Revisiting San Francisco

In each of my two years living in Japan, I've headed back to America for the month of July. I spend the first two weeks in Connecticut visiting family, and the last two weeks in San Francisco visiting friends. Having just gotten back from that trip (today), I wanted to reflect on the differences between my two homes.

San Francisco, I think of as a single-minded city. The entire city and its ecosystem focus on one thing: the tech industry. Every advertisement you pass on the highway, conversation you overhear in a cafe, and thing your friends want to catch up on is about tech. On this visit specifically, the focus was AI: its star companies, and the impact it's having (and will have) on our lives. Another unique part of San Francisco is how status is displayed to others. Status in SF is shown off not by the clothes you wear but by where you've worked and what you've accomplished professionally.

Tokyo, on the other hand, feels much more like America's New York City. It's more of a metropolis, and people have more going on in their lives outside of work. While sales and finance are the most popular professional careers in Tokyo, you can find people working in all kinds of industries and fields. And while people work hard in Tokyo, their lives and personalities are not as defined by their work as they are in SF. Instead, those who live in Tokyo often have hobbies outside of work that are just as much a part of their identity as the work they do.

In terms of quality of life, Tokyo also has the upper hand. Tokyo is so much cheaper than San Francisco and provides a higher standard of living. For example, I was shocked at how high food prices were in San Francisco. Regularly, I would meet a friend for lunch, eat a reasonable meal, and afterwards be looking at a $75 bill (~¥12,000). This is two to four times what I would expect to pay for similar (or better) value in Tokyo. Transportation too was extremely expensive. While SF has decent public transit along the BART and Muni lines, outside of that central artery the best way to get around is Uber. And while Ubers are convenient and plentiful in SF, they're not cheap. There is no equivalent to the JR and Tokyo Metro subway lines I had gotten used to taking.

Finally, when it comes to rent, on a per square foot basis, Tokyo and San Francisco are similar to one another. But what Tokyo has that SF lacks is lots of tiny housing. Many of my friends live in 30-60 square meter homes, often with room for only a bed, a small couch, and a TV. This is a size most Americans would scoff at, and inventory that small is extremely hard to find in SF. But what that size enables is for folks in Tokyo to live in the central part of the city for relatively cheap, something most people are priced out of in SF unless they're highly paid tech workers.

Which raises the obvious question for this column: if the quality of life is better in Tokyo, and there is more diversity of ideas and industry, why does it fall so far behind San Francisco when it comes to the number of unicorn startups? As I wrote in my previous articles, I believe this has to do with a lack of cash flowing through the Japanese economy that lands in the hands of startups. But if that improves, I believe Tokyo offers founders and their employees a quality of life SF can't compete with. This is a unique opportunity Tokyo offers, one that can attract foreign talent (like myself) to the city and the country.