The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups • Hacker News Board

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#41

Post by hkmurakami » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 6:29 AM UTC

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #25

parandeh wrote: post #2

Another explanation could be that real estate costs is driving founders and startups out of the city. If most of the founders don't live in SF, they're more likely to open offices in the valley. Heavy traffic to/from SF doesn't help with the situation.

Or the costs are driving potential founders out of founding. If you double your monthly costs, you double the amount you need to save in order to have enough runway to "two guys in a basement" your way into enough traction for funding. Plus you need more funding for getting enough roadway for employees and an actual business. Maybe I'm far more mobile than others, but I'm really surprised that there isn't a wave of p…

Once you have a social circle is hard to move. Not many People are open to completely uprooting to an area where they have zero friends or family

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#42

Post by vedanta » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 6:30 AM UTC

kevinburke wrote: post #6

Both top-level comments have mentioned housing prices. I grew up in the Bay Area and want to stay here and I am trying to work to change policy to help build more housing. Unfortunately due to law, bad policy and NIMBY's the market is not going to solve this problem on its own, without political change rents and housing prices will keep increasing. Here are some political actions you can take to help: - call your Sta…

There are also YIMBY orgs almost everywhere. The south bay YIMBY twitter account has updates on what you can do as well.

From following the YIMBY movement (http://www.slate.com/articles/business/metropolis/2017/06/yi...) it's hard to not take the YIMBY position. More needs to be built, but we can have ~10% BMR requirements as ways of increasing diversity in a neighborhood and preserving some local control/culture. If enough is built, there won't be a need for BMR.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#43

Post by hkmurakami » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 6:31 AM UTC

fblp wrote: post #13

I wonder if Tunguz looked at B2B vs B2C trends. It seems that there's lots of B2C apps in SF that are crashing, yet many of the startups in outside SF in the valley are B2B.

Yes it's in the article.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#44

Post by nwatson » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 6:32 AM UTC

hossbeast wrote: post #32

vidoc wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Riding BART into and out of SF as a commute is ridiculous at a new level nowadays. Especially given the shocking number of uneducated people who insist on keeping their backpacks on their shoulders despite the train being packed. Totally pisses me off!

How do you know they're uneducated?

In Spanish and Portuguese "mal educado" == literally "poorly educated" is used to mean "someone with poor etiquette ... doesn't know how things should work" ... writer probably means in that sense.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#45

Post by _delirium » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 6:39 AM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #30

aphextron wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost comical how overcrowded BART has gotten at rush hour. Embarcadero and Powell stations become standing room only. I live deep in the east bay, and the new apartment building going up across the street has 1 bedroom layouts starting at $2800. Something has to give, or people will simply give up.

Correct. And the best way to fix Bart overcrowding is to build apartments near where people work so they don't HAVE to commute.

Can BART overcrowding be addressed in part by improving BART itself? It'd be one thing if it were already moving such large numbers of people that it'd be infeasible to expect higher capacity, but its current ridership isn't even all that high. The Chicago "L", for example, has a similar number of track-miles (though more stations), but moves twice as many people on an average day. How is BART moving half as many and yet overcrowded?

Wikipedia says that current headways fall short of the original plan, which seems like it could be part of the problem:

> In the 1970s, BART had envisioned frequent local service, with headways as short as two minutes between trains and six minutes intra-line on the (quadruple-interlined) section in San Francisco. However, headways have fallen short of the original plans, presently three minutes between trains, and 15 minutes intra-line in San Francisco.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#46

Post by fatbird » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 6:39 AM UTC

aphextron wrote: post #12

kevinburke wrote: post #6

Both top-level comments have mentioned housing prices. I grew up in the Bay Area and want to stay here and I am trying to work to change policy to help build more housing. Unfortunately due to law, bad policy and NIMBY's the market is not going to solve this problem on its own, without political change rents and housing prices will keep increasing. Here are some political actions you can take to help: - call your Sta…

It's almost comical how overcrowded BART has gotten at rush hour. Embarcadero and Powell stations become standing room only. I live deep in the east bay, and the new apartment building going up across the street has 1 bedroom layouts starting at $2800. Something has to give, or people will simply give up.

People should give up. People should leave the area. They should move where they can find a job and a cost of living that's reasonable. The fact that people don't give up is why landlords can afford to charge $2,800/month for a 1 bedroom. You can't rent at $2,800/month if no one will sign the lease.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#47

Post by Emilie656 » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 6:40 AM UTC

noobermin wrote: post #36

hossbeast wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know they're uneducated?

Perhaps they mean "uneducated in riding public transport in a way that doesn't hassle other passengers."

I get paid over $90 per hour working from home with 2 kids at home. I never thought I'd be able to do it but my best friend earns over 10k a month doing this and she convinced me to try. The potential with this is endless. Heres what I've been doing, ------------>http://ow.ly/iBXm30dNtIZ

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#48

Post by _pmf_ » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 6:47 AM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #30

aphextron wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost comical how overcrowded BART has gotten at rush hour. Embarcadero and Powell stations become standing room only. I live deep in the east bay, and the new apartment building going up across the street has 1 bedroom layouts starting at $2800. Something has to give, or people will simply give up.

Correct. And the best way to fix Bart overcrowding is to build apartments near where people work so they don't HAVE to commute.

> And the best way to fix Bart overcrowding is to build apartments near where people work so they don't HAVE to commute.

Why not build businesses where people live? Apple can spend 5 billion on its new campus in the middle of nowhere, but the public has to shoulder the cost for transit. 90 percent of Google's and Apple's domestic workforce could probably do at least 70 percent of their work from home. Apple prides itself on renewable energy usage, but it's perfectly OK for its employees to spend 3 hours idling in traffic?

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#49

Post by skrebbel » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 6:47 AM UTC

dmode wrote: post #26

parandeh wrote: post #2

Another explanation could be that real estate costs is driving founders and startups out of the city. If most of the founders don't live in SF, they're more likely to open offices in the valley. Heavy traffic to/from SF doesn't help with the situation.

The article already addressed this. Real estate has no impact, since Palo Alto, which is equally expensive, has seen dramatic increase in funding. The trend is really random. Tomorrow Uber will raise $5bn and will all come up with a different explanation

I'm no local, but isn't it much easier to get to Palo Alto from places with lower rent than to SF?

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#50

Post by eropple » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 6:53 AM UTC

jsudhams wrote: post #38

stale2002 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. And the best way to fix Bart overcrowding is to build apartments near where people work so they don't HAVE to commute.

The best way is to make work from home / remote default. If US does then devloping countries can follow. If Fortune 100 company makes rule for thier offshoring companies allow work from home then they pretty much can solve traffic issues all Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad in a month. And the country like India can also improve infrastruture other than road .

Remote-by-default will only work if the workday is profoundly transformed and telecommuter areas (generally more suburban or exurban) can be made more social.

Unless the idea is social isolation, anyway. Sometimes the gleeful description of "progress" makes it sound like there's cheering on of the cyberpunk dystopia going down.