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

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

#321

Post by chris11 »

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 have the same concerns. Personally I liked coming into my office. My workspace was decent, I liked being able to have lunch with my coworkers, and the free food was good. Plus my commute was basically non-existent.

I also have long term concerns about my career. Most of employees were working in the office, and the few employees who were remote, regularly came in for a few days. I was happy with my rent, and I wouldn't want to move that far away. So I wouldn't see much savings in time or money from moving.

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

#322

Post by davidw »

lliamander wrote: post #285
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Guy moves from Silicon Valley to Portland, Oregon. Portland gets too expensive for some other family, who move to Boise, Idaho. And so on... Yup. It's a fundamental values problem that can't be fixed without a major ideological shift. A large number of people do not believe that people have the right to do more or less whatever they want on their property. Until that is fixed you're always going to have people sayin…

Another option could be that living in a big city becomes less necessary. People flocked to these cities in the first place because they were seen as sources of social opportunities (jobs, venture capital, social networks). I would like to see the Internet disaggregate those opportunities.

I've worked remotely, and for creative, collaborative work, and chance meetings and that sort of thing... I still think offices and cities win.

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

#323

Post by betaby »

tfehring wrote: post #255
zaidf wrote: post #14

People won't continue making their current SF salary by working out of Farmville, Ohio. I think this point is missed by many I fully expect Twitter, for example, to come out with salary adjustment policies for people who want to work from home from an entirely different city and state

For reference, GitLab are fully remote and publish their rationale [0] for paying regionally-adjusted salaries. Some of the arguments I don't really buy (for example, I don't think you need to hire anyone from very high cost of living areas to build a world-class engineering org at GitLab's scale) and others (e.g., the golden handcuffs argument) I think are just a consequence of fully remote teams currently being rar…

At the same time, GitLab services are NOT priced per region. Neither cost of the IPhone or Telsa is discounted in the region of FarmVille, Nowhere.

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

#324

Post by aantix »

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…

Push back on this.

You deliver the same value from SF or Denver.

They have the budget. They can (and will) pay you.

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

#325

Post by bialpio »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #140
take_a_breath wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good call, I should just go get a new job in the middle of the worst destruction of jobs in history. After I do that, my one-time $1,000 stipend won't make my house bigger. The point is that if more people are going to work from their houses, then houses will need to be bigger in the medium- to long-term.

Should you live near your job if it's expensive? Your choice. Should your employer pay you more if they can pay someone less who lives somewhere cheaper? Their choice. If you want to live in a small place in the city, there is a cost. If it's not pleasant to work from there because there isn't enough space, that is part of the cost. You are competing with folks who can now work from home, and have the space to do so…

> You are competing with folks who can now work from home, and have the space to do so effectively. Is that good or bad? No, it just is.

Also, out of curiosity, how far would you be willing to take this sentiment? I'm originally from Poland - if I could live there and still earn my current US salary, I'd probably be able to buy one apartment every year and still have money left over to live comfortably. So, should you actually compete with others? If so, are you OK with them undercutting you? Would it be good or bad if they did? :)

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

#326

Post by betaby »

kube-system wrote: post #289
sigfubar wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll end up paying New York income tax too, which is quite hefty.

And you'll not be paying your real local income tax, which is quite illegal.

How people with multiple properties do that?

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

#327

Post by [deleted] »

stevenwliao wrote: post #250
talmr wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remote whiteboarding is challenging. In the office, we can just make a breakout session and grab a whiteboard and jam something out. We're all present, nobody randomly sounds like a cyborg about to wreck the city, and we can actually get something done rather than have another follow up after someone puts all this into "notes".

Google Jamboard with company issued iPads solves the whiteboarding.

[deleted]

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

#328

Post by sigfubar »

betaby wrote: post #326
kube-system wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you'll not be paying your real local income tax, which is quite illegal.

How people with multiple properties do that?

Such folks normally designate one property as their "primary residence", commonly defined as a place where one sleeps 183 nights out of the year. That's where one pays local taxes.

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

#329

Post by asdff »

cactus2093 wrote: post #7

I'm certainly daydreaming about this, as someone living in SF right now. But IMO things are still too uncertain to pull the trigger on making a huge move. And I wonder if the likeliest scenario, is that everyone strongly considers doing this, but then we all slowly get used to the "new normal" and by the time it's clear one way or the other what the future is starting to look like, we're past the peak of the virus (m…

Would be nice if a lot of these soon to be vacant commercial properties from small businesses become botique office space a la wework, but direct from the landlord so there isn't any additional parasite to feed. I'd love to have a desk right in the neighborhood I could walk to from my apartment with my laptop and plug into a couple of monitors, I'd make my boss pay monthly for that.

All I need is table space (which I lack in the apartment) and a couple $100 screens, maybe a printer and fax machine to use once a month and once a year, respectively.

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

#330

Post by bluGill »

vdnkh wrote: post #313

I feel like most of HN is missing something here, of no fault of their own because they're not in my demographic (20-something yuppie). Young people want to live in cities. They're fun, exciting, and enable a robust social life. Moving to rural Ohio or Michigan, or even a "lesser" metro in the midwest is not the same as living in SF or NYC in terms of social opportunity. I work remote and I live in Brooklyn and I thi…

What do you get in SF that you can't get in Des Moines? I lived in Des Moines until last year and I find most answers to this question are wrong: you can in fact get it in Des Moines. Sometimes Des Moines is even better, though I'll admit in most cases the vastly smaller size limits quantity of choices.
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