I am yet again reminded that I made the right decision to not go there.<p>I really think the Valley is coasting on its 90s mythos of being a hotbed of genuine creativity, real opportunity, and interesting cutting-edge culture. Today it sounds like an overcrowded, overbought, overpriced workaholic golden handcuff treadmill. The radical futurist "burning man" culture seems almost gone, having been priced out or workaholiced out-- no time to do interesting "maker" things or create culture when you're doing 80 hour work weeks. I know a few people who live there and they say the same.<p>A few replies mentioned Modafinil/Armodafinil and Adderall. I have nothing against nootropic stacking, but feeling like you <i>have</i> to take something just to keep up with the baseline is a sign of a deeply dysfunctional workaholic culture.<p>Many other large overhyped cities are not much better. If I wanted a mega-city I'd pick New York-- expensive as fsck but tons of culture and a deep, diverse economy. Also genuinely not needing a car cuts into the cost somewhat.<p>A lot of the downsides mentioned apply to startup culture no matter where you are. Fake mentors, incubator gators, networkaholics, and sanctimonious self-righteous sociopaths are major potholes on the entrepreneureal highway.<p>Where to go to do genuinely innovative work or really bootstrap a labor of love?<p>The former, I'd say hard to say. Maybe academia if you can handle a vow of poverty, or maybe an established company with a lot of R&D going on.<p>The latter? I'd look at smaller tech centers like Austin or Boulder, less overbought cities like Seattle, Chicago, and Toronto, or towns and smallish cities with a tech, R&D, geek, or major university presence or just a nice quality of life.<p>Some examples of the latter include Bloomington (IN), Lansing (MI), Ann Arbor (MI), Asheville (NC), Oak Ridge (TN), Orlando (FL), Roswell (NM), Santa Fe (NM), Huntsville (AL), etc. Note that a lot of these are in the South or the Midwest, not the trendiest of places.<p>Then there are total contrarian choices: Detroit (cheap real estate, interesting maker subculture) or bumblefuck nowhere.