Sam Carter

A clear-eyed comparison of New York and San Francisco for AI founders in 2026. Talent, capital, customer access, weather, rent, social density — and which one wins for which kind of company.

I lived in SF for nine years, worked at three companies, and left in 2024. An honest take on what was great about the Bay Area tech scene and why I still left.

A guide to where SF founders actually celebrate, vent, and decompress after closing a seed round. Real bars, real restaurants, no influencer-bait. Boring on purpose.

San Francisco Restaurant Week 2026 — which $35 lunch and $65 dinner deals are real value, which are filler, and which to book the second the menu drops.

A long, honest comparison of SF and NYC for mid-stage startup employees in 2026 — comp, density of work, after-hours scene, and which one actually compounds your career.

Sam Carter ranks the SF events with the highest density of senior product managers in 2026 — meetups, dinners, conferences, and where the actually-good PMs hang out.

A 2026 ranking of San Francisco singles events that actually work — AI house mixers, run clubs that skew tech, founder dinners and a couple of board game nights worth showing up for.

A ranked list of cities where founders can actually find a great coworking space within walking distance — based on density, quality, and the community that comes with it.

A weirdly stacked week in SF: two demo days within blocks of each other, a Great American Music Hall booking I am rearranging plans for, and a Saturday warehouse thing.

Sam Carter ranks the women-in-tech meetups, dinners, and conferences worth showing up for in SF and the Bay in 2026 — Lesbians Who Tech, Girls in Tech, Women in AI, and the rest.

A ranked guide to the SF watch parties that spring up around Y Combinator demo day. From founder-house living rooms to sponsored coworking events — what to skip, what to RSVP to.

Five San Francisco running routes that are actually good — Presidio trails, Twin Peaks loops, Lake Merced, plus the only Embarcadero variation worth the effort. No Marina path on this list.

A long, honest guide to making friends in SF as an adult — what works in the AI-house era, what doesn't, and the patience this city quietly requires.

A practitioner comparison of OpenAI and Anthropic developer events in 2026 — DevDay vs Builder days, application bar, content depth, and which one ships you something useful.

A practical, public-events-only guide to the meetups, demo nights and reading groups in SF where Anthropic engineers actually show up — without being weird about it.

A handpicked roundup of the best events in San Francisco for the week of March 30: AI demos, a Mission warehouse party, two underrated talks, and one outdoor thing that does not involve a marathon.

A pragmatic guide to public spots and public events near the Anthropic SF office where engineers genuinely show up — based on publicly known facts only. No badges, no DM scripts.

How midweek AI meetups in London and San Francisco actually differ — programming, crowd, drinks, and which one is worth your Tuesday night.

Eight Mission District coworking spaces ranked for actual founders and engineers. WiFi that holds, calls that do not echo, and not a single recruiter happy hour in the building.

Twelve things worth leaving the apartment for in SF this week, from a Mission demo night to a Chapel show that will sell out by Wednesday. Tech-heavy but not exclusively.

A guide to the publicly listed Anthropic and Claude events worth knowing about, where the team appears as speakers, and how to find them on Rifio.

Nine AI-flavored happy hours and demo nights in SF that are actually worth showing up to. Anthropic-adjacent, Cursor-adjacent, founder-adjacent — and ranked by signal-to-noise.

A practical guide to finding events in SF in 2026 — which Lumas to follow, which mailing lists matter, and how to filter past the AI hype-house slop.

A ranked list of the 10 cities where AI founders should be building, hiring, or fundraising in 2026 — based on talent, capital, customers, and visa friction.