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

This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 182 posts

Re: This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley

#171

Post by chipotle_coyote »

duzoajcgk wrote: post #155
mseebach wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, rents are part of the price of the ticket to work in SV, and as such does not constitute discretionary income. The extra cash you spend to drive a BMW instead of a five year old Nissan definitely most certainly does.

There is a huge difference in rent between the different parts of SV. You have to pay rent, but it doesn't have to be Palo Alto rent.

That's true -- according to Trulia, the median rent right now in Palo Alto is $6100 vs. $3495 in San Jose. But I think it's kind of easy, living here, to lose sight of just how out of whack those costs are with the rest of the country. In Tampa, Florida (which is actually pretty close to the US average), it's $1495; even in Sacramento, about two hours from here, it's $1600. If you could stand the time sink, it's quite likely it would be cheaper to live in Sacramento and commute to the Bay Area.

None of this means that there aren't valid reasons for staying here; even giving up a fairly significant portion of my income as rent leaves me with more money than I'd likely have after rent if I had a comparable job in Tampa, assuming I could even find one. But I don't think this is a sustainable situation for the region. The nanny in the "This is your life in SV" satire, and other people in her salary range (or under it), are on the cusp of being pushed out of the area entirely.

Re: This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley

#172

Post by thrownblown »

keefe wrote: post #5

For the last decade since I moved here, my life in silicon valley was more like: wake up without an alarm, brew a cup of dragon well tea, walk my dog, hit my gym for slow and steady progress, check email for crises, deal with anything other people care about, maybe go to the office. Have some lunch, write code until I'm tired, then maybe make an effort to socialize. As far as coal mining goes, these are sweet digs.

My life is similar: 6am wake up with my 2yo son. He wakes up early. Make coffee and breakfast for him and I. I do some emails and do some lightweight coding while we watch Masha and the Bear again.

At 9am I wake up my wife. She's in SF State getting her MBA. If its not a school day for her, I then go to the office and do a meeting or some more intensive coding, otherwise I'll go teach a spin class or lift weights and come home to hang out with my son and we go to the park or for a bike ride while my wife goes to class.

At night and on weekends I'll find myself sneaking in coding work, mostly to put the brain wheels at ease over whatever thing I'm working on.

We have a baby sitter one night a week when our schedules need it. We aren't a dual income family and I don't make a killing but my work is super flexible. We are barely comfortable and I have to teach spin classes on the side but my son and I have an amazing connection. I don't have much work life balance or separation but I think I prefer it that way.

Re: This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley

#173

Post by laxatives »

rob wrote: post #97

This is so sad, especially the part in the beginning about hiring a nanny to watch their kids as they grow up. You can't get those memories and time back. But hey, you have a WiFi coffee maker and Roomba.

FYI this is satire. He doesn't live in Silicon Valley. Everything he is describing is a negative that he wants avoid by not moving. Its all bad -- not just the nanny bit.

Re: This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley

#174

Post by usaar333 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #170
JauntTrooper wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a shortage of professional daycare providers in the Bay Area. Two of my co-workers hired a nanny because of the >1 year waitlists for infant daycare around here. It's really tough to find a daycare if you don't sign up in the first trimester.

> There's also a shortage of professional daycare providers in the Bay Area. > Two of my co-workers hired a nanny because of the >1 year waitlists for infant daycare around here. Given real estate costs in the Bay Area, I'm not surprised that the economics favor in-home nannies (where the day care facility is the home of the family receiving service) over day care centers, compared to areas with more affordable real…

Yup. Many day cares are also small 3 child ones run out of the providers' home.

Re: This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley

#176

Post by superuser2 »

enraged_camel wrote: post #42
kec wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$60k is more than 88% of Americans make in total income. Having that for discretionary spending would place you well within the top 1-2% of Americans, regardless of how much or how little your living expenses are.

Living expenses make up the majority of most people's living expenses, and this person owns the house they live in, which means it's possible their expenses aren't that high to begin with. They imply as much in their post. So it's possible their salary is like $70-75k. The median salary in the US is $52k. In light of that, I, too, would call his salary "decently high".

> owns

It is customary to say you "own" a home you're paying a mortgage on, whether or not you have meaningful equity in it yet.

Re: This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley

#177

Post by mancerayder »

powvans wrote: post #99
koolba wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You skim the HN comments about life in the valley. You haven't bothered to read the article so you do not realize it's a satire. You decide to comment anyway." "Six minutes of continuously refreshing the page later, you get a reply from a throwaway account calling you out for not even skimming the article. You contemplate deleting your comment but decide that would look even worse. You then wonder why you don't set…

"You re-open the article and confirm that the string 'HN comments' in fact does not appear in the article you skimmed." Meta.

"You are now faced with a risky decision. If you can't beat the feeling of having been meta-duped, turn to page 4. To try your luck, and put your reputation on the table, turn to the next page..."

Re: This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley

#178

Post by toomuchtodo »

amyjess wrote: post #167
meestaahjoshee wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain why? I was always told Austin is the fun, SXSW college town and Dallas is a nice big city but boring. Coming from my friends who are from Dallas and went to Univerity of Texas.

Because the hipster pretentiousness of Austin is annoying . I'm reminded of this article: http://www.vice.com/read/reasons-why-austin-is-the-worst-pla... The first point is the most salient: > But you’re not keeping Austin weird. You’re engaging in this fake, utterly distasteful blend of irony and feigned enthusiasm that will eventually cause the city to self-implode under the density of its own facetiousness. Soon y…

Most people don't want to admit that the suburbs are underrated. Bland compared to city life? Possibly. But the quality of life is definitely there.

Re: This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley

#179

Post by nattofriends »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #8

Reading this was an interesting anthropological experience to me as the lifestyle is so different from my own though it seems the underlying long-term goals are similar to mine (wealth, meaning, having smart and interesting friends and acquaintances). I too live in SV, but in a modest home I own in the East Bay. I too commute a little less than an hour to work, but I do my own grocery shopping and I don't care for ni…

You do not live in SV. You live in the East Bay.
Post reply on HN