Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

blog.onradpad.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 288 posts

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

#141

Post by vasilipupkin »

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…

I think you should only work for an early stage startup in >= one of two cases

a) you love the company and the mission b) you are a founder or a very early employee

I am not sure the expected value is there from a pure financial point of view for late employees, compared to working for an established company

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

#142

Post by prospective4334 »

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.

I have to ask: which neighborhood do you live in, and how far do you commute? I'm moving to NYC in two days and I still don't know where to live (thankfully, my company will pay for a nice apartment for 30 days).

I actually wrote off SF and the entire Bay Area during my job search, largely due to the cost of living. I know that in New York I'll at least be able to find a 1br for $1700 (in Western Queens or Wash Heights, whatever), which is 25-30% of take home.

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

#143

Post by gokhan »

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.

Can you give some examples for both trendy and not trendy areas?

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

#144

Post by balls187 »

WalterSear wrote: post #45
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bainbridge Island is cheating :) Seattle is still quite affordable, especially where startups tend to have their offices (in boring east side office parks).

Bainbridge island, where green bell peppers are $4 each.

Bainbridge Island where Orange is greater than Green.

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

#145

Post by hwstar »

vessenes wrote: post #12
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…

Seattle is way, way cheaper, the people seem nice to me, and we've had like 9 months of sun, so much so that we were declared officially in drought. Just saying. Might not be Seattle that's the problem. As to traffic, I commute via boat, which is rad, since there are dolphins and orcas sometimes. Seriously!

Now, if Washington state would only ban noncompetes like California... Until more states ban noncompete contracts, I'll be staying in California.

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

#146

Post by whyaduck »

suryon wrote: post #31
whalesalad wrote: post #7

This is not surprising at all. We keep complaining about it here and elsewhere but it's not going to change any time soon. The more people flock to SF the worse it will become. When I left SF my studio "jr. one-bedroom" in SOMA was $3100 a month. I'd walk or muni to work by the ballpark and usually saw at least one person smoking meth, shooting up heroin, or pissing on the street. I pay less than half of that now for…

3100 is almost double the average salary of IT worker in Central/Eastern Europe and these people are considered middle class. Take a look at China and India there they earn even less. How many and for how long can these companies keep hiring people for such huge salaries ? And if these people can't live comfortably off these salaries then there is something wrong.

Complex cross-geo projects aren't the same as local projects, except everything happens overnight. There are explicit and implicit expenses involved in managing and supporting projects in widely varied time zones that aren't obvious until you're involved in one. Especially if there's hardware involved.

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

#147

Post by toomuchtodo »

saryant wrote: post #130
toomuchtodo wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

I'll give you Denver, definitely high quality of life in Colorado. Not Vegas, most definitely not Texas (save for Austin), not Phoenix, and Atlanta is nowhere near friendly unless you work from home and never need to get into a car.

Chattanooga is good, Nashville is good (but getting pricey), lots of space and smart people in North Carolina (Asheville or Raleigh Durham Research Triangle Park). I've heard good things about Des Moines (not a fan of the cold though).

At this point, its just masochistic for SF startups to require their tech staff to live in the area, and throw away so much of their income to landlords.

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

#148

Post by VLM »

whalesalad wrote: post #7

This is not surprising at all. We keep complaining about it here and elsewhere but it's not going to change any time soon. The more people flock to SF the worse it will become. When I left SF my studio "jr. one-bedroom" in SOMA was $3100 a month. I'd walk or muni to work by the ballpark and usually saw at least one person smoking meth, shooting up heroin, or pissing on the street. I pay less than half of that now for…

"usually saw at least one person smoking meth, shooting up heroin, or pissing on the street."

This is why I like living in an area with -20F winters... keeps out the riff raff, oh and winter sports too.

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

#149

Post by rconti »

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…

May be intended to be joke, but the weather is atrocious, and the traffic is worse than the Bay Area (but probably not worse than LA). People are nice though! Source: Lived there 22 years, moved to the Bay Area a dozen years ago, bought a house here, love it. Also, nobody complains about all the "outsiders" driving up housing costs here, whereas in the Northwest, blaming outsiders has been a mantra for decades.
Post reply on HN