Notes from San Francisco and New York
Observations on a coast-to-coast shift in technology and culture
I recently spent time in both San Francisco and New York — two cities that couldn’t feel more different right now, yet both say a lot about where we’re heading.
In San Francisco, everything revolves around AI. Every event, panel, pinboard, and conversation circles back to it. The city feels like it’s living inside its own feedback loop — tech feeding tech. There’s a density of innovation there that’s hard to match anywhere else. It’s raw, restless, and inevitable. You can feel the next chapter of human progress being prototyped in real time.
Yet outside that AI bubble, San Francisco still feels fragile. Many storefronts remain closed, streets are quieter, and that pre-pandemic spark — the serendipity and chaos that once defined the city — hasn’t fully returned. It’s a place in transition: brilliant minds building the future inside, while the outside world waits to catch up.
Then I landed in New York. Instant contrast. The city feels alive, buzzing with energy and diversity in a way that’s impossible to replicate. I arrived in the middle of the mayoral elections and the marathon, and the city was practically vibrating — a reminder that civic energy and human connection are still the ultimate catalysts for progress.
Every corner, every accent, every interaction reminds you that creativity doesn’t just come from tech — it comes from people colliding. While San Francisco is engineering the future, New York is living it.
SF will never be NY — and that’s fine. But AI might be what brings San Francisco’s heartbeat back. The same force that’s transforming our world could be what reanimates its own hometown.
For me, this tension between cities — one building the tools of tomorrow, the other embodying the creative chaos that keeps humanity moving forward — captures the story I keep returning to: the intersection of art, technology, and urban transformation.
Cities evolve like living systems, shaped by innovation and imagination alike. And as AI reshapes what we build and how we express ourselves, it’s clear that the future of creativity will belong to places — and people — that find a way to fuse both.
A special thank you to TeamSystem and our investors for making these regular US visits possible — and to all the friends and former coworkers we connected with along the way at Google, Apple, Adobe, Pixar, OpenAI, Shopify, Qualified, Databricks, Glean, Zendesk, MongoDB, and many more. Those exchanges — of ideas, experiences, and perspectives — are what truly keep innovation alive.
And, most importantly, I’m grateful for the time spent with my kids — the best reminder of why all of this future-building ultimately matters.