A European Founder's Experience Visiting San Francisco

August 14, 2026 - 2 min read

I recently went to San Francisco for the very first time. Partly because I was invited to Y Combinator Startup School, partly because it’s been on my bucket list for a while after seemingly everyone had been praising it as the place to be for building a startup. My thoughts? I was both impressed and disappointed at the same time.

Impressed because tech is literally everywhere. There, you don’t even have to try to find other people who share the same interest in tech as you. The moment I stepped out of the metro, I was greeted by three buses covered in ads for companies I knew. It instantly felt familiar, and I almost felt at home.

Disappointed, however, because I had incredibly high expectations. I’d assumed people there knew some kind of secret and were just doing things way differently. But after meeting a bunch of founders, I realized that there is no secret. They play by the same rules as the rest of the world: be in the right place at the right time and put in the hours.

This is where the big trade-off comes in: San Francisco is undoubtedly the best place in the world to maximize serendipity. It makes it easy to be in the right place at the right time and meet the right people. It’s a combination of the American mentality and the fact that there are just so many like-minded people in one place.

But the huge downside is that tech is all you see and hear. You will have to try hard to step outside that bubble. I, for one, only recall meeting a single person in two weeks who had nothing to do with tech. Generally, I am used to having to try a little to meet people in tech; there, the rules are flipped.

Therefore, for me, San Francisco remains a fascinating place to soak up builder energy, but the trade-off of losing touch with what feels like the outside world is not one I am willing to make. In the end, it mostly does not matter where you build; it only matters that you’re determined.