Treating the Bay Area as like working in the mines • Hacker News Board

Re: Treating the Bay Area as like working in the mines

#71

Post by NeedMoreTea » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 9:53 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #69

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would hope it's not like that. Not after reading a quote someone posted about Lowell just yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18060336

The interesting thing about that quote is that her family would've been fucked - even more fucked - had the Lowell factories not existed. The source of her family's misery was "a father’s debts are to be paid, an aged mother to be sup- ported, a brother’s ambition to be aided", all of which are pre-existing conditions that ultimately result from life (and perhaps some poor financial management). Similarly, I think we…

It's not a part of history I know enough about - the quote raises almost as many questions as answers. I surely wouldn't appreciate being locked in a factory for a 12 hour shift whatever the reasons.

The little I do know about factory towns make me think the father's debt might very well be because of the factory town. It was common for the worker to be paid in factory currency to be spent in the factory store, live in a factory house, and for things to be organised such that they'd never make enough to pay off a debt accrued when they arrived and took on the house, or make enough to ever leave.

They were a very different thing to the model towns of the philanthropic industrialists of the Victorian age.

To your second point, sadly, I am in full agreement.

Re: Treating the Bay Area as like working in the mines

#72

Post by nostrademons » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 10:51 PM UTC

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #71

nostrademons wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting thing about that quote is that her family would've been fucked - even more fucked - had the Lowell factories not existed. The source of her family's misery was "a father’s debts are to be paid, an aged mother to be sup- ported, a brother’s ambition to be aided", all of which are pre-existing conditions that ultimately result from life (and perhaps some poor financial management). Similarly, I think we…

It's not a part of history I know enough about - the quote raises almost as many questions as answers. I surely wouldn't appreciate being locked in a factory for a 12 hour shift whatever the reasons. The little I do know about factory towns make me think the father's debt might very well be because of the factory town. It was common for the worker to be paid in factory currency to be spent in the factory store, live…

In her specific case, the factory didn't cause her father's debt. Sarah Bagley was born in Sandia, NH; like many of the early mill girls, she was a domestic migrant [1]. The roots of her family's financial troubles were just that her parents each had many siblings and then they had 4 kids, which meant that whatever property the family owned would've been long since diluted.

I don't want to make the point that she shouldn't have been fighting for labor rights - a 40 hour work week and egalitarian distribution of wealth is better than what conditions were like in the 1840s, and we wouldn't have gotten them without activists like her.

I do want to make the point that empirically, some period of time where everybody in the labor force is fucked over seems to be necessary for economic development. Without it, there's no incentive to, well, ditch the labor force for the far more uncertain world of entrepreneurship & innovation. And this has been observed in basically every industrializing country - Britain, Germany, Russia, Japan, now China.

Once the new industries and new technologies are established, then there's usually a consolidation period where social equilibrium is restored; in the U.S, this was from the 1930s-1980s. It appears that you can't do the latter until the former is complete, though, because you don't know what form the industries will take or what the centers of power will be. Unions were a very effective check on industrialists, but it seems likely they won't be nearly as effective in the information age, because the set of roles that workers occupy in the tech economy is more diverse, and their necessity to a company's day-to-day operations is smaller. If all engineers at Google walk off the job, Google Search will continue to run, and it will continue to run for several weeks afterwards. That blunts the effect of a strike or work stoppage.

Probably we need things like regulations around data ownership & access, pro-competition statutes, and widespread education & job training to restore social equilibrium in the data age. It's really hard to judge until all the technologies that'll make it up have been invented though.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Bagley

Re: Treating the Bay Area as like working in the mines

#73

Post by pm90 » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 2:03 AM UTC

jiveturkey wrote: post #42

titzer wrote: post #19

After 5 years there, my conclusion was that the Bay Area runs on human souls. It might not be like the black lung, dirt-faced dangerous mines of old, but if you end up working 10 or 12 hours a day, are caged, distracted, annoyed (but fed!) at work, go home to a meager existence, have zero friends, zero romance, and your mind is hijacked to the point where you literally cannot think about anything else and relax , the…

not my experience. yup worked super hard but also partied pretty hard and made lots of lifelong friends. you do that when you have a shared experience. anyway just saying, i found my first five years to be collegial. i would never ever do it again but i look back with fondness. of course it only works if you are in an exciting startup or small company. i very very much doubt you are going to forge bonds if your first…

This comment kinda reveals just how little you know of how the rest of the country and the world looks at Silicon Valley. Google, MS etc. are seen as great jobs for many immigrants and (as I found in grad school in a rural area) small town kids. They compensate extremely well, which is enough of a carrot for many, many people, especially those from less economically privileged backgrounds.

Re: Treating the Bay Area as like working in the mines

#74

Post by pm90 » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 2:16 AM UTC

angarg12 wrote: post #2

I'm looking to relocate to the Bay next year, and I'm exploring renting a one bedroom with my partner. Our plan is to rent as cheaply as we reasonable can, even if we can afford more (that is what we are doing right now). I think the analogy to the mines is spot on. At the same time it seems like the most rational approach for most tech workers. Even if I wanted to stay in California, as a foreigner in a L1 visa, my…

Mine are similar and I just moved. Its as demanding as I was warned it would be but oddly I feel great. I've never had as much responsibility and yet have to work on tough engineering problems at the same time before. Maybe this is the best way to learn for me; I feel like I've learned a lot from being around very very effective and driven engineers. Its increased my confidence in my craft. And I think those intangibles are worth a lot more down the line.

Of course, I'm able to work as hard because I kinda really like programming and learning about how Computers/Algorithms work. If I didn't have that inclination, then this would be hell.

Re: Treating the Bay Area as like working in the mines

#75

Post by pm90 » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 2:19 AM UTC

megaman8 wrote: post #64

claydavisss wrote: post #35

There's really no way to intellectualize it - people coming to the Bay Area in 2018 are suckers, plain and simple. You missed the boat - by years. Not only will you never afford a home here, you will piss away so much money on rent and other aspects of the absurdly inflated cost-of-living adjustment that you won't be able to leave and buy anywhere else either. If you're coming up on forty and still renting your prima…

What the article is saying is, If you are young and have no family, you can rent a room really cheaply say 1400$ for a 1 bedroom, or bunk up with a mate for 700$ (2 people renting 1 room), and save most of your income for about 10 years - durring that time you can save about 500K. Then after that, get out and go anywhere but CA. In the rest of the US, you can buy a house for 300K and have a nice life. The trick is, t…

> The trick is, to not settle down. Don't get a wife or girlfriend or friends. If you that, you'll be able to walk away from it all very easily.

10 years without friends and partners (to use a gender neutral term) would literally be hell. Its not that hard to find a healthy mix and not bust your bank in the process.

Re: Treating the Bay Area as like working in the mines

#76

Post by smivan » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 8:09 PM UTC

gbustomtv5 wrote: post #56

smivan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are real numbers. Background: Average of 10 programmers who range ages 22-25 and are 2-3 years out of college. Base: 140k Bonus: 30k Equity: ~60k Total: $230k year pretax. Taxes: - 33% federal bracket - 10% state bracket - 7% FICA+Medicaid. (50% total) Brackets listed are marginal rates, actual rates are noted here: https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#p9c7Y... Let's run the math - $230k comp -…

20% bonus is not what mid engineers get. 60k equity is probaly over 4 years not 1. 60k over 4 years is actually close to average equity comp for 140k comp bracket. You are off by 50k. Signon bonuses can bring total comp to 200-210k. Background: I write eng offers and know comp brackets.

I do not doubt your work experience, but I would like to respectfully point out that the data I have for those ~10 engineers does indeed match to the numbers I have presented.

Either way, with $200k salary the rent mentioned in the article is doable.

Re: Treating the Bay Area as like working in the mines

#77

Post by rfdave » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 11:32 PM UTC

megaman8 wrote: post #64

claydavisss wrote: post #35

There's really no way to intellectualize it - people coming to the Bay Area in 2018 are suckers, plain and simple. You missed the boat - by years. Not only will you never afford a home here, you will piss away so much money on rent and other aspects of the absurdly inflated cost-of-living adjustment that you won't be able to leave and buy anywhere else either. If you're coming up on forty and still renting your prima…

What the article is saying is, If you are young and have no family, you can rent a room really cheaply say 1400$ for a 1 bedroom, or bunk up with a mate for 700$ (2 people renting 1 room), and save most of your income for about 10 years - durring that time you can save about 500K. Then after that, get out and go anywhere but CA. In the rest of the US, you can buy a house for 300K and have a nice life. The trick is, t…

I'm an experienced HW guy pondering this, My wife and I have kids out of college, so I'd be coming at this from the other end of the family pipeline.