Biz journalist takes San Fran job to get out of comfort zone

Doug Fruehling, the new editor of the San Francisco Business Times, writes that he took his new position because he had gotten comfortable in Washington.

Fruehling writes, “People keep asking me why I decided to leave a job I loved and a city I adored. To catch you up: Although I am not from D.C., I lived there for 23 years, nearly half my life, and devoted 18 of those years to the Business Times’ sister paper there. I own a house there — three bedrooms, off-street parking for two cars, a five-minute walk to the Metro and, as of this year, Amazon’s second headquarters. I led a devoted staff of talented journalists who never failed to make me proud.

“Yeah, I had it good. But I had gotten too comfortable, too complacent. You know it’s bad when sitting through one extra light cycle on your 10-minute commute to work turns you into Donald Trump on Twitter. I needed to be forced out of my comfort zone.

“Which brings me to the Bay Area. I had been here only once. (Bill Clinton had just been elected the first time and AOL CDs and dial-up modems were all the rage.) I basically know no one here. I’ve never seen an episode of ‘Silicon Valley,’ never worked for a startup and often have the Help Desk on speed dial.

“That comfort zone? Consider it duly disrupted.”

Read more here.