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Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

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Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

#131
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

austin looks like a good candidate to me. not sure about noncompetes, though.

Austin rent has gone through the roof, and they’ve got a strong nimby and zoning problem just like SF so it’s just going to get worse. It’s on the exact same track, just ten or so years behind.

Austin doesn't have Prop 13, and Texas imposes reasonable property taxes. Unless those things change, it's HIGHLY unlikely real estate in Austin will approach The Bay area in terms of prices.

Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the "kinds of engineering talent" issue aren't a bit an issue of finding people that can be trained on the job/betting on the right people instead of just trying to get "person that does this exact thing at FAANG".

I think it could happen if the incentives are set up differently, otherwise right now you spend time and effort training people only to have them change jobs in 2 years at a better company.

Bigger raises.

People move because the paybump is often whole multiples of pay rises.

Also better managers. We don’t quit jobs as often as we quit managers.

Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it could happen if the incentives are set up differently, otherwise right now you spend time and effort training people only to have them change jobs in 2 years at a better company.

Bigger raises. People move because the paybump is often whole multiples of pay rises. Also better managers. We don’t quit jobs as often as we quit managers.

Been more remote friendly as well, there are good programmers everywhere often who can't move for reasons beyond their control.

Same with UK to an extent, salary differential between north and south is large (even when accounting for cost of living).

Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

#134
One thing to note. Since the time Bay Area became “expensive”, contrary to expectations it is actually crushing other geographies (exception being China) when it comes to massive fund raising for startups. Just this week Flexport raised $1bn and DoorDash raised $400mn. A few weeks back Nuro raised $1bn and Juul got $12bn. There is an excellent Crunchbase article on this https://news.crunchbase.com/news/how-northern-californias-re...

Clearly the lesson is that if you want to scale, you are better of being here

Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

#135

Sam just realizing this in 2019 is a testament to how insulated the millionaire VC class is from the everyday struggles of the of the middle and lower classes. This is something everyone in my circles have been talking about for 5+ years, it's not a particularly novel take in 2019.

Well saying something is the case for years before it's the case just makes you wrong, not a genius.

Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

#136

I suspect the VC industry itself will be disrupted at some point (the irony of the VC industry is that the biz model has remained basically the same for 50 years when everything else has changed). It will become incrementally easier to raise money from non-traditional sources at better terms as "accredited investor" laws are relaxed e.g. through a Security Token Offering.

I'm not sure I see the general public wanting to invest in startups, the success rate is just too low.

See Kickstarter.

Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

#137
post #125
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the assumption be that most people would want to move away from their homes because their current employer wants to save money? Sure, many tech employees probably moved to the Bay Area primarily to find employment, but even if they don’t enjoy other aspects of the area, a place you live in for a while will become your home, and abandoning your home is not an easy or obvious decision to make.

Yey, living in SF where junkies shoot on the street and everything is littered with excrements because fuck you good social security system. Let‘s live there! Plus, everything really expensive to live there. And if I work at Google I drive two hours with a bus there. I don‘t know but reading about that place it‘s insanity. And the output is Hit and miss. I know of no startup in the last ten years that‘s any substanti…

Only a small portion of SF is matches the dystopian vision you claim. Even those portions are not any worse than other urban areas. There is a reason why housing here is extremely expensive. People want to live here.

Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bigger raises. People move because the paybump is often whole multiples of pay rises. Also better managers. We don’t quit jobs as often as we quit managers.

Been more remote friendly as well, there are good programmers everywhere often who can't move for reasons beyond their control. Same with UK to an extent, salary differential between north and south is large (even when accounting for cost of living).

In 18 months I'm moving somewhere with not amazing job prospects due to an arrangement with my ex-wife about our kids. It's not a legal arrangement but I take promises seriously. My children are a higher priority than my career.

I could work remote for 70% of a regular salary and it will be an amazing salary for my new region. I'm sure I'll give at least 0.9 productivity remotely. I'd be silly not to hire me and I hope others see the same.

Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

#139

Totally agree. From my experience, operating out of the bay area means you pay more for rent, employee salaries, and employee retention (higher turnover). All up, it costs somewhere around ~$50K/year more per employee. If you run a modest team of 10, you're paying an additional $500K/year to be in the bay area. That's huge for a large fraction of startups.

> All up, it costs somewhere around ~$50K/year more per employee.

I'd guess this is significantly under-representing the additional cost compared to most cities in America (exceptions might be NYC, LA, and Seattle). I bet it's quite a bit more than that for someone from, say, Portland.

Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

#140
post #134

One thing to note. Since the time Bay Area became “expensive”, contrary to expectations it is actually crushing other geographies (exception being China) when it comes to massive fund raising for startups. Just this week Flexport raised $1bn and DoorDash raised $400mn. A few weeks back Nuro raised $1bn and Juul got $12bn. There is an excellent Crunchbase article on this https://news.crunchbase.com/news/how-northern-c…

I would consider fundraising and local cost of living to be completely orthogonal. Fundraising is easier when there is a cluster of potential donors in a central geography. Other important factors are regulatory environment, taxes, potential employees, transportation, and so forth.
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