Written by Rishi Goel, Bachelor of Advanced Science (Honours)
San Francisco stands as the epicentre of global tech and innovation, yet the separation from life in Brisbane often remains untold. At its core, our month-long Startup AdVenture in San Francisco (SF) has shown me what I like to think of as the physicist’s holy trinity of distinctions: speed, density and volume.
Speed:
Everything in SF seems to be faster than Brisbane, the trains, the cars, the people. The month not only flew by, but every moment felt electric. The core tenet of life in SF is to move fast and break things. Every person we met moved from idea to action rapidly. No one waited to be told what to do or waited for a helping hand, they were proactive and consistently kept their momentum moving forward.
Our work placements reiterated the underlying speed that necessitates world-class innovation. The day I left for SF I had just wrapped up a software internship in Brisbane city, feeling proud of all that we achieved in 6 weeks. Little did I know that in the next 4 weeks in SF at Linqia, supported by a team of insanely talented and ‘fail fast’ minded people, we would achieve more than I thought possible. Every meeting was hyper-efficient, with not a single wasted word. The workplace felt electric, people worked hard, played hard and moved fast. Whenever we ran into any resistance, someone was there within the hour to unblock us. Whenever someone gave us a new idea, we in turn rapidly tested and proved - or more often disproved - it.
In Australia, it’s easy to slip into the inertia of life, dawdling from semester to semester without trying something radical. We here simply lack the same velocity of exploration intrinsically instilled in every San Franciscan. Each and every one of them would have 3 side hustles they are in the process of developing simultaneously and were able to scrap old ideas and quickly move onto the next. This rapid cycle of ideate and iterate is core to the innovation process that makes SF what it is.
People being fast doesn’t really explain the whole picture though. Brisbane too has people who move at lightning speed. Arguably the division comes from the fact that in SF, everyone who wants to, and is moving rapidly, are all forced into one-tenth the size of Brisbane.
Density:
In other words, the density in SF is exponentially higher than in Brisbane. Not just the fridge packed full of Trader Joe’s bags, nor the 2 side-by-side bunk beds with suitcases sprawled across them, the talent in SF is so densely packed together, it’s no surprise they lead the tech scene.
This forces some interesting moments; while we were chatting to an Oxford biotech expert about the human genome, a world-class actuarial scientist joins in and starts to discuss the ethics of genome. As they began to talk on the nexus of maths and biology, they connected on LinkedIn and hatched a plan for their very own startup right in front of our eyes. The ridiculous density of talent in SF fosters ideas that nowhere else could possibly dream of.
Now the flip side of these benefits is that the concentration of such shockingly bad ideas is surprisingly much higher. At first, this baffled me, how could such bright, fast-moving individuals, paired up with other world-class talent, ideate a bank where people pay with cryptocurrency based on Twitter tweets (yes this was actually pitched). While at first this seems detrimental, the fact that people do not fear bad ideas nor failure, leads to what can only be understood as volume. And no matter what flaws SF may have, it makes up for it with volume.
Volume:
Other than archaic units of gallons, ounces and quarts, the last key distinction between SF and Brisbane is volume.
San Francisco is massive. I don’t mean in size, nor in population, I mean in energy. California’s economy alone is 2.5x the size of Australia. Silicon Valley has triple the venture capital of Australia. San Francisco has 18 times the unicorns of Australia. The scale of ideas, performance and production is unreal. Visiting time scientists at Meta, Google’s massive search protocols and Tesla’s robotic super factory showed us firsthand just how big these players think.
Volume was the most difficult thing to rationalise while away, it shocked us everyday how much bigger we needed to think. Our work consistently told us to consider whether our ideas would scale to millions of users. Brisbane will likely never reach the scale of SF, besides our laid back nature, I felt that Australia focuses more on the now, and being present, rather than what’s coming next. While that’s not a bad thing per se, I would argue that at least seeing the unfathomable scale is worthwhile. SF’s consistent perspective towards ‘bigness’ is core to what makes it what it is.
A final fourth, Entropy:
I will conclude with an un-signposted, partly foreshadowed fourth; entropy. While I’m sure my professors will dislike the colloquial way I use it here, I truly think the AdVenture we went on added an irreversible amount of entropy to my life. Firstly, there were so many earth-shattering, life-changing moments that showed me a whole new timeline I could possibly entail upon.
Secondly, the trip’s entropic moments (including the assorted spurts of vastly successful rejection therapy) were some of the best times of my life. More than just the vast learnings, this trip was fun, and I got to see a finally discover a corner of the world which I never really expected I would.
But most importantly, the last source of entropy were the 19 new lifelong friends I made, each insane and incredible in their own way, they have truly shaped my life for the better. From the heated philosophical debates, to carving down the snow slopes at Tahoe to the simple moments playing codenames in the level 2 lobby, I know we all became closer than we thought, and we are all better people for doing so. They really made this trip what it is, and I know they will bring the chaos to my life that I did not know I needed. In all, it would be futile to think any level of wordsmithery can summarise just what makes SF special. Only by going, experiencing, and exploring can you really see what I mean. The potential is truly endless! (ok enough physics puns)