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A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay

#111

Post by btian »

mychael wrote: post #86

Pros/Cons of living in the Bay Area for most tech workers: Pros - Proudly displaying "San Francisco" in your Twitter bio. - An abundance of career opportunities. Cons - Making six figures, but still living with roommates. - Commuting to work in awful public transportation. - Becoming desensitized to poverty and fecal matter on the streets. - Feeling unwelcome by locals. - Not being able to afford to live in a cool pa…

More Pros

- Drive to work in your Tesla

- Free gourmet food at work

- A lot of Whole Foods Market to shop at

- Being rich AF

Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay

#112

Post by mychael »

sidlls wrote: post #89
mychael wrote: post #86

Pros/Cons of living in the Bay Area for most tech workers: Pros - Proudly displaying "San Francisco" in your Twitter bio. - An abundance of career opportunities. Cons - Making six figures, but still living with roommates. - Commuting to work in awful public transportation. - Becoming desensitized to poverty and fecal matter on the streets. - Feeling unwelcome by locals. - Not being able to afford to live in a cool pa…

You forgot at least two pros: - Large salaries lead to higher savings rates - Opportunities are just not comparable almost anywhere less expensive: there are tens of thousands of jobs from hundreds of employers here in the Bay Area for technology that pays well, compared with hundreds or maybe a few thousand jobs for maybe a dozen or few tens of employers Also the "monoculture" dig applies to tech specifically: in te…

Good point. Updated the list to include opportunities!

Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay

#113

Post by dgfgfdagasdfgfa »

dbcurtis wrote: post #36
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a fire-hose of Californians directed at CO. In a decade or two they will have recreated the place they left.

It's already happened. Colorado politics has already moved sufficiently from libertarian to leftist that I would no longer consider moving there.

It depends entirely on where in the state you are—the liberal places are mostly Denver, Fort Collins, and Boulder.

Colorado springs is one of the most conservative cities in America. In fact, I'd argue it's more libertarian than ever—hence the weed.

Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay

#114

Post by smelterdemon »

sidlls wrote: post #12
watty wrote: post #3

This seems pretty genius. There is a surplus of highly skilled engineers in the Bay Area who are getting mediocre pay (when cost of living is taken into consideration). This allows Zapier to attract more of these highly skilled workers and not pay a premium to those in the bay area.

When compared to cost of living, sure. But factor in savings rate and opportunities and the cost of living cut is well worth it. For example, I pay 2.5x in rent for a smaller place compared to what I was paying for a mortgage before I moved here. But my salary is 2x and a bit, and I'm saving more than 2x as a result.

If you don't mind me asking, what did the 25% increase in housing/income ratio come out of if your savings rate stayed the same?

Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay

#115

Post by aaron-lebo »

sidlls wrote: post #89
mychael wrote: post #86

Pros/Cons of living in the Bay Area for most tech workers: Pros - Proudly displaying "San Francisco" in your Twitter bio. - An abundance of career opportunities. Cons - Making six figures, but still living with roommates. - Commuting to work in awful public transportation. - Becoming desensitized to poverty and fecal matter on the streets. - Feeling unwelcome by locals. - Not being able to afford to live in a cool pa…

You forgot at least two pros: - Large salaries lead to higher savings rates - Opportunities are just not comparable almost anywhere less expensive: there are tens of thousands of jobs from hundreds of employers here in the Bay Area for technology that pays well, compared with hundreds or maybe a few thousand jobs for maybe a dozen or few tens of employers Also the "monoculture" dig applies to tech specifically: in te…

We had a dev working for the summer who got a job at an SF startup this past week. He's making $2k a week, but his rent for his apartment costs $3k and he's got roommates. As someone who has lived off of $40k and rented a $1.4k a month loft that was absolutely palatial, in the middle of the city with great views, this sounds like insanity. My coworker who is from the Boston area was similarly aghast at the differences in cost of living.

Have fun at your nice job, but I'm not coming home to roommates for $3k a month. The numbers don't really seem to work out, a lot of people are basically selling great living conditions for the chance to go work at companies that probably won't be there in a few years and really aren't doing anything interesting.

Also the "monoculture" dig applies to tech specifically: in terms of actual cultural diversity very few places are as interesting.

I feel like people who say this about any city haven't gotten out much in other cities.

Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay

#116

Post by 31reasons »

mwfunk wrote: post #17
sabujp wrote: post #2

"was if you're in the Bay Area and you take a job with Zapier we'll pay $10,000 to help you relocate to anywhere, or as we call it, de-locate." ..so this is just a one time re-location "bonus"? I think many large companies "pay you" something close to this amount to re-locate to the bay area. This really doesn't help that much. What would be better is to pay bay area salaries/rates in another part of the country that…

Many/most companies pay something like this for relocation. I never thought of it as a bonus, rather a way for an employer to offset the expense and misery of moving. If a company didn't help pay for relocation, I wouldn't want to work for that company. It's not a bonus, it's an expectation.

Facebook pays $50k to relocate to Bay Area!

Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay

#117

Post by nostrademons »

svachalek wrote: post #110
jtmarmon wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Large salaries lead to higher savings rates not in san fransisco https://www.mytrove.com/ca/san-francisco/cheddar/software-ap...

Commute a little: https://www.mytrove.com/ca/santa-clara-county/cheddar/softwa...

Or just work in the South Bay. All the really dominant Bay Area tech companies (Google, Facebook, Apple, Netflix - also Cisco, Intel, Juniper, NVidia, even Hewlett-Packard and IBM) are here.

Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay

#118

Post by paulcole »

dawnerd wrote: post #16
stevecalifornia wrote: post #7

Move to Washington State. Don't pay California income tax. Instant 8% boost to your take-home pay.

And if you're one of those people that really hate taxes, live in Vancouver, WA and buy everything in Portland.

combining the fun of sitting in traffic with none of the benefits of living in portland

Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay

#119

Post by nradov »

jpao79 wrote: post #42

He (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…

Santa Cruz and Monterey are barely cheaper, and they have very little extra housing available. If you want to actually save any money you'll have to head inland toward the Central Valley.

Re: A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay

#120

Post by nostrademons »

mychael wrote: post #86

Pros/Cons of living in the Bay Area for most tech workers: Pros - Proudly displaying "San Francisco" in your Twitter bio. - An abundance of career opportunities. Cons - Making six figures, but still living with roommates. - Commuting to work in awful public transportation. - Becoming desensitized to poverty and fecal matter on the streets. - Feeling unwelcome by locals. - Not being able to afford to live in a cool pa…

Also in the pros category:

- Great weather. 8 months out of the year, it's basically guaranteed that if you walk outside it'll be sunny & 70.

- Good outdoor parks.

- Openness to ideas.

- Every kind of food imaginable.

- Relatively bike-friendly (Peninsula; uncertain about SF itself).

Additional cons:

- Traffic.

- Poor public transportation

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