For the love of God, move your company somewhere else. You don't have "easy access to capital" as an excuse anymore. You could locate literally anywhere. Stop coming here. Thank you.
In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown
21–30 of 101 posts
Re: In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
All the folks working in a service industry that exists only to service tech workers are going to have a very, very hard time. Q: How many sandwiches and burritos must one deliver to pay rent in the Bay Area? How many of those people that have been requesting said sandwiches and burritos will be laid off, move away or reduce discretionary spending? A: many.
I think this sentiment is exactly what gives tech workers a bad name: > All the folks working in a service industry that exists only to service tech workers are going to have a very, very hard time. "Only to service tech workers" - are you kidding? You sound like the aristocracy from Downton Abbey: "Thank god we exist to give all the peasants jobs to do."
For real. What companies do people even refer to when they say "service industry that only exists to serve tech workers"? DoorDash and TaskRabbit and the other outsource your chores apps? The service industry and its workers will be just fine without them.
Re: In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown
#23One of the interesting side-effects of Sen. Fienstien's quest to keep high-rises out of San Francisco is that _all_ real estate is more expensive. There are many people here with similarly narrow ideas about how to protect what is "theirs." A great example would be the people who throw rocks at Google busses. Everyone on that buss can afford a car and would drive to work alone (maybe carpool) if they didn't have the…
FWIW: A lot of those rock throwers were probably not in bad shape. That is because the real people being hurt were probably working their first or second job at the time that was happening, and didn't have time to throw rocks at buses because they'd get fired for not showing up to work.
Re: In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown
#24San Francisco is one massive "tech slowdown" (although I suppose more like a tech collapse, given the baseline level of employment further down in Silicon Valley) from turning into Detroit-on-the-Bay.
As long as the weather doesn't change, SF will be fine.
The world is full of places with great weather & horrible governance.
Re: In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown
#25Tech workers are not to blame, but tech workers shouldn't blame those angry at getting priced out, either. Instead, both groups should work together to lobby for more housing.
So the question is, how can a hacker help?
Re: In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
How's that? They seemed to be OK before the crazy upswing.
The relative power structure won't meaningfully shift. Levels will just change. The guy whose 1% of this pie is meaningful today may find that it is unsustainable tomorrow. The gal who lives richly on her 10% of the pie may have to tighten a belt or two tomorrow, but it's unlikely to become be existential. More tangibly, city services will pull away from non-core areas, projects and services.
I would argue that despite budget increases we have not seen an appreciable increase in operating service levels across the board - from transit to infrastructure to homeless outreach and everything in between. Hard to believe with a $9B (yes, billion) budget. [1]
(Yes, there are capital expenditures happening that are quite visible but do we really need an extension of the slow T-line to Fishermans Wharf?)
[1] - http://sfmayor.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/mayor/budget/SF_Budget_...
Re: In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown
#27The non-tech parts of this town will be devastated by a tech slowdown. Absolutely destroyed.
Strangely enough, San Francisco was thriving 100 years before the computer chip even existed. Don't overestimate your importance. The world will move on without you.
Thriving?
I think reasonable people disagree.
The vast majority of people i've talked to think SF was a craphole 25 years ago. I think a lot of people have the golden age fallacy going on :)
Re: In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this sentiment is exactly what gives tech workers a bad name: > All the folks working in a service industry that exists only to service tech workers are going to have a very, very hard time. "Only to service tech workers" - are you kidding? You sound like the aristocracy from Downton Abbey: "Thank god we exist to give all the peasants jobs to do."
For real. What companies do people even refer to when they say "service industry that only exists to serve tech workers"? DoorDash and TaskRabbit and the other outsource your chores apps? The service industry and its workers will be just fine without them.
> The service industry and its workers will be just fine without them.
If anything, the service industry would arguably be better without them, instead of service startups attempting to illegally classify workers as 1099 contractors in order to be more attractive financially to VCs expecting insane growth.
Re: In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because that was before, obviously. Too much of the city relies on the tech economy now - the restaurants, the lyft/uber drivers, the building contractors, the dog walkers, the private school teachers.
But it transitioned towards a reliance on tech before now, there's nothing to suggest it cannot transition away to something else.
Biotech? Genentech will still be in South SF.
Re: In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Slowdown
#30I question the author's fact-checking abilities when the article starts with the statement "the city officially gave the shuttles free rein to use public bus stops". Actually, the shuttles can only use 200 out of 2500+ muni stops and have a plethora of other restrictions. That doesn't seem like "free rein" to me.
See https://www.sfmta.com/projects-planning/projects/commuter-sh... for full program details, and http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/San-Francisco-Muni-Appr... for a reference on the "200 out of 2500" statistic.