Jennifer 🆖

Went out drinking in New York with a friend from San Francisco last month. The bar was crowded and drinks were flowing when he said: “The people here are so nice and non-transactional, which is very different from SF.” The difference, he thinks, is that New York is a multi-industry town while San Francisco is dominated by one industry: tech. That matters because people are more likely to stay on their guard in one-industry towns. In San Francisco, if you meet somebody, you probably know the company they work for or somebody they work with, and at the very least, there’s a decent chance you’ll cross paths in the future. New York is different. It’s home to a bunch of different industries, so there are a bunch of different status hierarchies: fashion, finance, theater, advertising, media, real estate, and so many more. The status ladders are parallel, not stacked, which relaxes people. His theory: The more distance there is in the average social connection, the less transactional people are and the more comfortable they are letting loose.