261–270 of 524 posts
I did the math on this about 1.5 years ago and came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth it. I was, at the time, in a CTO-level position at a VC-funded startup and so had plenty of opportunities in the Bay, but in the end opted to live in a quiet country town about 2.5 hrs drive away and work from home in a lower-key role. I have a 3yo kid and another on the way, and I do not regret my decision for one second, part…
When I started my career I ended up in Austin, Texas. At the time, I didn’t know much about the place (and it was much smaller than now) but it really is a serious tech hub. Even at its current absurd rate of growth and increasing cost of living, it is more affordable than the Bay Area and has enough else going on that it isn’t an exclusively tech climate. Politically, Austin is like a blue bubble in a red state so i…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It really depends on what you want to do. If programming is programming and programming is just a job, then you can do that anywhere there are programming jobs, and with so many companies offering remote work, that could be anywhere. But if programming is what you intend to bring as a founder - if it's simply a means to get the burning ideas out of your head and into a product, then there's a much smaller number of p…
> you need to be able to have coffee with a VC If you are building a company that needs VC funding. Most companies don't. "Venture Capital is the wrong source of capital for the vast majority of entrepreneurial ventures" http://avc.com/2005/03/dont_take_the_m/ If you aren't looking to raise VC but instead want to be part of a vibrant tech ecosystem, well, that opens up more mid tier cities. For starters: San Diego, L…
Headline follows Betteridge's Law.
Hardly. Betteridge's Law requires the answer to be a definite "no". E.g. "Is SpaceX planning to put a dog on Pluto?"
Moving to a high cost area to gamble for a position that might help your career in the future, given any unemployment for more than a month makes the living arrangement untenable, is a high-risk gamble. The idea that working for a big company changes your employment chances is about the same as what school you graduated from. It gets you an interview, you were probably going to get anyway in another geo-location. In a lower cost area (even relatively lower like Los Angeles) you end up with lower chances for a startup (with a brand that might eventually become household) but the experience isn't much different and landing your interviews are a cakewalk…talent pools are smaller everywhere else in the world. The positions you might qualify from, are about the same from some no-name sports gambling company as "I worked at uber for a year". Your experience at your role is what matters, you're a worker not a business consultant. The answer is a definitive no, and the headline is baiting a false equivalence, hence Betteridge.
I'm married with 4 kids. We like living in roughly 3,000 square feet of housing with on roughly a quarter acre of land, so I'm going to guess in absolutely no universe could it ever make sense for us to move to the Bay Area.
If you plan on buying a home it is worth considering the future when you decide to (semi?) retire from Corporate and sell the kid-raising home. Cashing out in Arkansas means you can move to ... a cheaper part of Arkansas. Cashing out in Silicon Valley means you can go about anywhere.
Arkansas and other places where land is effectively free work differently than California. You buy a starter home straight out of college, maybe you improve it, it'll probably increase in value marginally over the next 5 to 7 years. Then you sell it and put what you've "earned" into your next house. My friends back in Oklahoma are on their third or fourth houses (we're all around 35) at this point. In the Bay Area, y…
> Houses aren't retirement plans in most places. And I think that's good.
Absolutely; the fact that they've worked that way in some places is completely poisonous. For one thing, it's obviously not sustainable; you can only have the inflation-adjusted average value of a home double so many times before it's literally impossible for anyone but the actually wealthy to afford. Secondly, it creates a strong incentive to oppose building more housing, which causes all kinds of problems.
As someone who grew up in the Bay Area, but moved to Portland about three years ago, I can tell you there is a stark difference in ecosystems. However, if you are a young up-and-coming programmer coming out of school, it makes complete sense to move to the Bay Area. If you're an Actor you move to L.A. to get your big break. If you're a programmer, you go to the Bay Area to work for a big firm that will help build you…
>go to Bay Area to a big firm to build your reputation Doesn't make sense. The big 4 have campuses across the country. Instead of telling people to move to SV I would recommend making sure to get into the right (big 4 or not) team and role for your career. Just fixing bugs at big SV company will not help much. You want to make sure you have a chance to contribute something to show your skills on an innovative or lead…
I'm married with 4 kids. We like living in roughly 3,000 square feet of housing with on roughly a quarter acre of land, so I'm going to guess in absolutely no universe could it ever make sense for us to move to the Bay Area.
3000 sq. ft. homes around here barely exist, but you're probably in the $3M range for that kind of place.
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Paycheck calculator shows me that $120K [1] in CA leaves you with $6,220 after-tax monthly income. If you really made about as much, and managed to save ~$5.5K a month, then you spent only ~$660 a month, which is just impossible, sorry. Even if you're sharing a 1BR with several roommates, which, by the way, is not really an option for many. [1] Googling "average software engineer salary california" shows figures rang…
It was 2009-2010, so rents were lower, but my paycheck was lower as well (I started at only $100K/year base, compared to the ... well, much higher amount a few years later). After taxes and 401k, I netted $5400/month. 18 months encompassed 2 bonus cycles, so about $40K of that was bonuses, after tax. My rent was $900/month with roommates, and then $1400/month in the 1BR, and total monthly expenditures were about $2K.…