As someone unfamiliar with the author, I had a deep amount of cynicism for the length of this piece... but damn, it's good, top to bottom.
Hard disagree. How many paragraphs of fawning over the unique culture of the Bay Area must I endure before he arrives at the point?
Such gems as
> I like SF house parties, where people take off their shoes at the entrance and enter a space in which speech can be heard over music, which feels so much more civilized than descending into a loud bar in New York. It’s easy to fall into a nerdy conversation almost immediately with someone young and earnest.
I agree. At first I briefly skimmed it and thought it was going to be a puff piece on China's AI efforts (unfair of me), but a couple paragraphs caught me and I read the whole thing. I'm glad I did.