RED 🔥

As someone who lived in Dubai for a couple of years and then left, my perspective: Pros - basically no tax - incredibly safe, I would walk around anywhere in town at 2am with my headphones in and not a care in the world - massive hub for crypto and entrepreneurs, great place to meet people, friendly regulators for crypto and tech - some of the best food in the world - some of the best healthcare in the world - extremely convenient lifestyle, can get anything delivered to you 24/7 - very multicultural for the most part, I remember once walking down the street and hearing like 7 different accents speaking english within like a minute. I think it’s like 85-90% expats Cons - the weather is great for a few months of the year and unbearably hot for half the year when you just can’t be outside for more than a couple of minutes - combined with that, it’s not a walking city, you’re mostly going from air conditioned home to air conditioned car to air conditioned office or mall or restaurant or whatever - it almost never rains which is kinda a good thing, but it means there’s very little greenery around outside of all the man made green spaces - there are occasional cultural nuances that aren’t as friendly towards women, if you’re not accustomed to it. It’s overall pretty damn progressive (relative to the region) but then there are little things like my wife and I would get into an uber or taxi and the driver would just default to saying hello to me and asking me specifically where we’re going, and often ignoring her. Not major, but little things like that, I can see how they add up. - can be expensive and a lot of the best parts about Dubai involve having a bit of money, but not paying tax goes a long way for this - for a country as tech forward as they are in some ways, they’re archaic in others. Lots of annoying paperwork requiring things like physical stamping of documents, or like another example is I’m shutting down a business I set up there and one of the requirements is a physical advertisement taken out in a local paper to tell people it’s shutting down?? Just weird for the crypto/ai/tech hub with digital emirates IDs, facial recognition airports, and robots roaming around some places lol - less personal freedoms/liberties, things like freedom of speech and the ability to criticise the government are not nearly the same as somewhere like the US - you’re kinda always a 2nd class citizen with no path to citizenship. I have a friend who was born there and lived there his whole life and isn’t a citizen, can create some weird dynamics. I don’t think this is a huge deal for most people but if you’re looking for a “forever home” it might not feel like it for some people, not being a citizen Overall, it was a great place to live for a couple of years, but I’m happy to have moved on. A lot of the cons about Dubai can be fixed with more money (ie the wealthy just leave the city from like May-Sept and avoid the heat). If you’re young and trying to hustle and build wealth, there probably isn’t a better place to live. At the end of the day it’s like most places and has its pros and cons you gotta weigh, and see what makes sense for you.