My recent take on NYC vs San Francisco blew up with over 1 million views in the last 24h, and Bill Ackman retweeted it. And I've never seen so much division in the comments. If you're interested in the debate, this is a summary of both perspectives: The case for building in New York: 1. Lifestyle actually matters for retention and creativity. New York’s density of restaurants, art, nightlife, fashion, and media makes people want to stay and build long-term instead of treating the city as a temporary grind station. 2. The talent pool is broader and more complete. SF primarily gives you excellent engineers. NYC gives you engineers plus world-class designers, salespeople, marketers, operators, bankers, and creatives - all of whom modern companies desperately need. 3. Applied AI has a natural home here. Finance, media, advertising, healthcare, real estate, law, and commerce already live in New York, so the AI layer being built on top of them has deeper industry access and faster product-market feedback. 4. Major AI labs now run meaningful operations in the city. You can build a serious frontier-tech career in New York without giving up the ecosystem or the lifestyle. Plenty of people who left SF for NYC call it the best career move they’ve ever made. The combination of energy + opportunity feels different once you’ve lived both. The case for building in SF: 1. The biggest AI labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, etc.) were founded and remain headquartered in the Bay Area. NYC mostly has secondary or expansion offices, not the core research gravity. 2. Pure technical density and founder concentration still favor SF. The highest-caliber systems talent, research culture, and “in the room” information still cluster in the Bay. 3. Venture capital for AI remains heavily skewed toward California. The numbers on dollars and deal flow still point west when it comes to the absolute cutting edge. 5. For pure research and deep technical work, many still believe you eventually need to be in SF to access the best opportunities and network effects. NYC is excellent for GTM and applied work, but secondary for core invention. If you’re building something that sits at the intersection of tech + another major industry, New York feels uniquely strong right now. If you’re doing pure frontier AI systems work, the Bay still has the edge. Where do you land after seeing both lists?