There isn't that much mosquitos and the summers are hot and humid, but compared to smoke and wildfires, and a calcified homogenous culture, I and others can deal.

13/ @rabois in one of his videos mentioned that Square Cash had designers from NYC, engineers from Atlanta and Australia and it ended up working. This has been my experience as well, most of my companies and the companies I've adopted has a center of excellence approach.

14/ Not only has the @knightfdn invested in Miami talent. There are pre-existing talent from Atlanta, NYC/Boston, Texas. People that prefer the quality of life inside Miami better than those area. Beach, water, humidity for great skin, and an luxury and glam.

15/ Just like S.V. was made by people who opted to move there, Miami would preferentially selected by the Texas/Chicago/NYC/Boston corridor. People who are concerned about hiring engineers shouldn't be that concerned in my opinion.

16/ Thank you for all that made my Miami trip enjoyable. I'm now moving to the 305. Thank you guys: @rabois @ecachette @arifalkner @volvoshine @bunsen @willweinraub @danielpsegundo @nic__carter @MariaDerchi @shaig Please excuse anyone that I've missed, it was a whirlwind.

17/ Lastly, I shipped most of my stuff over to Miami already but currently driving cross country with a Tesla Y with a trailer :)

18/ Tesla with 2000 pound trailer changes the range from 324 to 120 and unfortunately we ran out of range in New Mexico and had to get towed. @elonmusk Can you get more super chargers in Arizona and New Mexico?!

19/ Anyone that is considering moving, feel free to DM me, I've considered all across the country to move including Seattle, Denver, LA, Austin, Hawaii, New Zealand, and Miami. Can give you what I think about the different regions.

20/ Especially thank you to @rabois Your mental models made it esp compelling. He pointed out the Jeff Bezos and Sheryl Sandberg both grew up in Miami. There shouldn't be too much concerns about raising kids in Miami. Miami has had a lot of brain drain but this changed recently

Wow this blew up, within 10 minutes of writing this. 18k people viewed this thread.

456k people now. Only a couple of hours. Kind of crazy.

800k people views now.