Duolingo says it will never open an office in San Francisco

Duolingo says no, no, no, and no nite to San Francisco.

The language learning app is headquartered in Pittsburgh, which isn’t exactly known as a thriving hub for startups and venture capital. But Duolingo said in a LinkedIn post that it is I will never open an office in San FranciscoThis is partly because it helps them maintain the culture they want.

“We built our headquarters here because we believe you don’t have to chase trends or sky-high rental prices to do meaningful work,” Duolingo books In a blog post last year. “For us, Pittsburgh is not a ‘backup plan’ for the Bay Area.”

The company’s other US offices are located in Detroit, New York City and Seattle.

Startups can thrive all over the world — not just in Silicon Valley — but the pressure to build near the Bay Area looms large enough to host a conference. TechCrunch disabled 2025 plate On this particular topic.

“Pittsburgh is not trying to be the next Silicon Valley — that is exactly the goal,” the company wrote.

Maybe this is all just advertising material for a city that doesn’t even exist A reasonably good baseball team. But they may be right that building outside San Francisco helps the company drown out the noise of the Valley.