Once you leave the Bay Area, it becomes exponentially more difficult to come back, so the what-if scenario of this employment expiring becomes a real threat to financial viability.
A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay
71–80 of 232 posts
Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay
#72Move to Washington State. Don't pay California income tax. Instant 8% boost to your take-home pay.
From someone outside the US, I'm amazed that states vary their income tax so much, I would have thought it's a magnet for fraud and corruption.
Can you elaborate on how that specific fraud and corruption would work?
Many states and some entire countries simply don't fund themselves by stealing from people's paycheck, but usually passively tax other kinds of transactions.
There are lots of opportunities using combinations of the 50 states, territories and non-US jurisdictions.
Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's silly. Find a job elsewhere willing to pay them to relocate again.
And interview, how? And find it, how? Who will recommend them? You're asking why they don't just eat cake. These things aren't impossible, just so much harder that my friends (One in Idaho, one in Kansas) haven't been able to manage it, and not for lack of trying. It has been hard to watch them floundering and begging for help I don't have to give.
The post you're responding to is the type of stuff that is difficult to decipher r.e. "In the Bay Area it's easy to start a company/get a new job."
There's a fine line between "It's relatively easy to get a new job/start a company" and "Just get a new job to pay them to relocate."
Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
From someone outside the US, I'm amazed that states vary their income tax so much, I would have thought it's a magnet for fraud and corruption.
> From someone outside the US, I'm amazed that states vary their income tax so much, I would have thought it's a magnet for fraud and corruption. It is. Roads in the Bay Area are among the worst in the country, despite this region producing enormous corporate profits. Nearly all the companies here operate in an eternal tragedy of the commons, whereby nobody will pay local taxes because nobody else does. All the compa…
> All the companies in California are actually Delaware companies, and the income inequality and quality-of-life disparity is a direct result of this kind of corruption.
Why would you call that corruption?
Corruption from whose perspective?
How much impact do you think that has on roads being maintained or not (or more generally, local/state funding and budget management)?
Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay
#75Ok, so I "delocate". Do I then have to take a pay cut because I'm now somewhere else? Spreading the tech sector out around the country even more is great, and things like this can be a step in the right direction. But a big part of why the Bay Area is what it is has to do with funding. Most VCs are there, and don't seem to be willing to move away. Hell, YC requires you to be there, at least during your time with them…
> And the concentration of tech talent means that it's always easy to find a new job, or even to start your own company. I've never been there, but I see this echoed a lot. Is it actually true? I'm interested in both, but I'm wary of the exaggeration that may be "it's easy".
yeah, it's very true. If you're not happy somewhere you can walk out without a backup plan and have a job in a couple weeks if you're picky.
Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Positive feedback loop.
High cost of living because competitive labor market. Competitive labor market because high cost of living. You could break the vicious circle from either end. Build more houses, costs go down, more immigrants attracted, wages go down and costs go back up. Destroy local jobs, wages go down, fewer immigrants attracted, costs go down and wages go back up. Every tech company that moves out eases the pressure, but that p…
It is not just more housing, but also denser housing. And more distributed campuses.
Also the higher savings amount from bay area leaks into other regions. I hear texanians complain about swes from bay area inflating housing over there, for example.
Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And the concentration of tech talent means that it's always easy to find a new job, or even to start your own company. I've never been there, but I see this echoed a lot. Is it actually true? I'm interested in both, but I'm wary of the exaggeration that may be "it's easy".
yeah, it's very true. If you're not happy somewhere you can walk out without a backup plan and have a job in a couple weeks if you're picky.
But you can do that in any major city too. The bay area osnt special in that respect.
Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
> From someone outside the US, I'm amazed that states vary their income tax so much, I would have thought it's a magnet for fraud and corruption. It is. Roads in the Bay Area are among the worst in the country, despite this region producing enormous corporate profits. Nearly all the companies here operate in an eternal tragedy of the commons, whereby nobody will pay local taxes because nobody else does. All the compa…
> All the companies in California are actually Delaware companies, and the income inequality and quality-of-life disparity is a direct result of this kind of corruption. Why would you call that corruption? Corruption from whose perspective? How much impact do you think that has on roads being maintained or not (or more generally, local/state funding and budget management)?
Look at the corruption like gerrymandering. Systematic wealth collection by mega corporations and individuals, structured to increase their wealth and the expense of the poor. A structure that allows for this is a corrupt structure.
To answer your question, I would say this has has high impact on the quality of life here, including the roads, education systems, policing, safety, and everything else in society. Everything is interconnected, and our society's structures are built with the assumption of no corruption. But there is a lot, it's pervasive and defining, and it has numerous consequences like poor quality of life for a lot of people in a high-expense area.
Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay
#79So by giving them a $10k carrot they can basically lock them in to the company because it would be much more difficult to interview for competitors or even start startups. That's pretty genius.
The reason is probably super inflated salaries in bay area due to high cost of living. Lock in has probably less to do with this than pure money aspect.
I think there's a collective realization happening in the Bay Area that the landlords are the real winners and everyone else is just playing their game. Employees hate seeing 3k/month fly out the door in rent just as much as CEOs hate paying it, just as much as investors hate seeing their capital ultimately end up with landlords.
Big companies in general are conservative. They've made it and don't want to take unnecessary risks. Trying to introduce remote culture into a company that isn't used to it/tooled for it is a HUGE risk.
The innovation in hiring is going to come from small companies who need to hire but can't afford Bay Area salaries. Mid-career folks here, not even particularly good ones, are routinely looking at 200k or more out the door from their employers. 400k seed rounds, hell even 800k seed rounds, don't go very far on that kind of money. So what has to happen is that (a) founders have to get comfortable giving up a lot more equity for more capital, (b) investors have to be comfortable paying much higher valuations for early-stage companies, (c) employees have to be willing to take more stock in lieu of cash, or (d) companies have to do more remote hiring. I see a mix of all four happening depending on the particular circumstances of each company (e.g. famous founders will be able to raise more at higher valuation)
It's all pretty simple. The landlords win and everyone else loses. The situation will only get better once remote work is more widely accepted, but I'm starting to think it might come to that, with how expensive things are here. A nothing-special sandwich in Oakland, CA where I live is almost $15, at some point you say enough is enough and go somewhere where such an obscene price level is a joke, not day-to-day reality.
Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay
#80He (and Sam Altman for all YC companies) should have the startup(s) all de-locate to the same town that's within driving distance of the Silicon Valley. I bet you could convince a lot of tech people to move to Santa Cruz or Monterey. You could also recruit from UC Santa Cruz and Cal Poly. Both downtown Santa Cruz and downtown Monterey feel pretty small town urban-y. Plus the Silicon Valley VC's can play golf at Pebbl…
I lived in Menlo Park for 8 years with my family. When I moved there the startup I went to work for was a 5 minute walk from my house. My current startup is also in Menlo. A year ago my wife and wanted a larger place. We looked in Menlo and PA. $3M for a teardown / needs tons of work. After thinking about it we started to look outside of the area. School district was a key factor of course. We ending up going as far…
Been meaning to checkout Morgan Hill. I hear downtown Morgan Hill is pretty happening these days.
I also noticed that there is a self-driving car company down there: http://velodynelidar.com Are there any other interesting tech companies down there?
Nice thing is that if you live near downtown you could take the Caltrain up to downtown MTV or PA.