– How will you celebrate Thanksgiving?
– We’re aliens and still learning how to celebrate in a proper way.
– Which planet are you from?
– We are from planet ABBA.

It has been two years since we moved to Silicon Valley from Stockholm. After the first year we were still in a slight shock (from the speed the things are moving with), and now, after two years we definitely landed, created opinions and found great new friends. We’re grateful for that. And with that, as you can see, we’ve joined the Thanksgiving tradition. Let’s move on. December was a month for reflection, and January is the month for writing so here we go. Here are our reflections and aha-moments from our two years in the Valley:

Diversity and Integration 👍

We had no clue of the amount of diversity in Silicon Valley. Moving to Silicon Valley is not as generic as “moving to the US”. There is a great mix of nationalities, and people speak openly about ethnicity, race(!) and background, and cherish the unique traditions. Our kids friends are from India, China, Africa, Europe, US, you name it. There are no cultural bubbles – they all hang together and learn from each others’ traditions. When our little Pablo started school here, he was 6 years old and did not speak a word of English. The school offered him an extra teacher who spoke his mother tongue and sat next to him during classes for the first six months. Pablo became fluent in English within his first year in US. When our 14 yo Elin first came to Palo Alto high school campus to start as a freshman, she got picked up by the janitor in a golf car with the words “Welcome to our Family!”. When our 13 yo Alexander started JLS Middle School, one of his first classes was Leadership and he was part pf the school’s TV production team. Silicon Valley knows how to integrate expats and kids of expats in record time.

Infrastructure 😐

This is something that you would not expect from a high-tech place like Silicon Valley, right? What we see in practice is that the roads are broken, electrical and internet cables are hanging above the road, and in many places there is no mobile internet coverage. Not surprisingly, autonomous car vendors are not relying on the road infrastructure when they build their features (we’ll come to that). In addition, we had to learn how to write checks…

House Prices 😳

At the time of writing the 4-bedroom house we’re renting has the market value of 5M USD. It has a minimal backyard, and is placed between our neighbour’s houses. People try to get as much as possible from the land in Palo Alto, and the lots are very small. Obviously, Silicon Valley salaries are still very competitive and people can afford buying properties. Many of those who bought their houses in the area say that they would not be able to afford them today, and only the yearly tax would amount to what they once paid as a downpayment on the house.

The Weather 🙃

Welcome to sunny California they said… We gave away all our warm clothes and decided to wear open-toe shoes all year around (when not wearing ski boots ofc). Little did we know… During these two years we got to experience heat waves (45+ celsius), earthquakes, flush floods, mud slides, rock slides, and snow storms, with mandatory electricity outages related to them.

Work Hard Play Hard 💪

From the start we’ve decided to be yes-men, and explore all the social opportunities the Valley brings. The social calendar got fully booked pretty quickly. Work-related mingles, presentations from tech giants, academic gatherings, and school-related activities filled every evening. 95% of them would normally be accompanied by mandatory wine and cheese, and, honestly, some of us could not eat so much cheese… so after a while we decided to be more picky. Especially because our days often start at 5AM in meetings with Sweden, and in combinations with late evenings that life style would not be sustainable. In addition, one quickly notices that every meeting in the Valley is about work. People would be pitching you their business idea, discuss potential innovations or fundraising.

Innovation 🤖

The fact that the level of innovation in the Valley is high is not a surprise for anyone. Here you can see the latest inventions in use. San Francisco is filled with autonomous cabs, Cybertrucks are on the streets, people use AR glasses in daily life, drones are making deliveries, and human-flying drone companies are testing their prototypes. Probably, one of the most important factors in all this is that the Valley is filled by early adopters, and the level of acceptance of the new technology in the society is very high.

Written by Elena Fersman and Paul Pettersson