| January 27, 2005 | Los Angeles, I'm Yours(?) |
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"There's a city by the sea A gentle company I don't suppose you want to... Oh what a rush of ripe elan Languor on divans Dalliant and dainty Los Angeles I'm yours..." -the Decemberists "Los Angeles, I'm Yours" (a bitter love letter to the city off of a decent album) "Are you moving to Los Angeles?" several friends emailed and called to ask me this week, after reading Wednesday's LA Times article about Yahoo!s new office in Santa Monica. Though I am not among the group of Yahoo! folks who have been told they must relocate to LA -- you know how I like to keep you all guessing. As you know, I love San Francisco and my friends here but the truth of the matter is -- though I live in San Francisco, I don't work in San Francisco. Sunnyvale is such a long commute -- 2 hours each day down the traffic-encrusted, ugly 101 freeway that runs through the middle of Silicon Valley. When you work 12-hour days and then commute 2 hours round-trip on top of that, it really doesn't leave you with very much "life" left for experiencing the city, seeing friends and going to movies, or well, anything except maybe sleep and sometimes eating. The only time I see my friends and go out in the city is on the weekends. And even that is so tough -- because by the time friday rolls around mostly all I want to do is curl up in my bed and not go out to a club see a band. So, the option to live in Venice or Santa Monica and work at an office in Santa Monica seems rather appealing to me. As does the ability to be part of the group of people building Yahoo!'s editorial, news, and content realm. As someone who's worked in an news programming job at Yahoo! for the past 3 years, it's awesome to see the company getting behind the ideas of media and content, once again (after a bit of a hiatus after the dot-com downturn). Plus, as you know, dear readers -- unlike most people who love San Francisco, I also love Los Angeles. By doing this, I am breaking one of the cardinal laws of San Francisco, which is "You must look down dismissively at Los Angeles." I'm sorry -- but Los Angeles is much more of a cultural center than Sunnyvale, California. And Silicon Valley has at least as many ugly strip malls as LA. And plus, the housing and rental prices are still (a bit) cheaper down there. These are things I am thinking about. Labels: commute, dotcom, la, sanfrancisco, santamonica, sf, web, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 4:47 PM 
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