Why should everyone do an internship in Silicon Valley? 2/2
Ten months ago, I wrote my first Medium article on “Why Everyone Should Intern in Silicon Valley? 1/2”
I still had the arrogance to publish an article when I hadn’t yet started my internship. But you know the old startup saying, “fake it until you make it”.
At the time of writing, I am currently confined in Lyon with my two of my best friends, Mehdi Benjelloun and Simon Dautheville.
It took me some time to release this article in order to step back from my experience, but also to do other things. And, let’s be honest, I was lazy. During this time, I also started writing a newsletter on meditation.
TLDR: I had the best 6 months of my life.
Where should I start?
First of all, it may sound cliché, but I’ve really experienced a genuine human adventure.
I will mostly focus on my personal life and less on my work experiences. My testimony will be a overview of what I experienced and the cultural differences between France and the USA.
You should know that I am not at all objective about Silicon Valley. I am vegan, I like startups, I medidate. I am a starter pack all by myself.
So read this article as a personal travel diary.
1) Nature
California’s nature is incredible. Believe it or not but people are closer to nature than in France. On the weekends, A Parisian leisurely sips Spritz on the terrace of a café. A San Franciscan goes hiking. It’s in the West Coast DNA.
In the collective imagination, California is the land of surfers, but also of the gold-seekers. This is a land of entrepreneurial explorers who are not afraid to get up on Sundays and walk ten kilometers in Patagonia jackets.
In addition wild animals such as raccoons are frequently seen in San Francisco’s suburban neighborhoods. According to Stanford students, there are even the occasional coyotes on campus. I can hardly imagine anything other than pigeons or rats on the Sorbonne campus.
I still haven’t convinced you that Californian love nature? Go to a store that sells camping and hiking equipment. They’re like supermarkets for the outdoors enthusiast.
Don’t think of it as an ecological paradise either. People consume much more than elsewhere. The proof, California has the same ecological footprint as France. It is important to point out that there are 10 million more people in France, but California is a state, not a country. Fun fact, I was blamed by people who drove 4x4s for not having a bottle of water on me and for not recycling. It’s the American paradox ;)
For those interested, here is a non-exhaustive list of natural places to visit not too far, in American distance of course, from San Francisco
- Yosemite
- Lake Tahoe
- Big Sur
- Half Moon Bay
- Napa County
- Monterrey
- Pt. Reyes National Seashore
I’m not someone who likes to go out in the wilderness, so I didn’t do everything there was to do. I went out a lot on Friday and Saturday evenings, which didn’t necessarily leave me the time, and especially the energy to go exploring the surroundings the next day.
If you’re an outdoorsy person, you’ll find what you’re looking for.
2) People
The first thing that struck me was that for a place as small as the Bay Area, which is 8 million people for 18,000 square kilometers, there are far more people with degrees than anywhere else in the world I’ve ever been.
The amount of talent in this place is dense. Nevertheless, because a lot of people have the same level of education, they do not necessarily value their degree or position. Of course there are always humblebrags, but it’s very easy to be able to have coffee with experienced entrepreneurs and who will not hesitate to chat with you. For those who like statistics about 1/3 coffee proposal on LinkedIn leads to an appointment.
To be sure, we’re still in the United States. This means that culturally, a person you meet will often be smiling and friendly with you. You might think that they want to connect with you, when it’s just their way of being polite to the people they meet. It is a cultural trait of the country.
As a French person, you’ll find it hard to read between the lines to know if a person is sincere or not. Friendliness does not mean friendship.
Those who have already been to the United States will immediately understand what I’m referring to. This cultural difference is represented by the metaphor of the peach and the coconut.
In the Valley, 50% of the jobs are closely or remotely related to tech. You might think that’s not a lot compared to the clichés, but if you take 100 random employees off the street, 50 work in tech. In Paris or London if you do the same experience you might not even get 10.
My roomates illustrate this idea. I was with 3 engineers, 1 Frenchman from Dauphine, 1 Chinese American freshly graduated from Berkeley in CS, and an Indian American from MIT, who had dropped out to start his company which he finally sold to Google.
I take the liberty of highlighting the dual nationality of my roommates because it is a good illustration of the tech audience in the valley which is largely composed of Asians. And I don’t bring this observation out of nowhere because in the recruitment of tech companies they are not considered as a minority. Indeed, in the United States, belonging to an ethnic minority can help in recruitment. If you apply for a job in an American company, you will often be asked to tick your “ethnicity” in the application forms.
In fact, San Francisco’s Chinatown is considered the largest Chinese enclave outside of Asia. As a result, Chinese culture is very much rooted in the region. Approximately 10% of the city’s residents were born in China.
Overall the Bay Area is a very cosmopolitan area. There are not many native San Franciscans. About 40% of San Francisco residents were born in California. This makes everyday life international because you are likely to meet people from all over the world.
3) Money
On this point, it’s not a good reason to go there, clearly. Life in Silicon Valley and San Francisco is expensive. For example, I was paying $1,200 rent for a tiny roommate.
Besides, in the United States we tend to pay for everything. Add to that your vacation and an expensive health care system and you end up with a nice deficit on your stay.
Nevertheless, the experience is worth it. I took a loan to pay for my school. I didn’t go on an academic exchange, so I had asked for a little more, knowing that I was going to go on an internship abroad. I had health problems twice, and I spent a lot of money.
Nevertheless, I don’t regret anything.
Now you’ve been warned. Work beforehand, save a portion of your student loan, or get paid well during your internship. But the U.S. is expensive!
When you come back, you’ll eat pasta ;)
4) My internship
For this part, I base myself on my personal experience and on testimonies of people I have met. Every company is different and I don’t aim to be global about American culture at work.
As a business school student, you had to go through the impact of an internship on your resume and your skills.
In general, if you say that you worked in San Francisco, recruiters will always find it interesting. That and it will be seen as a proof of professionalism because you will have worked with Americans.
However, what is quite difficult is to be able to read between the lines. I don’t know what the culture is like in the financial or consulting sectors, but in tech, when your boss is not Elon Musk, people tend to be in the “Teletubbies” mentality. That is to say that you don’t get direct feedback. You are always told that your work is great. Or at least they don’t tell you that when your work is not good.
For those who read me and who are not French, my vision is rather biased because the French culture at work means that we give fairly direct feedback. We will have no problem telling you that your work is bad and that it needs to be redone, from the first review.
One of the negative points is also the lunch culture. Generally speaking, Americans only have 30 minutes to eat lunch. Yes, you did read 30 minutes. But you get used to it.
Don’t worry, there are also some positive points. Usually, a lot of jobs end at 5:00. There’s less presenteeism than in France. It’s easy to ask for remote work. Money is not taboo and you learn a lot about the American business culture. This is an advantage for international recruitment as well as for the relationship at work, because it is the dominant culture in the professional world.
5) Nightlife
I’ve been going to a lot of nightclubs. However, you should know that Silicon Valley is not known for its nightlife. In San Francisco the clubs close at 2:00 in the morning. Yeah, you read 2:00 a.m. right. That’s when you arrive at nightclubs in France. But unlike Paris, there is a majority of thirty year olds and many forty year olds in the evening.
The style is generally tech house, which is quite nice when you don’t want to hear boom boom all night long. You will also find techno in some clubs. The advantage is that every week famous dj’s come to mix because they are on an American tour. Which is not necessarily the case in France.
Contrary to Europe, you’ll also find a lot of EDM, which personally is not my style, but that Americans love.
Perhaps the main negative point is the price of the ticket, which can easily sell for $40. Quite frustrating when the evening ends at two in the morning.
You also have festivals, such as Outside land in San Francisco, but you’ll have to pay 360$ for a weekend ;) festivals being cheaper in Europe, it wasn’t even a question of budget but a question of morale not to pay for this kind of event haha. In comparison, Dour in Belgium, which lasts 5 days, cost a little less than 200 euros.
Otherwise there’s burning man in August, and it’s really worth it.
6) Culture and atmosphere
The culture in northern California is not the same as in the south. Don’t expect big beaches with people working out in front of them.
But you have the same “Mexican” food.
The important point, but most difficult to describe, is that the atmosphere is still very relaxed. Walk through the streets of SF, then through the streets of Paris and you will see the difference.
I wasn’t as stressed there as I was in France, maybe also because in my head I was on holiday. Of course if you live in the financial district, people tend to wear shirts and walk fast.
But overall there’s a chill atmosphere. You will have the opportunity to smell cannabis very regularly in San Francisco, CQFD.
7) Cities/places
- Stanford, the campus is very nice, the canteen is on the same level as a gastronomic restaurant, the parties are nice but we do better in France ;) even if the people are very nice. You may wonder how I know all this? It’s a story that would deserve an article in itself
- Berkeley, nice college town stuck in Oakland. The college is the public version of Stanford. There’s a football stadium if you want to go to the games.
- San Francisco my spiritual hometown. If you have to live in a neighborhood choose Mission, the Latino district. I still think about my burritos that I used to eat at 1am. It’s also the street art district. However, even if SF is a very nice city, unfortunately, there are a lot of homeless people. The housing crisis is a real problem in the state, and it’s not uncommon to see people on drugs, with a needle in their arm in the middle of the street…
- Oakland, San Francisco in popular version. You’ll find more alternative places. You’re less close to tech but closer to nature. If you go up into the hills next door, you can see a beautiful view of the whole bay at night.
- San Jose, the most boring city in the United States and it’s not me saying it ;)
8) Food
This time we’re going to talk about a controversial subject, and right in the middle of American culture.
First observation, it is possible to eat healthy in Silicon Valley. But, because there is always a but, you have to pay for it.
California is still considered a Hipster state by the rest of the country. If you want to eat quinoa, it’s easy to find it. The problem is that healthy, organic food comes at a price. It is possible to eat well for cheap, but you have to love cooking, have a good kitchen, and above all accept not to eat too much variety.
You will of course be able to eat all the possible and unimaginable snacks that you can find in the USA.
You will also fall in love with Mexican food in American version. I.e. tacos, burritos, quesadillas, nacho etc. It’s like their very own kebab.
For vegetarians and vegans, it’s paradise on earth. All restaurants have several options of this type, so you are never bothered when it comes to choosing a menu. You won’t just eat French fries, I promise you.
9) Tech
Of course I had to talk about it, if you’re not interested in tech, better go to another city. My co-interne was more into consulting and finance, he hasn’t met anyone in the industry.
As mentioned above, you’ll meet a lot of employees from big companies in the sector. Uber, Twitter, Apple, Google, Facebook, Pinterest etc..The only company where I have not met any employees is Airbnb.
Nevertheless, I haven’t met many entrepreneurs. A dozen at most, but not as many as I thought, because you often get the idea that everyone wants to start a startup. It’s more like, everyone works in a technology company. A lot of people are not interested in entrepreneurship at all.
Perhaps the best thing to do in this case is to go directly to the incubators and contact people on LinkedIn as I explained above.
There are also a lot of researchers and PhD students, there are universities nearby and big tech companies recruit a lot of these profiles to stay at the forefront of innovation in their fields.
Depending on your profile, you will find it easier or harder to connect with this or that type of person. If you are a developer or an engineer, welcome to paradise. Don’t hesitate to make events, it’s a good opportunity to meet people.
Conclusion
As you may have read, I really loved California and I’m thinking about going back there one day. As a tourist, a student or a worker I don’t know.
With the crisis of the virus, a lot of questions arise.
You have to keep an eye on the economic situation in the United States, because at the time I publish this article, it’s the country most affected by COVID-19. Many companies have cancelled their internship programs, and the borders are still not open.
The U.S. presidential election will also determine a lot of things in terms of employment and immigration rules.
In the end it may not be so easy to do an internship in Silicon Valley as a foreigner.
I was interested in going back there in 2020 but I might wait a bit.
Finally, right now some people think that China is overtaking the United States in the technology sector.
Who knows, maybe I’ll write an article soon on “Why do you have to do an internship in Shenzhen?” 🙃
Thank you for your reading. Feel free to clap this article if you liked it.
Many thanks to Martha for proofreading this article.
