Software founder life in NYC with Sam Selikoff
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Brian: [00:00:00] Today, Sam Selikoff is back on the show and we talk about my favorite place, New York city. Let's get into it.

So my friend, Sam Selikoff is back on the show today. We continue our conversation, which we recorded on December 15th, 2023. And this one, we talk all about one of my favorite places on earth, one of my favorite cities. And of course I'm talking about NYC, New York city. I'm from, uh, New York. I grew up in Long Island, New York, and then I lived in NYC for, for a number of years.

Uh, but I haven't lived there in over 10 years. And, uh, actually Sam is living there now, living and working from, uh, the New York City of 2024. So we got, we got into, uh, what that looks like. What, what the lifestyle is like today. Um, and also like kind of like what the software tech and startup scene looks like.

Um, yeah, really great, wide ranging, uh, conversation. One of my favorite kinds on this podcast where we get to talk about life away from our screens and, uh, and, and the [00:01:00] places that we live and where we come from. So here we go. Here is that conversation where Sam and I talk all about NYC. Let's go. so I'm back here with, uh, Sam Selikoff. Great to, uh, connect with you again. We're going to continue our conversation and you know, I'm always looking for topics for this open threads podcast with people to talk about something about their lives outside of work, away from the screens.

You are in NYC. I used to live in New York. I was born in New York, grew up there as well. So I don't think I've done an episode yet where we do a deep dive on what it's like to, uh, to live a life in New York

Sam: It's the greatest city in the world. Just like a Hamilton says, you know,

Brian: Where, where are you by the way? Like, where in the

Sam: I'm in the West village.

Brian: Okay. Nice. That's fun down [00:02:00] there.

Sam: Oh, it's great. I love it. Yeah. I actually was born in Rochester. Um, so upstate, uh, by the

Brian: you were from Florida.

Sam: and then I moved to Florida when I was 10 and lived there for 13 years. So I kind of spent half my childhood in upstate New York. Half of it in Florida, then went to Boston for grad school and, um, just progressively went to bigger and bigger cities and took me a while to realize, Oh, I'm actually a big city person.

Like, I love it here. Um,

Brian: You know, I, I feel like our industry, like all my, um, I mean, you know, friends are like all over the place, but I feel like New York has like the least number of people that I know in our industry live there. All my friends that I grew up with and stuff are still in the New York area, but like the, my internet friends, like there's rarely someone who, who's living in Manhattan.

Sam: There's quite, there's quite a few JavaScript folks I know here. And when I first moved here, um, or I guess, yeah, I moved here in 2015. I mean, there were meetups every [00:03:00] night that were huge. I felt like it was awesome. It felt like you could go to a meetup on a Thursday night and it felt like a conference, you know what I

What is the crowd like?
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Brian: Do you find, so in terms of like the scene in our software industry, do you find in New York city and Manhattan, is it, is it more like, so the people who go to these meetups and stuff, is it more people who are like employed at companies as engineers? Or is it like, and I mean, I know that there's a big startup scene in New York, but I feel like that's like a funded startup scene for the most

Sam: Yeah, it's a little different.

Brian: You're not going to see a lot of like the microcom crowd.

Sam: yeah, the microconf crowd I would say is different, but, um, Jordan Singer is a guy I met at a meetup recently. His company's in Brooklyn. And, um, he's doing a bunch of stuff. His company got acquired by Figma. And, um, but they were bootstrapped.

And I feel like there's a lot of that kind of vibe. Like this kind of front end. Um, the JavaScript people I know who have companies here. There's a lot [00:04:00] of interesting consultancies here. It's kind of all over. But New York is huge, man. I mean, it's easy to forget. It's massive. So, it's harder to find sometimes.

Um, then you would think, or maybe that is in a San Francisco, but lots of companies with headquarters here, you know, the Google buildings right up the street. And I mean, there's a ton of engineers there

Brian: I was living in, um,

Sam: you know?

Brian: I lived in Brooklyn and I lived in Astoria for a little while and in Long Island City for, for a bit there. And,

Sam: Nice. Where in Brooklyn did you live?

Brian: I was in Prospect Heights.

Sam: Oh, nice part.

Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Right near the, uh,

Sam: first year. Uh, park is beautiful down there. Um, My first year, I was over in Williamsburg. And then, Brooklyn's great, Williamsburg's awesome, but I was coming into Manhattan for the meet ups, for work, cause Ted's office was in SoHo, fell in love with like the west side of Manhattan and lower Manhattan.

And, um, it's just so central, too. So, I've [00:05:00] been here in, uh, the West Village for the last seven

Brian: That's cool. Yeah. I, I started my professional career working for a web design agency. It was like a boutique agency. They're still around called Squeaky Wheel Media. Um, they moved down to Chelsea, but when I was there, it was in Midtown. Um, so I was like commuting in from, from Brooklyn and Queens and into, into Midtown.

Not, not super fun, but, um,

New York's downfall - sports teams
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Sam: one thing I'll say that sucks about New York, especially moving from Boston. So I didn't grow up a sports guy. I know you're a sports guy, but I went to college at UF where we had like Tim Tebow and won two national championships in basketball and football, fell in love with like college football and sports.

And so that's where my college loyalties developed. After that I moved to Boston for four years. Patriots won the Red Sox one. The Celtics got into the finals and, uh, the Bruins won too. So I became like a Boston sports fan and it was awesome living in Boston because it's such an important part of the city.

You know, it reminds me of probably cities like Philly, um, [00:06:00] or, you know, Minneapolis with the Vikings. Like those towns have such a, it's just an important part. You know, when the Red Sox are playing, cause you get on a T and everyone's wearing their, their

Brian: Well, you're in New York now. I mean, where, where's the Knicks championship

Sam: There, there's nothing in New York. There are no sports teams. I just want

Brian: there, there's no

Sam: we got, we got, we got KD coming to the nets and I'm like, finally, no, it didn't happen. He like broke his

Brian: Yeah, but New Yorkers don't care about the Nets. Nobody

Sam: I, they don't care. I know. I know. And, and, and the owner of the Knicks, the owner of the Knicks doesn't care about anything because the MSG will always sell out every single time.

So you,

Brian: I saw a list of like the, the highest, like the highest average ticket price in the NBA and like the Knicks are always in like the top

Sam: It's ridiculous. The Knicks suck. They suck.

Brian: Now they're, they're, they're getting there. Okay. Like right now, but the, um, but yeah.

Sam: it's, it's painful, man. But,

Brian: I'm not even a huge sports fan, but I am a big, uh, Knicks and Mets fan, like I'm, like, I feel like a lot of sports fans these days are like all sports and [00:07:00] they follow the whole league. They follow all these players across the NBA.

I, I only watch Knicks games and Mets

Sam: yeah, that's basically how I'm too. I watched a lot of NFL, but the Celtics, I will, I like watching the Celtics, um, because they're, they're my NBA team. But, um,

Brian: So

Sam: no, I mean, so,

Working remotely in NYC
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Brian: um, cause the other thing about New York is when I lived there, it was like, it was before Uber. It was before, like, Probably the big rise of remote, although I did, I was working remotely, but it, it was, uh, before the whole like coworking scene. Um, where are you working most days? Are you working at home?

Are you going out?

Sam: So when me and Ryan started EmberMap, we got, uh, a WeWork, uh, near, like, uh, Ch North Chelsea Penn Station area. And that's where my, like, gym was that I was going. Um And uh, that was awesome. We work was awesome. Um, we had such a good time there. I miss having that space because, you know, I met friends there.

I went on dates there, like there was a cop, it was just gorgeous. And that was fun [00:08:00] having that office space there. And you just do the whole like Midtown commute thing. And it was nice, you know? So that's kind of what we did for a few years. And then COVID happened and like we were the only company left.

Like we would go into our office. And everything was just like empty glass windows. We were like, alright, this kind of sucks now. Um, because I love being in the office. I love talking to people. And so I miss that, working from, you know, for myself. Like, that was the thing I missed the most, was all my friends at TED.

And so, um, now we work, we have like, we work at, we have like a, an office in my apartment here that he comes in. Because he lives over in Jersey now, his wife and kid. He lives in West New York, so he kind of comes over on the ferry. And, um, a couple days a week. Um, but Yeah, that was fun. I mean, I loved all that stuff and it's coming back in like the meetups and the events.

I mean, a lot of that stuff is back now, but for during COVID, I stayed all during COVID in Manhattan, uh, in New York city and stuff. And it was definitely like different, but there was still plenty to do. You just had to know where to

Brian: Yeah. Yeah, [00:09:00] for sure. I feel like there are all these, like all these services now that like make quality of life so much better in New York than when I lived there. I mean,

Sam: Oh man.

Brian: you know, when I was there, like there, there was like, you know, there's no Uber. There was, it was just like cabs and subways. Uh, I remember the subway had no wifi.

And now I

Sam: Dude, subways have Apple Pay now. You don't even have to buy a card anymore. You, I, I, I go on the subway, and I just, as I'm walking, in stride, I just do my, my Apple

Brian: It is a

Sam: on the thing, and it opens up. So, yeah, there's a lot of parts of the city that are

Brian: the, the bikes, the, like all that was not there when

Sam: City bike is amazing. I, my gym now is Chelsea Piers.

Did you ever make it to Chelsea Piers?

Brian: I've been down there. Yeah,

Sam: They have a big gym complex

Brian: the big complex. Yeah. Like the

Sam: Yeah, and the golf range. Yeah, exactly. That gym is like, I think it's one of the best gyms in the world. They have like a boxing ring. They have like an indoor volleyball court. They have rock climbing wall. There's a track.

There's like tons of gym equipment. [00:10:00] So that's been my like my latest favorite thing. And to get there, I have a city bike right outside my door and you just get on it, pop over. I'm right on the water. So I go to the West side highway. There's that little thing. So I either ride. Um, my longboard or a city bike up to the gym.

And I'm there in like eight minutes. Everyone's on Twitter posting all this gym stuff that they're getting for Christmas. I'm like, I have a freaking pro sports complex eight minutes away. Like I wouldn't trade that for

Brian: I got it all in my, in my garage, in my, here in the suburbs, you know? Um. But yeah, I lived in L. I. C. with my girlfriend, who's now my wife, um, and we had a subscription to, uh, what was it called, Zipcar. That was our

Sam: Oh yeah, sure.

Brian: how we escaped, you know, and it was like parked at our building, so we can just like, so you don't have a car there, right?

Sam: I don't have a car. No. And it's one of my favorite things. Oh no. And it's, I love it. I mean, I walk everywhere. I just use bike or longboard. And then, well, now there's Turo, which is really cool. You can like, I can pop [00:11:00] over to Hoboken and

Brian: even know what that

Sam: gets. Turo is like Airbnb for cars. So, people have their Maseratis, their Teslas, you know, their 4Runner, whatever you want.

And, uh, you just pull it up and then sometimes they can deliver it to your apartment or you, I can just hop on like the path or something. And, uh, pick up their car and shoot out the city, which is nice. Don't have to even sit in Manhattan traffic.

City life vs. Suburb life
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Sam: Um, it's funny. People moved to New York and this took me a while. It's both like the most convenient place to live and also the most difficult. And if you're not willing to Spend money to make your life easier. You're gonna hate New York City. You're gonna hate living in Manhattan or New York City. Uh, but if you are, it can be like, the easiest

Brian: How do you make New

Sam: Getting people to do your laundry.

Getting a maid to come. I don't even own a vacuum cleaner because my, my cleaning lady comes with a vacuum cleaner. You know what I

Brian: You're delivering groceries, like you're getting the groceries

Sam: oh, totally. Oh, I get factor meals delivered once a week. They're all made by a chef. I just put them right in my fridge and I, you know, that, and so that's what I do at home.

And then [00:12:00] I eat out a bunch with my friends and stuff. Um, there's so many little things you pick up that make life a lot easier here. Um, and if you try to like do a burb, like I lived in Vermont for a year. If I tried to live like I did in Vermont, in New York City, I'd be, I would not like it

Brian: You know, I'll be honest, like, it might be some of this like quality of life stuff, all these different services and stuff that that's around now. But I think for both my wife and I. The lifestyle here in the suburbs, like really kind of suits us better. Like, and I love

Sam: you have kids too,

Brian: now, now we have kids, but we moved, we moved out here before kids too, um, but the, um, the, for, for us, like a lot of the lifestyle stuff, like, I dunno, like, like just coming here and having so much space.

Sam: Yeah, that's what everyone

Brian: and, and being able to like

Sam: my first.

Brian: and we drive, like we do so many trips and like, we, we take vacations and stuff, but we also just drive all the time and just being able to get out and drive and, and like,

Sam: It's funny [00:13:00] because whenever I visit my friends, like I have a buddy in San Diego, I visit, I just saw him. He had a kid and it's like, let's go get some tacos. And like we go out and get in a car. I'm like, I hate this. Getting into a car and then driving 10 minutes and getting out. I like my body hurts.

You know, I just walk

NY energy (crazy and all!)
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Brian: I mean, you can't get, you can't beat like the energy of walking around New York city and it's, and it's, it's really, I feel like so many cities in the world. Are exactly the same like you like you can you can go between like, I don't know philadelphia and like

Sam: Chicago or, you

Brian: Chicago's I love Chicago too,

Sam: Chicago's

Brian: but they, but like a lot of these cities, you know, like Denver or like wherever it's like you could be in any of them, Atlanta, like Starbucks, you know, McDonald's, like, it's all the same.

And even like the way that like the, the city blocks are laid out, but New York is different. There's just something like you're walking around and [00:14:00] it's different. There's a

Sam: seeing crazy stuff, you know?

Brian: see an old, there's all the, all the new fancy stuff, like mixed right in with like the old,

Sam: totally to busted backward civilization, you know, . Absolutely. Um, no, it's, it, it's, it's, it's true, man. It's like, I remember one trip I was coming back and I was exhausted. It was a week somewhere, and I was like so tired. It was like Sunday night. I can't wait to get home and go to bed. And it's like the plane, you kind of see the skyline and I'm like, Ooh, I like literally get tingles.

The plane's coming down. My friend's like Coldplay is having a pop up concert in Williamsburg. Get over here. I'm like, all right, I'm going there. I'm, I'm, I'm back, you know, but I think it is a season of life thing for sure. I mean, you know, living in a city, I could see myself living here for the rest of my life for sure, but I can also understand.

If I get married and had kids and wanted them to grow up around nature, you know, but I have a friend who's raised their kids that he lives up in Chelsea. We go to the gym together. His kids are awesome.

Brian: One of my best friends growing up there, they still live in the Upper West Side with, with their kid and everything.

Sam: yeah. So I [00:15:00] love that idea, but that, it gets more complicated with kids. You have to have more money for sure.

But, uh, people make, people thread

Cost of living
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Brian: I mean, that's actually what I was going to ask you to even, you know, you don't have kids, but like the, just the cost of New York, like how, how is that? Yeah.

Sam: You just close your eyes. You just close your eyes

Brian: Yeah.

Sam: you swipe your credit card. You wake up and you sneeze and it's a hundred dollars. So you just, that's it. You just accept it. It's just, it's the price of admission.

Brian: I mean, do you, how about like just getting back to business a little bit? Do you ever feel like the, your cost of living is like, uh, like a hamper on like,

Sam: like there's tension between my lifestyle and like, yeah, of course there is, but I love my life. So

Brian: yeah. It's worth

Sam: a balance. It makes me want to make more money. So that I can enjoy, you know, and, and not, yeah, I could, people will tell me that sometimes at business conferences, you can move to Kansas and live in like a box for 500

Brian: live in Bali.

Sam: proper.

I was like, I don't want to live in Kansas. I don't want to live, I want to live where I live, you know? Um, but, but no, definitely you have [00:16:00] to, it's something you have to be aware of, of course, but fortunately we've, we've been able to make it work so far. And, um, and yeah, so. It's, it's ridiculously expensive.

Of course it is. It's, it's ridiculous, but you don't move to

Brian: honestly, like a lot of stuff is too, like even, even living here and like, you know, like we wanted to get out of the city and like, so then the questions were like Long Island, Jersey, Westchester, and like all three of those. And I grew up in Long Island. I was like, I do not want to live in my, I, I really think that I actually think that Long Island, New York is the worst value for your

Sam: It's like the worst trade set of trade offs from all

Brian: It's, it's, it's, it's, it's insanely expensive

Sam: Right.

Brian: for, for like, super cramped and crowded and a lot, and a lot of places pretty old and run down, but still super expensive and like, it's just, and you're stuck in traffic everywhere to get out anywhere. It's, it's the

Sam: Yeah, screw

Brian: but, [00:17:00] um, so that, so then we, but we, we went to

Sam: you save money.

Brian: so we went to Connecticut and, Now we're a little bit further out, but we used to live in Norwalk, Connecticut, which is a 45 minute train ride into Midtown Manhattan.

And, and we're like, now we're about 40 minutes from the border of New York.

Sam: Mm hmm.

Brian: And we have friends who live just across the border in Westchester.

Sam: Mm

Brian: the difference in value, not only taxes, but the property values is unbelievable. You know?

Sam: Yeah, that's the other sick thing because I live in Manhattan. Not only do I get the New York state tax There's a New York City tax. So me and Ryan have always split everything straight down the middle He lives 30 minutes across the Hudson River in West New York and the difference in what we earn every year is I just again Close your eyes.

You don't

Brian: friends who have a house that is like half the size of ours. They're paying triple our taxes and triple the property tax, you know, the property price, you know, it's crazy, but,

Sam: But it's nice not to have a car. That's the one savings. I'm always like, that's the [00:18:00] consolation. I don't have any car payments or car insurance. It is

Brian: yeah,

Sam: Again, you don't move to Manhattan to save money. It's, it's, you know, it's a consumption good, right? So it's, it's something I value and find worth spending my money on. Yeah.

Brian: it's, uh, I mean, it's, it's fun. Now, like every time we go into the city, cause I feel like a tourist again, you know, we do

Sam: come down next time you come. You better let me know, man. I'll show you a great time in my hood. There's so many good places to eat around here, go out to drink. I'm gonna go to Small's tonight. Um, uh, for a date and we're going to go get some dinner. So see some jazz music. It's a, I'll show you a good time.

So I'll

Brian: great. Yeah. We got to do it.

Sam: Absolutely.

Brian: Sam, this was, this was fun. Great to, uh, great to connect again. And, uh, yeah, I'll talk to you soon.

Sam: Awesome, man. Thanks so much.