Why You Should Stay in Silicon Valley
medium.com
Why You Should Stay in Silicon Valley
1–10 of 15 posts
Re: Why You Should Stay in Silicon Valley
#2For the vast majority of people, starting companies will only be a money-losing effort. Don't criticize people for choosing not to take this risk. Not everyone can (or wants to) afford it.
For the vast majority of people, joining a startup in Silicon Valley costs more than it's worth. Salaries are not pegged to the cost of living in SF. Some startups have a work culture that demands long hours, little time with family, and accepting illusory equity instead of cash. Don't criticize people for choosing not to live their lives that way.
Re: Why You Should Stay in Silicon Valley
#3What about companies that need to save money? SV is extremely expensive compared to other parts of the country and SV is not a good value for everyone (also i'm assuming this is your post from the name)
Re: Why You Should Stay in Silicon Valley
#4I admire your desire to solve problems, but you can’t just write off macroeconomic trends. Debt cycles are a real thing and they do happen. Deleveraging is a real phenomenon. All the money printing the fed did is unprecedented in history and has real effects. Who is going to stay in silicon valley when people are not throwing around funding? Not everybody has 250k to spend on a domain name.
On top of these macroeconomic facts — why would you want to live in a big suburban sprawl with bad traffic? Sounds pretty crappy to me.
Re: Why You Should Stay in Silicon Valley
#5I used to say if want to work with the stock market, NYNY. If you want to work in insurance Hartford CT. If you want to be an engineer SF.
However after you have been here a while, you don't need to STAY here to run a small SAS. And unless you KNOW that your going to turn into a unicorn (I hate that term) you probably DONT need to be here.
Re: Why You Should Stay in Silicon Valley
#6I admire your desire to solve problems, but you can’t just write off macroeconomic trends. Debt cycles are a real thing and they do happen. Deleveraging is a real phenomenon. All the money printing the fed did is unprecedented in history and has real effects. Who is going to stay in silicon valley when people are not throwing around funding? Not everybody has 250k to spend on a domain name. On top of these macroecono…
The over-printing of money by the Fed is a real problem and the bailout in 2008 I don't think was a good idea, but I'm not the best to comment on that particular subject. The point I'm attempting to make is if you are a person that wants to solve problems for people, general macroeconomic trends shouldn't hurt you to the point where you aren't working on that problem.
The biggest value in Silicon Valley outside of access to capital is something I didn't mention in the article. It is the network of people who are very capable that you can get to know who know a lot about the specific fields you are entering (e.g. mobile, hardware, VR, semi-conductors etc)
There are pluses and minuses to being here, but there will always be capital available to those that are solving real problems. Some of the best companies were started in downturns (e.g. Facebook 2007 I believe?)
Thanks for the comment, thoughts?
Re: Why You Should Stay in Silicon Valley
#7Well seems like people are leaving SV because the rent it too high. And I think that "Why bother making money here, when it will only make my landlord richer" is the driving attitude for people to leave.
Re: Why You Should Stay in Silicon Valley
#8I used to say if want to work with the stock market, NYNY. If you want to work in insurance Hartford CT. If you want to be an engineer SF. However after you have been here a while, you don't need to STAY here to run a small SAS. And unless you KNOW that your going to turn into a unicorn (I hate that term) you probably DONT need to be here.
I agree with that. If you are working on a small, niche technology business living somewhere cheaper is a solid play. Moreover, those people have been raising capital in the last few years and attempting to do pivots to shoot for the moon when they could have a successful business, and this often ends up in disaster as the company is not a unicorn.
Re: Why You Should Stay in Silicon Valley
#9For the vast majority of people, starting companies will only be a money-losing effort. Don't criticize people for choosing not to take this risk. Not everyone can (or wants to) afford it. For the vast majority of people, joining a startup in Silicon Valley costs more than it's worth. Salaries are not pegged to the cost of living in SF. Some startups have a work culture that demands long hours, little time with famil…
I agree, you can spend almost an entire years worth of office rent from the midwest and spend it in a month in Silicon Valley/SF. Sure some people may benefit from the high density of funding but if you're just working on product... why burn through so much? Also off topic but being outside the echo chamber is valuable for most products.
Re: Why You Should Stay in Silicon Valley
#10Well seems like people are leaving SV because the rent it too high. And I think that "Why bother making money here, when it will only make my landlord richer" is the driving attitude for people to leave.
The rents are high here compared to most places in the world, but the opportunity is greater here (if you are starting a company or joining an early stage one).
What I have tried to convey is that for those people the times aren't as bad as they think they are and that they should stick it through.
If you aren't taking advantage of that unique eco-system leaving is fine move. The people I have chatted to before I wrote the piece were people who were/should be taking advantage of that eco-system.