Live data from Hacker News

Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

axios.com

31–40 of 162 posts

Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to assume SF salaries will be offered in places that are also super cheap? Do you expect founders and investors to ignore the cost of living reality in Nowheresville just cause?

Why on earth would the value someone added to a company have anything to do with the cost of living where they live? Either you support remote or you don't but I would not expect different remote salaries based on where that remote employee lives. I know some companies do this, but I can't imagine it's a practice that will continue once remote work becomes the norm as it makes little sense.

What you're proposing is out of touch with reality. Compensation is based on value added, but also based on geography. Bartenders in South Dakota don't make the same as bartenders in San Francisco for a reason, though they add the same value to an establishment.

Most companies would stop hiring remote if they had to pay SF salaries - that's just the fact.

Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to assume SF salaries will be offered in places that are also super cheap? Do you expect founders and investors to ignore the cost of living reality in Nowheresville just cause?

Why on earth would the value someone added to a company have anything to do with the cost of living where they live? Either you support remote or you don't but I would not expect different remote salaries based on where that remote employee lives. I know some companies do this, but I can't imagine it's a practice that will continue once remote work becomes the norm as it makes little sense.

To you an employee it makes no sense.

To an investor it does.

Human history is filled with stories of seeking cheaper labor.

Have you not been following the anxiety over offshoring? Why did all that manufacturing go to China?

Cities in America used to be the centers of manufacturing and then it moved to rural areas. If you research it you might find like I did that cost of living was cheaper in rural areas. And a lot of businesses decided moving to and building a new factory in a rural area, which happens infrequently, and hiring more people who worked for less was cheaper over the long run.

SF is one data point, but folks who were already priced out there are in Seattle and Portland, etc., pricing out others who have to go somewhere.

Maybe the first generation of workers will make bank due to lack of capable workers, but others will join the trend of moving, rural populations of folks capable of this work will grow and work for less.

I don’t have concrete numbers around how soon or how many people will move, because I can’t predict the future, but the general pattern has happened over and over in just 150 yrs.

And the parallels to ancient empires conquering a new land and enslaving the people to grow the wealth of the king or whatever mean the idea goes back further. It only got wrapped in our contemporary language of economics in the last 150-200 years.

Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

#33
post #2

I wonder why entrepreneurs don't come to Poland to build their product. Warsaw or Wroclaw in particular are vibrant, tech-oriented cities where life is about 1/4 of SF. If I had to bet my future on being able to building something with 1M, I would want to get 4 months instead of 1 for the money. Of course, SF might have better investing ecosystem, but once you got the money development should be done in a more approp…

- laws

- capital

- language

- networking

- talent pool

- weather&climate

Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

#34
As someone in the hemp business, I have a relatively unique reason. There's no hemp (CBD, non-psychoactive) program in Oregon. You can do cannabis in California but not CBD. I moved everything to Oregon.

It's funny that the cannabis industry in California is actually trying to slow down any regulation allowing THC-free, hemp derived products.

Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

#35
Seems reasonable but not really a lot of data points in this article to show a real trend. It's just an option piece. Could just as easily point at a lot of startups staying and growing in the Bay Area and write an article saying why Bay Area is still the place to be.

Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why on earth would the value someone added to a company have anything to do with the cost of living where they live? Either you support remote or you don't but I would not expect different remote salaries based on where that remote employee lives. I know some companies do this, but I can't imagine it's a practice that will continue once remote work becomes the norm as it makes little sense.

What you're proposing is out of touch with reality. Compensation is based on value added, but also based on geography. Bartenders in South Dakota don't make the same as bartenders in San Francisco for a reason, though they add the same value to an establishment. Most companies would stop hiring remote if they had to pay SF salaries - that's just the fact.

The companies could be incorporated in remote areas as well, and use the benefits to provide competitive salaries.

Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

#37
post #25

> ...one thing there is a lack of outside the Bay Area are the people who really know how to scale a fast-growing tech company This reinforces the notion that new tech startups don't really need to save money. They need to dominate their niche. They need to scale up fast and become the biggest player first.

there are lots of ways to start a successful business that don't involve millions of dollars of seed money. you don't have to grow into a multinational conglomerate to be a sustainable enterprise, you know. if you have to huge for your business to make sense at all, maybe you just have a stupid idea. statistically, it is more likely that you are wrong than that you are a zuck-level-genius.

> there are lots of ways to start a successful business that don't involve millions of dollars of seed money.

not disagreeing with you, but this article seems to be about the ones that do involve millions of dollars of seed money

Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why on earth would the value someone added to a company have anything to do with the cost of living where they live? Either you support remote or you don't but I would not expect different remote salaries based on where that remote employee lives. I know some companies do this, but I can't imagine it's a practice that will continue once remote work becomes the norm as it makes little sense.

To you an employee it makes no sense. To an investor it does. Human history is filled with stories of seeking cheaper labor. Have you not been following the anxiety over offshoring? Why did all that manufacturing go to China? Cities in America used to be the centers of manufacturing and then it moved to rural areas. If you research it you might find like I did that cost of living was cheaper in rural areas. And a lot…

Manufacturing and software development are very different though. Any able bodied person can work in a factory. If we're being generous I'd say at most 10% of the population is even capable of writing software. The demand for these people is only going to increase. As we have seen with rising developer salaries, the scarcity of the skill allows some leverage to the employee that other fields lack.

Software development is also unique in that it's one of the few roles that works really well remotely. I'd say most developers are even more productive remote than in the office due to the need to sustain mental focus in a way that's difficult with a lot of distractions.

Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why on earth would the value someone added to a company have anything to do with the cost of living where they live? Either you support remote or you don't but I would not expect different remote salaries based on where that remote employee lives. I know some companies do this, but I can't imagine it's a practice that will continue once remote work becomes the norm as it makes little sense.

What you're proposing is out of touch with reality. Compensation is based on value added, but also based on geography. Bartenders in South Dakota don't make the same as bartenders in San Francisco for a reason, though they add the same value to an establishment. Most companies would stop hiring remote if they had to pay SF salaries - that's just the fact.

> Bartenders in South Dakota don't make the same as bartenders in San Francisco for a reason, though they add the same value to an establishment.

I bet the drinks in SF cost more so they actually do add more value there. You're talking about on-premise work and I'm talking about remote work. If you have a great dev that starts working remote in NY then moves to Kentucky would you give them a pay cut? Of course not, they'd still be super valuable to the company and you'd want to retain them.

Post reply on HN