The City By The Meh: Thoughts On Falling Out Of Love With The Valley | TechCrunch

Three short years ago, almost to the day, I arrived in San Francisco and instantly fell in love. As a former technology columnist for the Guardian (and, unbeknownst to me, about to become one again), I had more than a passing familiarity with Silicon Valley. But unlike most tech writers, I’d never had more than a fleeting desire to come here. London was my town - profane, drunken, debauched, wonderful London. Sure, our tech startups might never amount to shit on the Valley’s shoe, but by God we knew how to party. And I loved it; literally writing the book on the capital’s entrepreneurs and the fun we all had during the first three-quarter decade of the 2000s. Fittingly, given what I’m going to say in a few lines’ time, it took a chance encounter at South By Southwest to change my mind. An enthusiastic girl called Eris who jumped on my shoulders at a party, under the misapprehension that we’d met once before.
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