Why I left the Bay Area/Silicon Valley and came to Detroit
Silicon Valley all started when Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore founded Fairchild and Intel in the 1950s that later gave rise to the semiconductor and IT industry in the area, and with the two world-renowned institutions, UC Berkeley and Stanford continually producing high-caliber college graduates that either drive the success of the many technology companies or start new ones.
I came to the Bay Area from China a little over 3 years ago and finished my degree in chemical engineering from UC Berkeley in 3 years. During my 3 years there, I had started two companies, worked in a startup started by my friend and classmate, interned on campus, and interned for two summers. Compared to people at my age, I am a veteran in “real-world experience”. With these credentials, I might seem to be one of the many superstars thriving in the Bay Area, either working at a large technology company like Intel or Genentech, investment banking or consulting, or starting my own company. In the Bay Area, the possibilities are limitless, and the vitality never dies.
Yet I left, and I came to Detroit. Yes, Detroit, the city that went bankrupt two years ago, and home of GM and Chrysler that went bankrupt a little over half a decade ago during the global economic crisis. To clarify, I don’t actually live and work in the city of Detroit, but the suburban cities surrounding it, like Berkeley and Oakland relative to San Francisco.
Getting out of my comfort zone
One of the primary reasons why I left the Bay Area was that I LOVED it. I loved it so much that it blinds me of the rest of the world. I loved the sunny weather for most days of the year. In the summer, it’s not too hot like LA, and in the winter it’s not too cold like Seattle or worse yet, New England and the Midwest. Living in Berkeley and the East Bay, I have explored a lot of hiking trails, a lot of nature, and the city is very walkable/pedestrian-friendly. I never fail to find people jogging throughout the day and people biking to work or school.
If you ask me for 100 reasons why I loved the Bay Area, I could give you 200; and that worried me. Having moved around in many places in the world as I grew up, I was worried that I was going to settle here forever. Life was perfect; everything was perfect. What’s ever better to motivate me to move on and pursue something better if I have found perfection? I was too young to settle down. I haven’t seen the rest of the world yet. And the lack of discomfort and challenge sickened me.
Tech, tech, tech
Going to school in the Bay Area, you couldn’t help notice the myriad of startups and established technology companies here. I didn’t really care if I were rich or working for a prestigious company or starting my own company; I wanted to do something for the environment and change the world. But how could I change the world if my world is surrounded by Bay Area? At networking events with startups, I meet 10 different companies that make wearable devices to track your health, 10 different companies that make apps for the next taxi service, next online food ordering service, next online butler service, the next this and that to make your life easier and lazier and drive traditional businesses and people already in poverty out of business (like Uber and Amazon are doing now), who are all claiming to change the world. The startup scene and the job market in the Bay Area are oversaturated with people making mobile apps, software, and websites. There are coding schools that advertise by illustrating how much your paycheck can go up by giving up whatever you were interested in doing and starting to learn how to code.
At networking events with companies, tens of graduates of Berkeley EECS who work at Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Apple. Silicon Valley and the Bay Area are my bubble, and although each one of the people I met are brilliant and smart, I don’t learn anything about what they do other than that their workplace is awesome and how they are building the next iThis, iThat, the iEverything and iAmTheCenterOfTheUniverse, blah blah blah.
To quote a great article I read on ZDNet a year ago titled “Has Silicon Valley run out of ideas?”, “Silicon Valley seem to have run out of original ideas. How many To Do lists, email management, or calendar apps do we need? There's dozens of me-too startups in many categories… How will engineers come up with great business ideas that solve common problems that many people face every day if their every day is the same — a techie version of Groundhog Day?”
With such low risk and barrier to entry, the startup and technology scene today is very much different from the one that Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore established, a team of very knowledgeable scientists with great experience and expertise, coming from all over the country and deciding to make something big for mankind, not stuck in a bubble of the Bay Area and the notion of “I can do something like they did too”.
After all, Bay Area wasn’t as perfect as it sounded and I hoped it to be. It has got lots of merits and buzz, but I was looking for a new challenge. The Bay Area was a comfort zone for the talented elites, but a deeper look at its fourth dimension, I see growing inequality between the rich and the poor, people losing their jobs because they used to work in the service industry for the Silicon Valley and were easily laid off, and a growing indifference towards the well-being of the society as everyone is drawn to the tech, tech, and tech.
Detroit? Yes, Detroit.
Although I was born in Canada, I had never lived in a place below the freezing point of water or seen snow for over a week. It would strike odd to anyone that I would consider coming to anywhere in the Northeast or Midwest.
Even if I were tired of the boring tech scene in the Bay Area, I could at least try Boston, Chicago, New York, or DC. But Detroit, seriously?
Yes, Detroit.
First of all, people in the Bay Area have all sorts of negative imaginations of Detroit without having even been there. I wanted to see for myself. If it’s really bad, it would be a challenge for me to make a change and difference there, and nothing is more exhilarating than that. Do I want to be the person that helps the Bay Area be what it already is, or help Detroit become the Bay Area? The latter seemed like an obvious choice to me, as I am someone who always looks for new ways to learn and new challenges to take on.
Detroit and GM are on a revival from past bankruptcies. Being immersed in this revival can help me learn more about how to recover and revive from a crisis and provide me with the opportunities to make a difference. If there are no holes for one to fix, one would never learn how to fix a hole. If there are no problems for one to solve, one would never learn how to solve a problem. This ties back to my first point of leaving the comfort zone. Bay Area and Berkeley have provided me with the problem solving skills and the spirit of making a difference, and Detroit is the battlefield for testing them out.
Besides, Detroit is not that bad. After all, it is the birthplace of American automotive industry and it is still and will be a stronghold of that for the decades to come. Detroit is no in lack of talented engineers and innovators from University of Michigan, Michigan State, and Kettering University. Just as much as how most Berkeley and Stanford graduates feed into the technology companies in the Bay Area, these institutions feed into the automotive companies in Detroit. As a Berkeley Cal Bear, I will not give up the spirits of Bay Area and California and conform to become like them, but it is important and valuable to learn the positive aspects from them and observe their shortcomings and try to avoid them.
Future is full of adventure.
What is my future? Going back to the Bay Area? Settling in Detroit? Going to a new place? Who knows? I don’t. Graduating from Berkeley made me realize how many different types of people I could meet and work with, but eventually in order to make a difference in the world, I have to go out into and explore the world. And if Bay Area truly has the unique charm and ability to bring me back to make a difference, it will sooner or later. I am only 20 and too young to settle down, and I am too young to be not ambitious and think that I can’t make a difference in Detroit, where everyone in the Bay Area considers undesirable but isn’t. I know that the Bay Area won’t go away and there would always be exciting stuff going on, but the revival of Detroit might only happen once in our lifetime; that’s adventurous!
Silicon Valley all started when Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore founded Fairchild and Intel in the 1950s that later gave rise to the semiconductor and IT industry in the area, and with the two world-renowned institutions, UC Berkeley and Stanford continually producing high-caliber college graduates that either drive the success of the many technology companies or start new ones.
I came to the Bay Area from China a little over 3 years ago and finished my degree in chemical engineering from UC Berkeley in 3 years. During my 3 years there, I had started two companies, worked in a startup started by my friend and classmate, interned on campus, and interned for two summers. Compared to people at my age, I am a veteran in “real-world experience”. With these credentials, I might seem to be one of the many superstars thriving in the Bay Area, either working at a large technology company like Intel or Genentech, investment banking or consulting, or starting my own company. In the Bay Area, the possibilities are limitless, and the vitality never dies.
Yet I left, and I came to Detroit. Yes, Detroit, the city that went bankrupt two years ago, and home of GM and Chrysler that went bankrupt a little over half a decade ago during the global economic crisis. To clarify, I don’t actually live and work in the city of Detroit, but the suburban cities surrounding it, like Berkeley and Oakland relative to San Francisco.
Getting out of my comfort zone
One of the primary reasons why I left the Bay Area was that I LOVED it. I loved it so much that it blinds me of the rest of the world. I loved the sunny weather for most days of the year. In the summer, it’s not too hot like LA, and in the winter it’s not too cold like Seattle or worse yet, New England and the Midwest. Living in Berkeley and the East Bay, I have explored a lot of hiking trails, a lot of nature, and the city is very walkable/pedestrian-friendly. I never fail to find people jogging throughout the day and people biking to work or school.
If you ask me for 100 reasons why I loved the Bay Area, I could give you 200; and that worried me. Having moved around in many places in the world as I grew up, I was worried that I was going to settle here forever. Life was perfect; everything was perfect. What’s ever better to motivate me to move on and pursue something better if I have found perfection? I was too young to settle down. I haven’t seen the rest of the world yet. And the lack of discomfort and challenge sickened me.
Tech, tech, tech
Going to school in the Bay Area, you couldn’t help notice the myriad of startups and established technology companies here. I didn’t really care if I were rich or working for a prestigious company or starting my own company; I wanted to do something for the environment and change the world. But how could I change the world if my world is surrounded by Bay Area? At networking events with startups, I meet 10 different companies that make wearable devices to track your health, 10 different companies that make apps for the next taxi service, next online food ordering service, next online butler service, the next this and that to make your life easier and lazier and drive traditional businesses and people already in poverty out of business (like Uber and Amazon are doing now), who are all claiming to change the world. The startup scene and the job market in the Bay Area are oversaturated with people making mobile apps, software, and websites. There are coding schools that advertise by illustrating how much your paycheck can go up by giving up whatever you were interested in doing and starting to learn how to code.
At networking events with companies, tens of graduates of Berkeley EECS who work at Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Apple. Silicon Valley and the Bay Area are my bubble, and although each one of the people I met are brilliant and smart, I don’t learn anything about what they do other than that their workplace is awesome and how they are building the next iThis, iThat, the iEverything and iAmTheCenterOfTheUniverse, blah blah blah.
To quote a great article I read on ZDNet a year ago titled “Has Silicon Valley run out of ideas?”, “Silicon Valley seem to have run out of original ideas. How many To Do lists, email management, or calendar apps do we need? There's dozens of me-too startups in many categories… How will engineers come up with great business ideas that solve common problems that many people face every day if their every day is the same — a techie version of Groundhog Day?”
With such low risk and barrier to entry, the startup and technology scene today is very much different from the one that Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore established, a team of very knowledgeable scientists with great experience and expertise, coming from all over the country and deciding to make something big for mankind, not stuck in a bubble of the Bay Area and the notion of “I can do something like they did too”.
After all, Bay Area wasn’t as perfect as it sounded and I hoped it to be. It has got lots of merits and buzz, but I was looking for a new challenge. The Bay Area was a comfort zone for the talented elites, but a deeper look at its fourth dimension, I see growing inequality between the rich and the poor, people losing their jobs because they used to work in the service industry for the Silicon Valley and were easily laid off, and a growing indifference towards the well-being of the society as everyone is drawn to the tech, tech, and tech.
Detroit? Yes, Detroit.
Although I was born in Canada, I had never lived in a place below the freezing point of water or seen snow for over a week. It would strike odd to anyone that I would consider coming to anywhere in the Northeast or Midwest.
Even if I were tired of the boring tech scene in the Bay Area, I could at least try Boston, Chicago, New York, or DC. But Detroit, seriously?
Yes, Detroit.
First of all, people in the Bay Area have all sorts of negative imaginations of Detroit without having even been there. I wanted to see for myself. If it’s really bad, it would be a challenge for me to make a change and difference there, and nothing is more exhilarating than that. Do I want to be the person that helps the Bay Area be what it already is, or help Detroit become the Bay Area? The latter seemed like an obvious choice to me, as I am someone who always looks for new ways to learn and new challenges to take on.
Detroit and GM are on a revival from past bankruptcies. Being immersed in this revival can help me learn more about how to recover and revive from a crisis and provide me with the opportunities to make a difference. If there are no holes for one to fix, one would never learn how to fix a hole. If there are no problems for one to solve, one would never learn how to solve a problem. This ties back to my first point of leaving the comfort zone. Bay Area and Berkeley have provided me with the problem solving skills and the spirit of making a difference, and Detroit is the battlefield for testing them out.
Besides, Detroit is not that bad. After all, it is the birthplace of American automotive industry and it is still and will be a stronghold of that for the decades to come. Detroit is no in lack of talented engineers and innovators from University of Michigan, Michigan State, and Kettering University. Just as much as how most Berkeley and Stanford graduates feed into the technology companies in the Bay Area, these institutions feed into the automotive companies in Detroit. As a Berkeley Cal Bear, I will not give up the spirits of Bay Area and California and conform to become like them, but it is important and valuable to learn the positive aspects from them and observe their shortcomings and try to avoid them.
Future is full of adventure.
What is my future? Going back to the Bay Area? Settling in Detroit? Going to a new place? Who knows? I don’t. Graduating from Berkeley made me realize how many different types of people I could meet and work with, but eventually in order to make a difference in the world, I have to go out into and explore the world. And if Bay Area truly has the unique charm and ability to bring me back to make a difference, it will sooner or later. I am only 20 and too young to settle down, and I am too young to be not ambitious and think that I can’t make a difference in Detroit, where everyone in the Bay Area considers undesirable but isn’t. I know that the Bay Area won’t go away and there would always be exciting stuff going on, but the revival of Detroit might only happen once in our lifetime; that’s adventurous!