Seoul vs. New York Tech Startup Events

Both these cities have my heart. Impossible to compare. Apples and oranges and I feel lucky that I get to be involved in both tech ecosystems— attending and hosting meetups across the world.

This has let me observe fun differences:

New York City hustles and bustles but Seoul truly never sleeps.

I’m immensely grateful to get to experience New York and Seoul. NYC is the greatest city in the world. I don’t think I need to explain this but when it comes to diversity, business, arts, music, writing, fashion, food, culture, architecture, and the greatest of creative minds relocate their whole lives to be here— this is it.

However, when it comes to the city that doesn’t sleep, Seoul takes the cake.

Like many of the Asian metropolises, Seoul *actually* runs 24/7 and with immense convenience. You don’t need to walk more than 2 blocks to get to a corner store like GS25 or CU or an all-night coffeeshop, or PC bang. The restaurants and bars often don’t close until the last customer is ready to leave. People go out clubbing on Tuesday nights and Korean BBQs operate 24/7 to cater to these folks at 6 or 7 in the morning for their sobering meal before heading home to crash or the sauna to wash up and go straight to work.

There is a social harmony in Seoul that is next level. I think it’s due to cultural expectations (eg. the senior citizen seats are always left vacant on public transit). The city infrastructure and shopping malls are shaped around delivering a convenient user experience— subway door numbers telling us where to board and exit gates for where to leave the station so we arrive at our destination faster. The malls have trays outside of the stores to hold your beverages so you can shop with free hands.

There is an agreed chaos in New York. Many things are actually an inconvenience (eg. the subway stations without escalators and elevators, subway weekend schedule). We don’t have harmony. We have a gorgeous chaos going on all the time and somehow this flows. It works. We still get to work, we still carry our overflowing grocery bags 9 blocks home, we still sign a new apartment in the same week of getting kicked out of our old one, we still do all this amidst the LITERAL craziness we encounter and observe every day. Even some of our subway stations look like they’re ready to cave in any day and yet we stand on the platform and board safely each time. If you stand at an intersection and watch the city move, you’ll see it’s sort of a miracle that everything somehow works out ok.

And if you’re in New York City, you’re a part of this miracle. Every day is a blessing magnified.

People walk fast in New York City. Things get done fast in Seoul.

Evening rush hour in both these cities has craziness. New Yorkers practically run to make their LIRR train. A lot of Koreans are glued to their phone on the subway and on the walk out of it so even if they’re rushing, they’re still watching the screen while walking like they’re on a mission which naturally slows down the pace.

In Seoul, you can shop for glasses, get a prescription test, and receive those new glasses with prescription lenses on the same day. You can wake up with a nasty zit, book your local dermatologist, and resume to flawless skin that same morning. You can order something on Coupang (Korea’s Amazon) and have it delivered within hours. Aside from Amazon same-day shipping, it takes days in NYC to get new glasses and book a dermatologist (also like 10x the price but that’s a different topic). Things get done faster in Seoul.