Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ideally a state without zoning laws or noncompetes. I can’t think of one.
austin looks like a good candidate to me. not sure about noncompetes, though.
Austin has noncompetes. Definite downside.
Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups
181–190 of 263 posts
Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups
#182> I still expect a significant % of the $10B+ startups will get created here, so it makes sense for investors to still focus here. But I bet a lot of the ~$100M startups will happen elsewhere. > There are still some things—e.g great startup executive talent, particular kinds of engineering talent—that are much harder to find outside the bay area. This is spot on and it becomes a real bottle neck if you want to scale…
you've 'wasted' time/money when you had it - at a later stage not at an early stage when every penny is critical. SO IMO you've proven that it was the right choice/sequence
Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ho…
Collaboration is so much harder remote. Slack and video can help! But you still lose some. I have been on both sides of the remote equation, and I think it’s not optimal.
True, though, if you can make it to the office once a week/once a month it definitely helps.
Major respect for OP, and he deserves good remote opportunities.
Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups
#184It never was. It is an outdated idea that innovation can only happen in a specific place.
There's a lot more to it than that. Innovation can happen anywhere. But the combination of human and financial capital, there is probably no where better.
If you start a company outside the Bay area, you're at a disadvantage there. You'd better find enough other advantages and leverage them to get on a level with that. If your company needs venture funding, you'd probably be crazy to start it anywhere else still. Most don't.
Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
He sort of shows the bay area bias with the bit about how “$100M” startups will be created elsewhere. There have been some much larger startups outside of the Bay Area and I suspect that trend to continue. Unicorns aren’t just a bay area phenomenon anymore
The Bay Area has less than 1/30th the US population and yet the majority of US unicorns and decacorns have hailed from here. It's wildly disproportionate.
That wasn’t my point. The framing was clearly used like “lifestyle business” is used. There have and will be unicorns outside of the valley, but he doesn’t seem to want to recognize that, hence the “$100M” framing
Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups
#186I think it’s a great place to raise money and make connections but for my startup, I’m not going to be expanding it in SF.
Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups
#187Earlier 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.
Yeah, at FANG when you get promoted, your RSU grant isn't increased to match the new level. So if you can get a job elsewhere at your new level, it's almost always a big pay increase.
I’m pretty sure that only happens at Amazon
Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> Only a small portion of SF is matches the dystopian vision you claim. Even those portions are not any worse than other urban areas. If you believe that you either live an extremely sheltered existence in SF or you've not visited recently. San Francisco is pretty bad no matter where you go (except, perhaps, for the affluent areas like Sea Cliff and St Francis Woods). Out in the Outer Sunset I saw what looked like so…
I'm interested in the tapeworm pictures.
Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups
#189Earlier 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…
> I know of no startup in the last ten years that‘s any substantial or enhancing live tremendously.
Uber/Lyft has saved me thousands of dollars as it enabled me to live downtown without owning a car. It has also saved many lives since people can now easily order a ride instead of driving their car to the bar.
Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups
#190I 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.
that only holds true if financiers have no relationships with the companies they fund, but that isn't the case. E.g. people want to get into YC for the network and the relationships.