Doug Fulop and Jessie Fischer had recently moved to Bend, Ore., from San Francisco, where they had lived in apartments and faced various problems. They were living an idyllic life, working remotely from a spacious house surrounded by nature’s beauty. However, they had to relocate back to the city as they were starting companies based on artificial intelligence (A.I.) technology and needed to network, attend hackathons and meetings, etc. Though San Francisco had been experiencing its worst slump for over a year and had lost many tech workers due to high taxes, strict Covid restrictions, and rising street violence, the couple, among others, found a reason to return because of the A.I. boom. Investors have continuously funded A.I. start-ups ten times more than the previous year, many tech workers had been laid off due to the pandemic, and A.I. technology had become more open-source, enabling people to create a community. As a result, there has been a growing group of boomerang entrepreneurs who have chosen to embrace San Francisco as their base again.
Ms. Fischer is an example; she and Mr. Fulop tried to make 350-person tech scene work in Bend but missed the inspiration, hustle, and connections in San Francisco. The Bay Area is now seeing various A.I.-related activities, such as daily hackathons, demo days, and meet-ups. Networking events by Society of Artificers, a secret group of 800 people focused on A.I. and robotics, and Founders You Should Know, often have more than 2,000 applicants for 120 available spots. Start-up accelerator Y Combinator is also encouraging start-ups to move to San Francisco, and out of a recent batch of 270 start-ups, 86% participated locally.
People are moving to San Francisco regardless of what tech companies are starting; for instance, Brex, a financial technology start-up, decided to become “remote first” early in the pandemic and even shut its offices in San Francisco. However, when Brex began exploring A.I. technology, the founders realized that they were missing out on informal discussions and community building around A.I. Hence, the company’s founders, Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi, shifted base to Palo Alto, California, and began investigating A.I. Invariably, due to the amount of knowledge that was concentrated at the bleeding edge, Mr. Dubugras has been on a steady schedule of coffee meetings with people working on A.I. since his return.
Though Mr. Fulop and Ms. Fischer confessed that they would miss their quiet time in Bend, they realized that to get two start-ups off the ground, there was a need for an intense blend of focus and urgency. San Francisco provided them with an enormous source of inspiration and opportunity, which could not be found elsewhere.
