Sections Business

Is SF the new Silicon Valley? Not yet.

In the late ’90s, The City’s South of Market neighborhood witnessed the innovative rise and tragic fall of the dot-com era. Recently, a resurgence of Web startups is once again taking over the neighborhood as well as other parts of The City.

Airbnb, DropBox, Shaker, Square, Twitter, and Zynga have chosen to house their company offices in The City, “choosing San Francisco over SouthBay as the line between work and play becomes more blurred at a time when we are always switched on and available,” according to The Next Web.

Some are making the connection that the tech industry’s move to The City is because of Mayor Ed Lee’s pro-business agenda, citing that Lee often draws attention to the Twitter tax break negotiations that prevented the  company from leaving.

Others cite a more fun-spirited reason.

Shaker’s Bear Kittay, whose company won TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2011, says:

“San Francisco has a more diverse range of people doing interesting stuff, SOMA particularly has an exciting energy at the moment … It’s like a stack effect, the  silicon chip manufacturers of the ’70s are based deep in the South Bay, the system manufacturers of the first dot-com are based further north around Mountain View and Palo Alto, and the high-tech companies of today are up in The City.”

Last modified November 16, 2011 11:31 am

Kresta Rae Kaulupali

Survived typhoons, earthquakes, volcanoes, and sandstorms. Pretty sure I'll survive this phase of my life too.

This website uses cookies.