Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#151

Post by mlthoughts2018 » Thu, May 14, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

_jal wrote: post #13

aripickar wrote: post #8

I'm pretty bearish on the pandemic actually leading to massive change in the number of people permanently working from home. My boss put out a survey a week or two ago among my org (30 or so people), and 70% said that they want to work from the office, full time, 20% said some time or most of the time, and 10% said fully remote. And this is a group of people that would be largely well suited to working from home duri…

> young, no kids, etc There is your major reason for that survey result. Companies with median-older workforces will see more enthusiasm for remote work.

In my company it’s the opposite. Every parent in the company is voicing very strong opinions to work from the office.

The main issue seems to be that (a) they need full time childcare during the workday period, regardless of whether they are home or not, and (b) the childcare cannot take place inside the same house where they are working.

The opinion I’ve heard most is that if it was non-pandemic times, at best they would be indifferent or maybe commute would be the factor, because the kids would be going to stay somewhere via family / day care / school.

But in the case that kids have to be home because school is shut down / child care closes / child care has to be hosted in the same place where they are working, it’s a straight up no-go, 100% dead set against it. The employer must provide some different pandemic-acceptable option, like private offices that don’t require mass transit to get to.

It has been almost completely one-sided in our surveys and company all hands meetings, all parents with school-age kids or younger are completely against remote work (this is maybe 200-300 staff), and everyone else is completely against anything other than remote work (around 700 staff).

Full disclosure: I am one of the 700 with no kids who prefers switching to 100% remote.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#152

Post by gregwebs » Thu, May 14, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

schnevets wrote: post #77

I know this article focused on established players, but I'm curious what the pandemic means for early-phase startups based out of SV and NYC. When every sales pitch and networking event is a Zoom call, you lose any benefit to taking expensive space in a Mission District incubator. If aspiring founders leave the city (even temporarily), they may still find success, but are they going to relocate back to the pricey are…

I think a big factor to Silicon Valley is VCs wanting in person meetings with founders and to have in person board meetings. If VCs realize they can take pitches and do board meetings over Zoom they can start investing outside Silicon Valley and startups don't have to start and then stay here.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#153

Post by bhupy » Thu, May 14, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

viklove wrote: post #84

geddy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always reading about job openings throughout my country (or world, for that matter) that offer 100% remote positions, and initially the huge difference in salary was pretty jarring. Then I hopped on Trulia for some less populated (not rural, but certainly not close-to-the-city-suburbs), and realized the mortgage for a house twice my size would cost the property taxes I pay now. Literally talking about a $25,000/y…

fuck hn

> It's literally just the lowest they can get away with paying you.

Um, yes? That's exactly how this works. Google doesn't pay software engineers what they do out of the goodness of their hearts, they do it because that's how much it costs for a highly skilled engineer to come live in the Bay Area and work there.

Humans aren't necessarily commodities, but labor is ABSOLUTELY a commodity. We have to start decoupling the value of a human from the value of their labor, because there's no use pretending that all labor is worth the same — while you and I might both agree that all humans are inherently equal. It's like any other good/service, labor costs as much as the buyer is willing to pay.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#154

Post by TrackerFF » Thu, May 14, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

subsubzero wrote: post #18

One thing this doesn't mention is the pay cuts that happen if you do decide to relocate to cheaper areas. Both me and my Wife's company have pay bands based on geographical region(most employees know nothing about this and most companies employ these salary COL changes for relocation) and certain regions you can take a big pay cut. Say your salary in the bay area is 100k for example, move to the South, say Florida an…

Higher income means higher taxes, and if you're in a high COL area, then there's the added expenses.

Of course, if you've purchased a home in said high COL, that could be seen as an investment - and the high mortgage goes towards equity.

I can only talk about my own experience is the living / working in low vs high COL area:

When I live in a high COL area, most my money went towards housing. And while my salary was significantly higher, it was also added stress. I was absolutely dependent on employment, especially the first years. If I lost my job, and couldn't find a new job FAST, then that would effectively mean eviction or foreclosure.

That kinda created extra overhead, knowing that you'd be bound to some work - no mate what - until your house was paid off.

As for living in low COL, it was obviously much less stressful. Jobs weren't as plentiful, but finding a place to live was a non-issue.

The downturn was that you actively needed to invest your money, because you knew that your home wasn't going to appreciate much in price. If you wanted to move from low COL to a high COL, sales from you home or whatever would be pocket change compared to the initial costs of getting started in said high COL city.

But then again, the fact that you could be more selective about you jobs, and getting laid off wouldn't be the end of the world, was def. something that reduced stress.

So purely from a financial standpoint, there are pros and cons to both.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#155

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Thu, May 14, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

jimbob45 wrote: post #80

seibelj wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Boston and commute on the subway. I specifically live in a major city because I like the city atmosphere, events, night life, restaurants, etc. I have co-workers that live in the suburbs and do the car thing (although many take the commuter train), but I don't. So I have no problem commuting to work. I like the subway.

I’d have no problem with a subway commute. You can read or otherwise stay productive like would be otherwise impossible in a car. Unfortunately, the US seems unlikely to get high-speed rail projects functional...ever.

And it's not even just high-speed rail. I'd happily ride the local subway if I could be reasonably confident that someone won't come into the car and start screaming.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#156

Post by Finnucane » Thu, May 14, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

If even a smallish fraction—say 15 or 20 percent— of the workers who could move and work remotely do so, that could have a pretty significant impact on local economies. Even if wages adjust some, you’d still see essentially a redistribution of wealth from highly concentrated areas to those less so. A shift of say, 2 percent in apartment vacancy rates is nontrivial. On the whole it could be a net positive, for individuals and for stressed cities.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#157

Post by codemac » Thu, May 14, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

dontbenebby wrote: post #138

aripickar wrote: post #8

I'm pretty bearish on the pandemic actually leading to massive change in the number of people permanently working from home. My boss put out a survey a week or two ago among my org (30 or so people), and 70% said that they want to work from the office, full time, 20% said some time or most of the time, and 10% said fully remote. And this is a group of people that would be largely well suited to working from home duri…

>There is just too much detrimental effect one one's career from not being seen at the office. For a company that's not fully remote (i.e. gitlab), people who are fully remote are going to fall behind in promotions, etc. I thought the model in SV/SF is often you need to change jobs to get substantial pay bumps/title increases.

I don't think I've seen anyone getting great referrals to pay bumps through changing jobs without building in-person relationships

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#158

Post by imaadrashied » Thu, May 14, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

aripickar wrote: post #8

I'm pretty bearish on the pandemic actually leading to massive change in the number of people permanently working from home. My boss put out a survey a week or two ago among my org (30 or so people), and 70% said that they want to work from the office, full time, 20% said some time or most of the time, and 10% said fully remote. And this is a group of people that would be largely well suited to working from home duri…

I might be simplifying too much, but I would be surprised if more remote work didn't catch on. A decentralized workforce is easier to control in some aspects that are incredibly attractive to corporate leaders.

Fewer spontaneous and f2f interactions between people makes it easier to:

1) Ensure folks are focusing primarily on work instead of anything else associated with being a part of a company

2) All hierarchical decisions (promoting / not promoting) can be done without much personal interaction so turns employees more into school children where grades on certain things determine moving up or not

3) Easier to fire folks if you don’t get as close to them and if they’re not right there in front of you

Not advantageous for small/mid-size companies with strong cultures. Advantageous for small/mid-size co’s with weak cultures. Large companies obviously benefit, surprised more don’t go remote.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#159

Post by neutronicus » Thu, May 14, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

take_a_breath wrote: post #112

caseysoftware wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen/heard different numbers from elsewhere: 20% want to work from home permanently 20% want to get back to the office full time 60% want flexibility somewhere in between Personally, I think the specific breakdown is less important than companies realizing that letting people be remote can improve work/life balance, reduces office space needs, and they have most of the infrastructure to support it. As an industr…

==reduces office space needs== While increasing their employees home-space needs. People will need bigger houses and apartments if everyone is going to work from home long-term.

Which they will find, for the same price, out in the sticks when they don't need to drive in.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#160

Post by epistasis » Thu, May 14, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

shuckles wrote: post #141

epistasis wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get where you are coming from, but my intuition is that we have actually created a massive bubble in land prices by restricting use so much. Land would get a hell of a lot cheaper if we massively decreased demand by letting people live in ways that use less land.

Land values in urban areas always increase in response to upzoning and loosening of development restrictions.

That's because we have restricted land use so much that any upzoning is in response to intense pressure, which focuses massive amounts of capital that was waiting on the sidelines to compete for the new opportunity.

If, instead, we hadn't massively down zoned everything in the 20th century, an upzoning wouldn't be "giving away" lots of value, because there would be an abundance of locations that could be used.

This is why small focused upzonings like those that happen in NYC and SF are so disastrous and destroy neighborhoods. Instead of gradual city-wise change like what happens in more affordable places like Tokyo, SF and NYC are super expensive because they set zoning so almost everything is "built out." Any area that is "built out" has reached complete failure in city planning, in my opinion. Which is pretty much all of the Bay Area.