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Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

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Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#121

Post by dragonwriter »

jusben1369 wrote: post #86
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #4

That's ok. When Airbnb, Square, and Stripe IPO in 12-36 months, all of the people currently flooding into SF to work for them will surely be able to sell their pre-IPO shares to ... Well, I don't know, honestly. I doubt that employee #1000 at Square would even be able to pay the down payment on a SF condo with their earnings. Also, just FYI: Seattle isn't that much cheaper than SF, the people are way meaner, traffic…

Everybody is running with your Seattle humor but your comment on IPO'ing is worth discussing. 1) The reason a startup is appealing is because you're supposed to make a great low 6 or even 7 figure sum once your company goes public. 2) To achieve success you're supposed to work intensely hard and smart (@pmarca) for a short period of time (3 - 7 years) and then if you've picked successfully you'll create a really nice…

> One would hope your stock is appreciating in value at an equivalent or greater pace than your income.

OTOH, hope is not the same thing as reality.

Some startups will exit successfully and yield really big payouts. Some startups will have modest exists, and equity will have some additional value, but nothing to write home about.

And some startups will fail.

If you are a capital investor in lots of startups, the small share where the first occurs have a good chance of being enough to make the average return good. But if you are a 20-something that's putting 3-7 years of labor into each swing at the startup piñata...

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#122

Post by rco8786 »

WalterSear wrote: post #111
rco8786 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anybody in tech in SF is constantly fighting off job offers, not just when their employers go belly up. At some point, costs will reach a tipping point where people will start to look elsewhere(I don't mean 1% of people and I don't mean the Easy Bay, but actual significant people moving away from the Bay Area).

I've been here 20 years, and people have been saying that almost since I got here :)

No doubt. I definitely didn't say, "we're at the tipping point"...but it exists...somewhere....

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#124

Post by proksoup »

xenadu02 wrote: post #92
proksoup wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am spending 50% of my after-tax income on rent. The 50% I have remaining is more in SF than what I was making in Phoenix or Little Rock or Lincoln. The amount of choice in employer I have as an individual is also much greater here. Still, I'll probably head back to one of those "small" towns soon. Not really worth it here for me personally, despite the employer-choice and the $.

I'm spending 25%. I have the whole house 3br/2ba, a garage, and a back yard. Unfortunately single-family homes in SF aren't rent controlled. You only have to spend 50% if you want to live in a hipster/trendy area of SF.

How much do you make? :(

(rhetorical, trying to imply you might make quite a bit more than me)

Now I feel bad for spending 50% of my income and still not living anywhere hip.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#125

Post by baddox »

Of course, that's not actually a bad thing if their remaining income is higher in absolute terms (or adjusted for non-rent cost of living) than it would be in other cities. The percentage income isn't really relevant on its own. I'd rather make $10m a year and spend 90% of it on rent than make $100k a year and spend 20% of it on rent.

And when you add in the subjective value of living in SF (which is small or perhaps slightly negative to me, but surely large for many people), it could still be a perfectly reasonable decision to live and work in SF.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#127

Post by aianus »

vertis wrote: post #49
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #4

That's ok. When Airbnb, Square, and Stripe IPO in 12-36 months, all of the people currently flooding into SF to work for them will surely be able to sell their pre-IPO shares to ... Well, I don't know, honestly. I doubt that employee #1000 at Square would even be able to pay the down payment on a SF condo with their earnings. Also, just FYI: Seattle isn't that much cheaper than SF, the people are way meaner, traffic…

Visited Seattle for the first time yesterday (from Australia). I have to say that unless you start paying me off I'm going to start promoting it. The people were super friendly. The weather was great (two days of sunny blue skies). The food was great. Even the roads were easy to deal with I do take bitcoin.

> The weather was great (two days of sunny blue skies).

Seattle from October through January is nothing like this. I literally didn't see the sun for over 20 days straight at one point (it's foggy and rainy non-stop during the winter).

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#128

Post by blisterpeanuts »

minimaxir wrote: post #82
nilkn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his/her strategy of working in SF for a few months at first is not to become "super rich", but to establish a high salary that could then be "exported" to a cheaper area while staying on with the same company.

I'm reasonably sure that a decrease in CoL would be adjusted into the salary, or at the least, any company in a lower CoL is less likely to give a competitive salary.

So if you are living and working in SF and making $150K (plus bonus, stock options etc) and you decide to move to, say, Phoenix and buy a house for $140K, they'll say, "OK, minimaxir, we'll be cutting your salary to $90K to reflect the vastly diminished cost of living, although of course we'll be able to give your desk to a new hire and save money on office space!" -- ??

Seems unlikely. If you're contributing, no rational company is going to suddenly cut your salary. Basically, no one cuts salaries in the U.S. unless it's a company-wide belt tightening move to stave off bankruptcy.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#129

Post by jwoah12 »

mightybyte wrote: post #96

I'm in NYC and I pay ~10% of after-tax income for rent. I visited a friend in SF recently and after hearing about his situation I concluded it would be very difficult for any company to get me to move to the Bay Area. It just doesn't make financial sense for me. NYC has plenty of tech opportunity, so that doesn't tip the scale either.

Care to elaborate? You either live with several other people, make upwards of $500k/year and live very modestly, or both.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#130

Post by saryant »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #68
shkkmo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solution: Concentrate your tech workers in a area that isn't hostile to expanding the housing supply when needed.

Which narrows it down to Las Vegas, and Las Vegas is hell on Earth.

Vegas, Houston, Phoenix, Denver, Atlanta...
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