Timezone-wise? Only downsides. Most of our business partners become more difficult to time-coordinate with, since there are fewer business hour overlaps.
Travel to Europe takes a lot longer.
Culturally, the West Coast is far more chill. Business on the East cost is very much still dominated by banking-style office politics: business casual is suits, or at least slacks and button-down shirts, there’s a lot of process, everything is serious. West coast is more laid back. I’m speaking in generalities, of course; corporate culture is driven by the corporation, but in general, the West coast has healthier work environments.
There’s less cultural interesting stuff on the West coast, but far more natural attractions (parks, activities, skiing, hiking, camping, etc etc). Everything is crammed together on the East coast - from Philadelphia you can visit NYC, Washington DC, Gettysburg, Williamsburg, all within 3 hours or less. You can get to Niagara within 6. From Portland, OR, it takes 4 hrs to get to Seattle, and a full 8-hour day to get anywhere interesting in California.
If you want a more relaxed life with access to vast amounts of incredible nature activities, West coast 100%. If you want to vacation in Europe and visit a huge number of amazing historical sites, East coast.
Excuse you, it doesn’t take four hours to get to Seattle, you just have to do like 90 miles an hour between like Kalama and Tacoma, like everyone else.
Honestly, the push-back on getting a high-speed rail line between Seattle and SF (or, even better, LA) is baffling. It’s all right there, in a straight line; everything in all three states hugs the coast (or the Valley, in OR). Seattle and Portland even have halfway decent metro systems once you arrive, and SF’s isn’t totally awful. LA’s is useless, but still; rent a car.
The government just approved a bunch of research money for HSR on the cascadia corridor. I’d expect a 4-15 year delay due to the lack of brain cells during the dictatorship years.
This. Grew up on the east coast with a go go go atmosphere and all that. Said screw this and moved out west. Sooooo much more relaxed. No one wears suits here at work. I’ll 100% never go back. I like to live, not work all the time.
We have much better access to Asia. Can get a direct flight to Tokyo. Flying to Tokyo from New York or Philly sucks and I am happy to never have to do it again.
I flew Philly to Singapore via Dubai, and while it was horrible, the Pacific is enormous and much of the Asian destinations are so far south you can’t use the “over the pole” cheat effectively. In the end, there’s not a huge time difference. NYC to Singapore is 19 hours. San Franscisco to Singapore is 17.5.
The difference to Europe is far greater; traveling from the West coast vs the East coast can easily double your travel time.
I actually prefer not laying over when flying to the US East coast, but I also only use japanese airlines which tend to have higher quality food and service.
Oh, I do the same. They are much better than US airlines. But I start to get extremely uncomfortable after 6 hours on a plane and to go insane after about 10.
Just to clarify, you can get plenty of directs to Tokyo from the East Coast. I know Dulles and Newark at least. They’re 16 hour flights, but that’s what an in flight g&t and a prescription for a fistful of bars are for.
16 hour flights is more my point. I think never have I wanted to die so much as on a 17-hour flight from Philly to Tokyo. I swore to myself that I could never return to the US because I couldn’t do that again. Obviously, I eventually got over it enough to return, but I don’t think I could ever live on the east coast again as somebody who likes to at least occasionally get out to Japan.
Timezone-wise? Only downsides. Most of our business partners become more difficult to time-coordinate with, since there are fewer business hour overlaps.
Travel to Europe takes a lot longer.
Culturally, the West Coast is far more chill. Business on the East cost is very much still dominated by banking-style office politics: business casual is suits, or at least slacks and button-down shirts, there’s a lot of process, everything is serious. West coast is more laid back. I’m speaking in generalities, of course; corporate culture is driven by the corporation, but in general, the West coast has healthier work environments.
There’s less cultural interesting stuff on the West coast, but far more natural attractions (parks, activities, skiing, hiking, camping, etc etc). Everything is crammed together on the East coast - from Philadelphia you can visit NYC, Washington DC, Gettysburg, Williamsburg, all within 3 hours or less. You can get to Niagara within 6. From Portland, OR, it takes 4 hrs to get to Seattle, and a full 8-hour day to get anywhere interesting in California.
If you want a more relaxed life with access to vast amounts of incredible nature activities, West coast 100%. If you want to vacation in Europe and visit a huge number of amazing historical sites, East coast.
Excuse you, it doesn’t take four hours to get to Seattle, you just have to do like 90 miles an hour between like Kalama and Tacoma, like everyone else.
Then you hit the slowdown at JBLM that’s as inexplicable as it is dependable no matter the day or time.
YUUUUP
Curse the military-industrial complex, that’s reason #3,591!
Honestly, the push-back on getting a high-speed rail line between Seattle and SF (or, even better, LA) is baffling. It’s all right there, in a straight line; everything in all three states hugs the coast (or the Valley, in OR). Seattle and Portland even have halfway decent metro systems once you arrive, and SF’s isn’t totally awful. LA’s is useless, but still; rent a car.
Why can’t they get a high speed rail line done?
The government just approved a bunch of research money for HSR on the cascadia corridor. I’d expect a 4-15 year delay due to the lack of brain cells during the dictatorship years.
This. Grew up on the east coast with a go go go atmosphere and all that. Said screw this and moved out west. Sooooo much more relaxed. No one wears suits here at work. I’ll 100% never go back. I like to live, not work all the time.
We have much better access to Asia. Can get a direct flight to Tokyo. Flying to Tokyo from New York or Philly sucks and I am happy to never have to do it again.
I flew Philly to Singapore via Dubai, and while it was horrible, the Pacific is enormous and much of the Asian destinations are so far south you can’t use the “over the pole” cheat effectively. In the end, there’s not a huge time difference. NYC to Singapore is 19 hours. San Franscisco to Singapore is 17.5.
The difference to Europe is far greater; traveling from the West coast vs the East coast can easily double your travel time.
Sure, but I go to Asia more than Europe. I can get to Japan in about 10 hours from Seattle. Not too shabby.
I actually prefer not laying over when flying to the US East coast, but I also only use japanese airlines which tend to have higher quality food and service.
Oh, I do the same. They are much better than US airlines. But I start to get extremely uncomfortable after 6 hours on a plane and to go insane after about 10.
Just to clarify, you can get plenty of directs to Tokyo from the East Coast. I know Dulles and Newark at least. They’re 16 hour flights, but that’s what an in flight g&t and a prescription for a fistful of bars are for.
16 hour flights is more my point. I think never have I wanted to die so much as on a 17-hour flight from Philly to Tokyo. I swore to myself that I could never return to the US because I couldn’t do that again. Obviously, I eventually got over it enough to return, but I don’t think I could ever live on the east coast again as somebody who likes to at least occasionally get out to Japan.