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

Seattle, in Midst of Tech Boom, Tries to Keep Its Soul

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 312 posts

Re: Seattle, in Midst of Tech Boom, Tries to Keep Its Soul

#111

Post by devindotcom »

drewrv wrote: post #63
mattress wrote: post #9

Took a job in Bellevue in April and moved from Philadelphia to Seattle. So far it's a been an interesting experience. I've encountered many people hostile to software engineers in general. A bunch of people immediately ask if I work for Amazon with a hint of disdain after I state my occupation. So it hasn't felt super welcoming so far. I get it, even in some neighborhoods in Philadelphia the same thing is happening.…

What I find hilarious is that the most hostile people weren't even born in Seattle. John Criscitello has no right to speak on behalf of native Seattleites.

He only speaks for himself - but a lot of us happen to agree with him.

Re: Seattle, in Midst of Tech Boom, Tries to Keep Its Soul

#112

Post by chrisdbaldwin »

mosquito242 wrote: post #87
zw123456 wrote: post #15

I moved to Seattle in 1980 and fell in love with the city and it's unique culture. Seattle has grown up for sure but in my view the growth has been handled overall pretty well and we have kept a lot of the coolest part of the culture here(music, beer, coffee, movies check out the SFF, outdoor festivals every weekend during the summer, great outdoors, the sea and mountains and so on). I have been tempted many times by…

Then what would Portland be?

The middle child.

Re: Seattle, in Midst of Tech Boom, Tries to Keep Its Soul

#113

Post by smithkl42 »

sakopov wrote: post #93

I'm a software engineer with a great job in midwest but I have never been happy here and have been contemplating about just packing my stuff and moving to Seattle for the past 3 years. I don't have any job leads but I have enough in savings to get a place for 6 months. Does anyone think it's sane to just move without job offers?

Probably so, if you've got good technical skills. At the very least, you ought to be able to land a couple of contracting gigs to tide you over until you find the right long-term position. There's a lot more demand here in the Puget Sound area for good technical skills than there is supply, so unless you're just not a very good developer, you ought to be able to find something reasonable.

Re: Seattle, in Midst of Tech Boom, Tries to Keep Its Soul

#115

Post by amyjess »

pm90 wrote: post #12

> John Criscitello placed posters in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood proclaiming “Welcome! Rich Kids,” and “Wish you weren’t here.” Its hard not to feel angry at people like this. "Rich Kids" really? These "Kids" spent years developing their engineering skills to get to the point where they are now. Are engineers paid a lot? Of course. But we're certainly not in the same category as those who inherit wealth. Most…

I wish I was a rich kid.

I only got to go to college on a scholarship, and I spent the first five years of my career making under $50k.

I'm disappointed that some people think working in tech means that you're made of money.

Re: Seattle, in Midst of Tech Boom, Tries to Keep Its Soul

#116

Post by JPKab »

thieving_magpie wrote: post #68
wfo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle has never been particularly welcoming to newcomers; people there tend to be insular and it can be hard to make friends if you don't already know people (even before the amazon/tech stuff -- plenty of articles about 'the seattle freeze' that predate it). Being from there helps. Not being in tech helps -- there are so many new software engineers meeting one just isn't very interesting. You can hardly blame peop…

Yeah, I'm not all that concerned with making friends with people that are hostile about my profession. That's so petty. >partly because the countless new techbros with no respect for Seattle culture who spend 11hrs/day at work and don't have time to develop a personality romping around town give it a real bad reputation What does that even mean? I hear this all the time and I honestly have no idea how to "respect Sea…

As someone who has lived in a few cities filled with counter-culture types, they can be incredibly insular, superficial, and tribal. Ironically, they end up being a different looking, but similar acting version of the wealthy elite they claim to hate.

It seems like everyone in these places is just trying to re-invent a "cooler than thou" image, looking down on others who don't prize their typically temporary life-style choices. The gleeful embrace of self-imposed bohemian poverty, and the hatred of anyone who wants material possessions, is particularly annoying. As someone who grew up in poverty, I really hate getting lectured on how meaningless money is by a dread-locked trust fund kid who is waxing poetic about how great of an experience it is to "live simply." They don't seem to get the fact that for some of us, a "tiny house" is exactly what we fucking grew up in, except it wasn't considered cool, and was stuck next to a bunch of other tiny houses called trailers in a community called a trailer park.

The point is that the people in Seattle that act like assholes to you almost certainly fall into this category of idiot.

Re: Seattle, in Midst of Tech Boom, Tries to Keep Its Soul

#117

Post by Nicholas_C »

amyjess wrote: post #37
alain94040 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

housing in SF is well over a million now, and if you're hoping to have kids and raise a family Why isn't a nice condo in Mountain View for $700K good enough? 1,300 sq.ft is plenty of space to live. For instance http://www.mlslistings.com/property/ml81517677/1945-mount-ve...

Because you can get a nice house with almost 2000 sq. ft. in Texas for under $300k [0]. We're not talking about somewhere out in the country or in some distant exurb, either: I'm talking about housing prices I just looked up in a nice neighborhood within the City of Dallas. It's a safe neighborhood with good schools (speaking from personal experience: I grew up in that exact neighborhood). Also, I currently rent a 15…

Fellow Dallas resident as well. Everyone here in Uptown keeps complaining about rent increasing but these HN threads help me realize how good we have it. The job market is extremely hot as well.

Re: Seattle, in Midst of Tech Boom, Tries to Keep Its Soul

#118

Post by beatpanda »

I have a question for all you unrepentant capitalists out there -- why is it that massive concentrations of wealth pretty consistently tend to lead to a decrease in the overall quality of life?

Because if the boosters of capitalism are to be believed, the path to making society better on balance is to enable people to accumulate unlimited amounts of personal wealth and then sort of let that wealth diffuse through the people around them.

This isn't actually happening in places where wealth from the tech industry is concentrated. The rising tide is mostly just sinking everybody, and obliterating everything that isn't explicitly about making money in its path.

So what gives? How can you argue anybody is better off for all this?

Re: Seattle, in Midst of Tech Boom, Tries to Keep Its Soul

#119

Post by smithkl42 »

crabasa wrote: post #2

I have lived in Seattle since 2009, first working at Microsoft and now working remotely for a Bay Area company. For people who aren't familiar with the Seattle area, it is cleaved into 2 parts: 1) The city of Seattle or the "west side". This area is increasingly dominated by Amazon, local startups and engineering offices for Bay Area companies like Facebook and Google. 2) The cities to the east of Lake Washington (Re…

It's worth pointing out that Google has offices in both Seattle and Kirkland - and I believe that the Kirkland office is larger, and is coming to be as important to Kirkland as Amazon is to Seattle (obviously Kirkland is much smaller than Seattle).

Re: Seattle, in Midst of Tech Boom, Tries to Keep Its Soul

#120

Post by devindotcom »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #94
devindotcom wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our problem on Capitol Hill is people coming from the rich suburbs to trash our neighborhood, yell "fag" at the locals, fail to tip, and then Uber out, never to be seen again until next Friday. The poster doesn't say "get out of here, self-made engineers!" That and the construction of cheaply made housing that rents for well above what the neighborhood has ever paid. It's the same story in many other places, of cours…

I love John's work: http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2014/11/the-woo-girl/ This is kind of childish, but still made me laugh: https://instagram.com/p/1OKvvFwzOi/?taken-by=aaronbrethorst

The "LEGENDARY" dick is still unsurpassed, though.
Post reply on HN