My First Two Years in New York
On ambition, society, and the pursuit of happiness.
The Crucible
The wind cuts through my hair as I pedal across the Williamsburg Bridge at night. The city skyline towers over the East River, a monolithic wall of light that makes my chest tighten. It is a mixture of anxiety and awe, a physical reminder of exactly where I am.
It has been two years since I moved here from Berlin. I came looking for a new personal challenge, but I found something I didn’t expect: a crucible. I have grown more in these twenty-four months than in any other period of my life. I have completely fallen in love with this city, but loving New York is not like loving a person; it’s like loving running a marathon. It will hurt and suck along the way, but it’s so much fun, exhilarating and will make you so much stronger at the other end.
The Crime of Trying
New York rewards a behavior that Berlin punished: trying hard.
I remember back in Berlin, my founder friends would ask me whether I am joining them for the Sunday morning rave. When I told them I only take Saturdays off and work Sundays, they treated me as a mood killer. Ambition there often felt like a social faux pas. To care too much, to strive too hard, was to be uncool. There was a comfortable ceiling to my life there.
In New York, that ceiling was blown off the moment I arrived. Here, mediocrity makes me invisible. The city inspires me through its sheer, crushing extremes. It demands that I be more. More charming, more attractive, wealthier, smarter, better in every way you can imagine.
It is a binary existence: If I stop trying, the city spits me out. If I keep pushing, it might just turn me into a diamond.
The Texture of Struggle
This intensity, however, came with a social cost I wasn’t prepared for. The dynamics here often feel jarringly performative compared to my time in Europe.
I recall meeting a German founder back at a networking event; we bonded over what was breaking and not going well in our companies. After a while, he told me that it had been a while since someone shared what was not going well. There is an intimacy in shared struggle.
But I remember my first month here, talking to an American founder who was pre-funding, pre-product, and clearly in the pivot-hell. Yet, he pitched me like he’d just raised a Series A. He needed his narrative like water in a desert.
Sometimes, talking to locals feels like interacting with NPCs in a video game. Be that countless “how do you do”s in a day or office kitchen chatter about everything and nothing at the same time. The conversations sound personal, but have no depth nor connection. The dialogue feels scripted, sheltered from the texture of real vulnerability. Back in Europe, I felt like people value knowing others at a level that matters. Only connections worth having are deep and personal ones. In New York, I found that most people who move here, particularly in the professional world, often only talk to others to climb. Social connection becomes transactional leverage where every conversation falls flat.
The Zero-Sum Game
There is a saying that people in San Francisco want to live in New York, but no New Yorker wants to live in San Francisco. The two cities are very different, but I’ve noticed a strong distinction in the “game theory” of the cities.
San Francisco feels like everyone is playing a positive-sum game - the logic of rising tides. You never know where the person you meet might be in a year so better treat them well. But New York feels zero-sum. Space is limited. Tables at Torrisi are limited. Status is limited. My win is often viewed as someone else’s loss. That’s also why conversations often end up being shallow and transactional.
Finding Home in the Noise
So, how do I settle for good in a place that treats friendship as a transaction and life as a competition?
I had to find the others. I had to find the people who had stopped pitching. Finding “home” in New York wasn’t about finding a nice apartment in the West Village - it was about finding the pockets of reality amidst the performance. It was finding the friends who would sit on a stoop with me and admit that they are tired, that the rent is too high, and that they are scared they won’t make it.
When I found that tribe, the transaction costs vanished. The city stopped being a battleground and became a playground. The city became a source of inspiration and connection.
The Cost of Admission
I watch people come and go. People come, stay for a few years. Then, they pack up for softer cities like Austin, Lisbon, London, where life does not feel like a constant competition. Some leave because the cost, financial, emotional, physical, eventually grinds them down.
But on those nights when I am cycling over the bridge, the skyline impossibly dreamy, I understand why I am here. New York doesn’t let me settle. It forces me to become a diamond.
And this has shaped what I want for my future. I no longer look for a safety net or optimize for hedging the downside. Now, I want to be the truest version of myself, the most ambitious version of myself and leave nothing on the table. If I look back at this period of my life, it should not be comfortable. It should be epic.
For me, there is no question whether the struggle is worth the cost. I am here to stay.
