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Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

economist.com

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Re: Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

#11

Post by tanilama »

imrelaxed wrote: post #5
arcticbull wrote: post #2

And crazy immigration laws and policies aren’t helping much either. IMO it makes sense people are staying home and building their businesses instead of uprooting to a place they perceive doesn’t want them, both from an immigration and a housing cost perspective. This is the real cost of current rhetoric and discourse, and it takes time to manifest, but the change is happening. Many of my friends recently moved out of…

I’m confused. There is almost no rhetoric against legal and/or qualified immigration, just the illegal kind.

Nah, it is widely felt every immigrant is unwanted by the action of USCIS as of late.

I don't mind long wait time, but I hate to live under fear and some bureaucrat's mercy and being assumed as job thieves.

Re: Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

#12

Post by arcticbull »

weiming wrote: post #10
electic wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're kidding? There is more and more rhetoric being spewed relating to the legal kind as well. There is even policy being enacted to drastically cut down or make it very hard to gain legal status by burying you with paperwork. Beyond immigration talk, the constant spewing of racism coming from the administrations is a clear signal that immigrants of different backgrounds are not wanted. To that end, they simply pac…

> Beyond immigration talk, the constant spewing... Curious to see some examples cited.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/04/06/poli...

https://www.aclu-wa.org/pages/timeline-muslim-ban

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/01/11/politics/immigrants-shith...

https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/537012/

What more evidence do you need?

Re: Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

#13

Post by sergefaguet »

another major part of the problem is the entitled, defocused employee culture in silicon valley. generated by the fact that crazy talent competition ensures employees have a huge safety net in the form of big tech.

i raise capital in silicon valley. but i do not want to hire people there.

i hire amazing engineers in russia at a fraction of the cost and they: - are loyal instead of jumping to new shiny stuff at every opportunity. - have skin in the game - are focused on building products and not on things like "we need to hire more female engineers even though none are applying."

and lifestyle-wise the bay area is just unpleasant. aggressive homeless people. abysmal dating environment. awful traffic.

and of course the costs, taxes etc. top it all off.

that being said in terms of concentration of smart people that one can connect with at a moment's notice, and in terms of fundraising, the Bay Area is absolutely unparalleled.

my conclusion is to spend couple months a year there but live and hire elsewhere.

Re: Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

#14

Post by [deleted] »

arcticbull wrote: post #12
weiming wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Beyond immigration talk, the constant spewing... Curious to see some examples cited.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/04/06/poli... https://www.aclu-wa.org/pages/timeline-muslim-ban https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/01/11/politics/immigrants-shith... https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/537012/ What more evidence do you need?

[deleted]

Re: Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

#15

Post by shams93 »

biocomputation wrote: post #4

And to think that so much of the technology that makes this possible comes from the Valley itself! As a US citizen, the idea of being able to work anywhere is appealing. If your infra is everywhere, then I guess you could be anywhere too. That's the dream, right?

Yeah it's inevitable, think of when Google was founded, people were still on dialup and working remote was something only something for outside phone call sales people.

Re: Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

#16

Post by chosenbreed »

sergefaguet wrote: post #13

another major part of the problem is the entitled, defocused employee culture in silicon valley. generated by the fact that crazy talent competition ensures employees have a huge safety net in the form of big tech. i raise capital in silicon valley. but i do not want to hire people there. i hire amazing engineers in russia at a fraction of the cost and they: - are loyal instead of jumping to new shiny stuff at every…

> and lifestyle-wise the bay area is just unpleasant. aggressive homeless people. abysmal dating environment. awful traffic.

Mmm...could you elaborate on the abysmal dating environment? :-)

Re: Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

#17

Post by [deleted] »

sergefaguet wrote: post #13

another major part of the problem is the entitled, defocused employee culture in silicon valley. generated by the fact that crazy talent competition ensures employees have a huge safety net in the form of big tech. i raise capital in silicon valley. but i do not want to hire people there. i hire amazing engineers in russia at a fraction of the cost and they: - are loyal instead of jumping to new shiny stuff at every…

[deleted]

Re: Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

#18

Post by raverbashing »

NTDF9 wrote: post #6
imrelaxed wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m confused. There is almost no rhetoric against legal and/or qualified immigration, just the illegal kind.

You have no idea how this administration is systematically pushing family oriented tech people away by creating gridlocks in the legal immigration process.

Well, big companies abusing the system certainly doesn't help.

Having ceilings based on a % of company number of employees or some other mechanism would go a long way (or the chance of draw being related to their salary)

Re: Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

#19

Post by raverbashing »

shams93 wrote: post #15
biocomputation wrote: post #4

And to think that so much of the technology that makes this possible comes from the Valley itself! As a US citizen, the idea of being able to work anywhere is appealing. If your infra is everywhere, then I guess you could be anywhere too. That's the dream, right?

Yeah it's inevitable, think of when Google was founded, people were still on dialup and working remote was something only something for outside phone call sales people.

With good planning, maybe not dialup, but it is doable to work remotely with a not always on connection.

Re: Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

#20

Post by NTDF9 »

raverbashing wrote: post #18
NTDF9 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no idea how this administration is systematically pushing family oriented tech people away by creating gridlocks in the legal immigration process.

Well, big companies abusing the system certainly doesn't help. Having ceilings based on a % of company number of employees or some other mechanism would go a long way (or the chance of draw being related to their salary)

>> Well, big companies abusing the system certainly doesn't help.

They already have a legal requirement to pay prevailing wage before they can get a visa. That means at least six figures in the bay area.

There are a few reasons Americans don't take these six figure jobs:

1. Don't want to live in California/too expensive

2. This is the more common reason: Americans don't do STEM much, cannot compete with internationals. Obviously not all Americans are incompetent but given the number of open positions in the bay area, there are just not enough of them.

As an anecdote, my manager has had 2 open positions for 7 months now, paying $125k base + sign on + relocation + bonus + stock for a new grad. Guess how many we've filled after 7 months? A big fat zero.

The only way our product would sustain is by hiring people. So we eventually ended up hiring an h1b Chinese guy who was very very smart and capable. Then, because legal immigration process is choked off, he still couldn't join after 4 months. So we just had him join an offshore satellite office and moved his projects there.

If he plays his cards right, the project will grow and he will help us hire more in the offshore site.

Does this sound good for America?

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