Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 125 posts

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

#101

Post by TheCoelacanth »

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.

"Chain migration", "extreme vetting", people legally seeking asylum are "gaming the system", "turn off the jobs and benefits magnet", "Massive demographic changes have been foisted upon the American people. And they’re changes that none of us ever voted for and most of us don’t like", "almost every student that comes over [from China] is a spy", we admit too many immigrants from "shitholes"

If you haven't seen rhetoric against legal immigration, you haven't been paying attention.

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

#102

Post by TheCoelacanth »

volkl48 wrote: post #81
TulliusCicero wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd bet either NYC or Seattle is number two. I think Seattle comes closest in salaries thanks to the number of FAANG and similar companies with either HQ's or large branches (same time zone as California helps). NYC is probably number two as far as startup scenes.

NYC and Boston are #2 + 3 for VC funding. Seattle's a tiny fraction of either and not growing in that area. https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/03/the-extreme-geographic-... Obviously, that's only one measure of a tech scene, but I don't think Seattle's that large.

VC funding is an extremely narrow measure of a city's economy. Seattle (metro area) has Amazon and Microsoft's HQs. That alone is enough to give it a pretty large tech scene.

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

#103

Post by scarface74 »

jogjayr wrote: post #100
scarface74 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Why would anyone move to California for $125K when they could live in one of 20 other major cities, make the same amount with a lower cost of living?

GP didn't say $125k total comp. Counting sign-on, bonus, and stock, it could be as much as $200k total comp - for a new grad. Which other cities/industries pay that much? (outside of finance or law, at the top end)

What are the chances that the stock+bonus will be an extra $75K per year? Also, the stock and probably sign on bonus probably has a vesting period. What will be the future value of the stock? What if the project doesn’t go as planned and they let the potential employee go before the vesting period?

Cash is king. Anything else shifts the risks away from the better capitalized corporation to the less capitalized potential employee.

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

#104

Post by jogjayr »

scarface74 wrote: post #103
jogjayr wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP didn't say $125k total comp. Counting sign-on, bonus, and stock, it could be as much as $200k total comp - for a new grad. Which other cities/industries pay that much? (outside of finance or law, at the top end)

What are the chances that the stock+bonus will be an extra $75K per year? Also, the stock and probably sign on bonus probably has a vesting period. What will be the future value of the stock? What if the project doesn’t go as planned and they let the potential employee go before the vesting period? Cash is king. Anything else shifts the risks away from the better capitalized corporation to the less capitalized potent…

If it's a FAANG-type company, the stock has done well in the past 10 years so it's been a pretty good bet to make. Public tech companies have done well overall.

Sign-on bonuses don't have a vesting period. That's why they're called "sign-on" - you get them when you sign on. You might have to give them back, pro-rated, if you leave the company within a certain time period (typically a year).

> Cash is king.

I'm not disagreeing here. I'm just pointing out that the fixed $125k number in your mind is inaccurate in reality. The total value of the stock+sign-on+bonus may not be $75k (that might be the ideal case) but it's not $0 either. The total comp is a lot of money for any new grad in any city in the world (again, outside of finance and law at the top end).

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

#105

Post by runamok »

devmunchies wrote: post #88
arcticbull wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> What more evidence do you need? You act as if CNN and ACLU are convincing sources,even though they have obvious agendas against the current administration.

The ACLU link is literally a timeline of events. Care to refute those instead of just making an ad hominem?

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

#106

Post by scarface74 »

jogjayr wrote: post #104
scarface74 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the chances that the stock+bonus will be an extra $75K per year? Also, the stock and probably sign on bonus probably has a vesting period. What will be the future value of the stock? What if the project doesn’t go as planned and they let the potential employee go before the vesting period? Cash is king. Anything else shifts the risks away from the better capitalized corporation to the less capitalized potent…

If it's a FAANG-type company, the stock has done well in the past 10 years so it's been a pretty good bet to make. Public tech companies have done well overall. Sign-on bonuses don't have a vesting period. That's why they're called "sign-on" - you get them when you sign on. You might have to give them back, pro-rated, if you leave the company within a certain time period (typically a year). > Cash is king. I'm not di…

If it's a FAANG-type company, the stock has done well in the past 10 years so it's been a pretty good bet to make. Public tech companies have done well overall.

Realistically, what are the chances of Apple, Google, Microsoft or Facebook who are all circling $1 trillion to see the same types of returns over the next ten years?

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

#107

Post by cbHXBY1D »

malchow wrote: post #22

I think this is fairly mistaken. As a share of the tech economy, SV is almost certainly declining. That's to be expected and embraced as labor economics evolve. That doesn't for a moment mean that northern California isn't still the place with the maximum idea flow. Three major things in SV that aren't declining: a) Intelligent risk capital being deployed by scientists and engineers, not MBAs b) Stanford c) Ambitious…

I would add UC Berkeley to that list. If you look at any big tech company in the bay on Linkedin and sort by university, UC Berkeley students almost always make up a plurality.

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

#108

Post by sidr »

scarface74 wrote: post #44
NTDF9 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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 international…

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. Why would anyone move to California for $125K when they could live in one of 20 other major cities, make the same amount with a lower cost of living?

Because the you cannot make the same amount in those 20 other cities.

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

#109

Post by decacorn1 »

malchow wrote: post #22

I think this is fairly mistaken. As a share of the tech economy, SV is almost certainly declining. That's to be expected and embraced as labor economics evolve. That doesn't for a moment mean that northern California isn't still the place with the maximum idea flow. Three major things in SV that aren't declining: a) Intelligent risk capital being deployed by scientists and engineers, not MBAs b) Stanford c) Ambitious…

Pseudo-progressive? Nice swipe. Please enlighten us on this claim.

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

#110

Post by repolfx »

moultano wrote: post #97
repolfx wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has always been pressure against H1Bs in the US tech industry. The one time I tried to immigrate to the valley there the visa cap was hit and I couldn't go (no regrets though). For my whole life I've seen American talk about immigration = outsourcing = lower wages. It's not new and it's not based in racism but rather money. As for Trump, he is only talking about illegal immigration. Nobody with an engineering d…

>Trump apparently (I did not know this until reading the sibling links) wants to move to merit based immigration He also wants to cut the quota to a third of its current value.

Not sure why you're being downvoted if it's true.

It can still be better for engineers though, if they are in the top third of desired immigrants from a jobs perspective.

Post reply on HN