San Francisco: INBOUND Moves West

Fourth year speaking at HubSpot INBOUND. But this year the conference moved from Boston to San Francisco, which changed everything. Different city, different hotel, different energy. The Boston routine I'd built over three years was gone. Starting over.

I stayed at the JW Marriott San Francisco Union Square, which puts you in the center of downtown with Union Square out the front door and the cable car turnaround about a two-minute walk. The hotel is a solid JW: well-maintained rooms, good beds, a lobby bar that fills up with conference people by 5 PM. The upper floors facing north have views toward Nob Hill and on a clear day you can see the Bay. San Francisco in early September is one of its better windows: the summer fog has mostly retreated and the days are warm and clear, mid-60s to low 70s, which San Franciscans call "hot" and everyone else calls "pleasant."

INBOUND in SF felt different than INBOUND in Boston. The venue was bigger. The city swallowed the conference instead of the conference taking over the city, which is what happened in Boston's Seaport District. In Boston, you'd run into other INBOUND people at every restaurant and coffee shop within a mile of the convention center. In SF, the conference was one of fifty things happening that week. The city doesn't rearrange itself for you. You fit into it.

The sessions were strong. My talks went well. Fourth year, and the recurring faces were there: the Austin founder, a handful of creators I'd met in year one and two. Hugs, not handshakes. That part hasn't changed. New this year was the scale of the creator track, which had grown significantly from the Boston days. More speakers, more sessions, more recognition that creators are a real part of the business ecosystem and not just a marketing curiosity.

For food, SF is a different animal than Boston. The city's food culture operates at a level that makes it hard to eat badly even if you're trying. I had dinner one night at a place in the Mission that a local friend recommended. I took an Uber from Union Square and the drive through the city at sunset, across Market Street and through the Castro and into the Mission, reminded me why people put up with San Francisco's costs and complications. The city is gorgeous. The light at that hour, dropping behind the hills to the west, turns everything golden in a way that feels like a filter but isn't. The restaurant was small, seasonal menu, open kitchen, about 30 seats. The pasta was handmade and the wine list was entirely Californian and excellent. I sat at the bar because I was alone and the bartender was from Montreal, which meant we spent half the meal talking about Canada and poutine and whether the Habs would ever be good again (no). This keeps happening. Canadians are everywhere, and we always find each other.

The next night a group of us went to a seafood spot on the Embarcadero that someone had booked. Raw bar, whole cracked crab, sourdough bread (sourdough in SF is not optional, it's atmospheric), and a view of the Bay Bridge lit up at night. The crab was messy and excellent and the table conversation was the kind that only happens when people who work in the same industry but different companies get together and can be honest about what's working and what isn't. Someone said something about how the industry had changed in the past year that made the whole table go quiet for a second, and then everyone started talking at once. Those dinners are the conference.

One morning I walked from the hotel down to the Embarcadero and along the waterfront toward the Ferry Building. The walk takes about 25 minutes and passes through the Financial District, which at 7 AM on a weekday is already filling up with people in fleece vests holding coffee cups from Blue Bottle. San Francisco's uniform is fleece vest and jeans, and once you notice it you can't unnotice it. The Ferry Building Marketplace is one of the best food halls in the country. On a Saturday morning, the farmers' market wraps around the building and the stalls sell everything from oysters to fresh-baked bread to mushrooms foraged from the hills north of the city. I bought a coffee and an almond croissant from a bakery stall and sat on a bench watching the Bay. Alcatraz was visible through the morning fog. The Bay Bridge stretched behind me. A sea lion was barking from somewhere near the docks. I called G and held the phone up so she could hear it. She said "is that a seal?" and I said "sea lion" and she said "same thing" and it is not the same thing but I let it go.

The last night a group of us went to Chinatown, which in SF is the oldest Chinatown in North America and one of the most densely packed neighborhoods in the city. We ate at a place on Grant Avenue that had been there for decades: dim sum, roast duck, clay pot rice. The bill for five people was about $90, which in a city where a salad costs $22 felt like we'd found a loophole. We walked through the narrow streets afterward, past the lanterns and the produce markets closing for the night and the bakeries that were not, and someone suggested we get drinks at a bar in North Beach, which turned into two bars and a stumble back to the hotel at 1 AM. The last night of a conference always goes like this. You say you'll have one drink. You have four. You regret nothing except the 7 AM flight you booked because you thought you'd be responsible.

Flew home. INBOUND in a new city. Different energy, same people, same reason to keep showing up.