If youâre in your 20s (and ambitious) do everything to move to those 4 cities
Yes people will mog you for paying extortionate rents for such little comfort but who cares, youâre not everyone, youâre on a mission, youâre here for greatness
London/NYC/Paris/SF are basically the golden 4. Theyâre not just big cities, theyâre global sorting machines. People move there from all over the world because they want sth badly enough to accept all the downsides. The guy born in London can be lazy. But the 26yo Frenchman, Indian, American, Italian, Nigerian, Lebanese etc who voluntarily accepts the tiny flat, shit commute and absurd rent to be there has already self-selected pretty hard
And that selection compounds. I felt it instantly moving from my hometown in France to London. Growing up I was always âthe ambitious oneâ in my friend group. Then you arrive in London and suddenly you feel extremely average. Everyone is trying to do sth. Completely changes your reference point for what a normal person can achieve
The other thing is just how many serious games are happening at once. If you know at 22 that youâre going to be a semiconductor engineer forever, maybe there are better specialised places. But most ambitious 24yos have absolutely no clue what game theyâll eventually want to play. In London/NYC/Paris you can accidentally become friends with people in PE, startups, politics, law, media, fashion, pharma, academia etc. Your finance friend dates someone in fashion, their roommate is building a startup, you meet someone in politics at dinner. Suddenly 5 completely different lives feel plausible
Thatâs insanely valuable when youâre young precisely because you donât yet know which people / industries / opportunities will matter to your 34yo self
SF is the weird exception because itâs basically one giant concentrated bet on tech/AI. Much narrower than the other 3, but that game is so asymmetric rn that it deserves its spot. If you want to build at the frontier thereâs probably no other place where your reference class changes that aggressively
And yh everyone keeps saying the internet made geography irrelevant. Maybe for information. Definitely not for trust/friendship. Anyone can learn from the same people online now, send the same cold DM, follow the same accounts. Much harder to replicate being the guy someone has had 20 dinners with, worked with, travelled with, introduced to friends and randomly bumped into for 5 years
When youâre 24 and nobody knows who tf you are, geography can do a lot of the work for you. You get invited because your colleague knows someone. You end up at a dinner because your friend needs a +1. Someone you met 3 years ago leaves and starts a company. Another moves to NYC. Another becomes a partner somewhere. Most of the ROI is completely impossible to predict upfront
Basically before you have your own gravity, borrow the cityâs
At 45, if youâve built the company / reputation / money / audience / network, you can go live in Tuscany, Mallorca, South of France or wherever and people will come to you. At 24 no one is coming lol. You should probably be where everything is happening
And tbh if you have the ability to move I wouldnât spend 3 years waiting for the perfect job / apartment / timing. Get the shitty room, accept being poorer for a while, figure it out once youâre there. Your 20s are probably the cheapest years of your life to tolerate inconvenience anyway
You can optimise sqm, weather and comfort later
At 24 Iâd rather maximise how many possible lives are available to me
The best way to communicate with the world is directly in your own words, not through the reality distortion nightmare mirror that is the legacy mainstream press