San Francisco could have a status for being AI-obsessed and chock-full of delinquent tech nerds—however these are solely stereotypes, proper?
A viral submit from a San Francisco tech employee introduced all the town’s clichés into focus, after he visited New York Metropolis and was seemingly amazed by individuals curious about something apart from AI.
Parv Sondhi, a San Francisco-based challenge supervisor with expertise at Apple, eBay, and UC Berkeley, took to social media to share his observations after spending every week in New York Metropolis. In his post, he remarked on seeing “only a few AI advertisements or billboards round” and coming throughout “far more artists.”
Sondhi appeared particularly wowed by how social New Yorkers are relative to San Franciscans. He famous that “individuals are really exterior touching grass (or cement 😅),” “everyone seems to be keen to strike up a dialog (not about AI brokers),” and he “discovered a approach to discuss to people with out mentioning AI.”
In a single notably head-scratching remark, Sondhi famous that “even cafés” had “only a few screens with Claude Code or Cursor or some coding device.”
“It’s genuinely refreshing to recollect there’s a complete world exterior the feed,” Sondhi wrote to conclude his submit. “The SF tech bubble makes it simple to overlook how alive actual cities really feel. Sorry SF, you’re nonetheless residence . . . however perspective is wholesome.”
Within the replies to his submit, Sondhi continued praising New York Metropolis’s vitality, saying “nobody cared what number of brokers I’ve working” and “I really felt motivated to learn and write extra as an alternative of simply spending 20 hours on my laptop computer.”
Bursting the Bay Space bubble
When Sondhi’s submit left his viewers and unfold to social media at massive, it shortly went viral, garnering 3.6 million views on X. Non-tech insiders took Sondhi’s amazement at on a regular basis life as an indictment of San Francisco and of tech tradition at massive. “That is the bleakest factor I’ve ever learn,” one X user said.
“What an incredible reminder that I can by no means transfer to San Francisco,” quipped another commenter.
“I don’t really assume SF is that this dangerous,” wrote a third. “Should you willingly select to spend all of your time with the world’s most maladjusted tech freaks, that may be a private alternative.”
Even Bay Space residents exterior of the tech world chimed in to defend their metropolis, saying Sondhi’s expertise throughout the tech bubble is way from all that San Francisco has to supply. “I promise you most of SF is superior normals,” one user posted.
One other San Francisco resident expressed resentment over the irony of Sondhi’s submit. “Love when the people who find themselves actively destroying San Francisco by tech are like, ‘I went some place else, and it was so nice! SF is a tech bubble!’” they wrote.
America’s most tech-obsessed metropolis
Is San Francisco actually all that completely different from different U.S. cities? In any case, New York Metropolis has probably the most whole tech staff in America, with 422,000 as of 2025. That’s 11.63% of the town’s whole workforce, considerably greater than the nationwide determine of seven.25%.
However that pales compared to San Francisco, which boasts the best focus of tech staff per capita within the nation: 22.54% of the town’s workforce is within the tech trade. That’s almost double the focus of New York Metropolis, making it simple to see how Sondhi’s journey might come as a tradition shock.
Nonetheless, San Francisco has loads of tradition past its bustling tech trade, with some commenters highlighting the town’s lovely public parks and strong public transit system.
One replier to Sondhi had some recommendation for any SF-based tech bros planning journeys past the town. “To my fellow Bay Space residents visiting cities apart from San Francisco: Should you might strive to not tweet just like the smoke aliens from Arrival first encountering humanity after you go to unique locations like ‘New York,’ I’d actually respect it,” they joked. “This displays on me as effectively.”
