Keith Rabois has devoted the majority of his 13-year tenure in venture capital to Khosla Ventures, which has been based in Menlo Park, California. However, that is set to change. During a discussion on Thursday evening at TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC event in New York’s West Village, Rabois announced that Khosla Ventures will be launching its inaugural office outside of Sand Hill Road. The new location will be situated on 14th Street in New York and is anticipated to open this fall.

“It’s actually allegedly under construction at this moment,” stated Rabois, who has evidently faced a missed construction schedule or two. “We’ll see. The fall timeline is rather ambiguous in my view.”

This development is significant, particularly given how rare it is for Khosla Ventures specifically. “We don’t even have an office in SF, so this is a substantial step for us,” remarked Rabois.

The office will accommodate a small number of Khosla investors, including Rabois, but its more distinctive aspect is what he referred to as an “executive briefing center.” This facility will serve as a venue where the firm will host 10 or 12 portfolio companies at a time to engage with a Fortune 500 company, four days a week. “The portfolio companies appreciate this,” he conveyed to the audience. “They gain pilots and customers, making it a very dynamic office as a result.”

This announcement follows months after Rabois himself made the move to the East Coast to be nearer to his husband, Jacob Helberg, who is the Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, as well as their children, who are presently located in Washington, D.C.

This relocation raised an obvious question from this editor regarding whether he believes New York has the talent density he has spent his career sourcing from the Bay Area. He paused before replying that it depends on the level of seniority.

For junior talent, Rabois was clear. “At the individual contributor level, right out of school, absolutely,” he said, indicating Ramp, the fintech enterprise he has consistently supported, as evidence. “We’ve been reaching out to fresh graduates and managed to cultivate an exceptional talent density from the intern class [onward].”

However, senior technical talent presents a different challenge. “Senior engineers, architect-level — no, I believe that’s difficult,” he stated, adding: “Fortunately, perhaps in the modern era, fewer of these individuals are needed per company than historically.”

Yet, the greatest obstacle for companies lies in attracting talented senior executives, according to Rabois, who elaborated that this is more a matter of geography and lifestyle than supply. “If you have an in-office environment, most senior individuals residing in the New York area live outside the city, and commuting in and out can be very taxing,” noted Rabois, who himself grew up in a suburban commuter town. “We were on a 32-minute express train ride into the city, but many people live two concentric circles farther out. When trying to recruit proven executive talent and genuinely supporting an in-office culture, [that has] been quite difficult.”

Ramp’s approach, he elaborated, has largely been to circumvent this issue altogether. “We don’t recruit senior personnel. We focus on building from the ground up. This has been a deliberate strategy for the last three years,” he shared. “That can be effective,” he continued. “However, if you require a CFO, an SVP of sales, someone with substantial gravitas and experience, it becomes really tough to have them in the office five days a week, since unless they’re quite independently wealthy, it’s hard to raise a family right in the heart of the city.”

Khosla’s development positions it among a small yet potentially expanding group. Other prominent venture firms from the Bay Area have had a presence in New York for years, albeit usually a modest one. For instance, Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz both have New York-based partners, although in relatively smaller numbers compared to their Bay Area counterparts.

This announcement also follows a report issued last month by commercial real estate services company CBRE, revealing that New York has narrowly surpassed the San Francisco Bay Area in total tech talent count for the first time in the 13 years CBRE has monitored this data. This trend has largely been propelled by finance companies aggressively recruiting AI talent, while Bay Area tech firms have been reducing staff.

Is it mere coincidence? Judging by the gathering on Thursday evening, many New Yorkers remain skeptical of the headline.

“I heard about that study,” mentioned one attendee. “I don’t buy it.”