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Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

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Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#111
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, also there is now a bigger talent pool to choose from, since you don't need to worry about finding candidates willing to relocate, that means more employees to choose from.

Ok - This is fair - as you make it easier to work from other places, you increase employee supply. That resets the balance. Good points.

Yes I think the increase in employee supply outstrips the rise in remote jobs becoming viable.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#112
post #45

Are companies going to start adjusting salaries for people who move (this makes zero sense to me, the value you add most likely doesn’t change because of where you live)? That’s where this gets weird... people move to these better-to-live places and then all the employers decides to pay them less because of location. Then you just push up housing prices with salaries that slowly reset over time to be cost of living a…

Don't let the employers do that to you. If they try, go elsewhere. I kept my bay area salary while moving to Arkansas.

not everyone has this luxury unfortunately.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#113
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what makes it appealing to a lot of people who have been living around millions of other people. Soon many of these places will no longer be cheap and far away from other people. It'll be interesting to see how today's cultural conflicts play out when the more left-leaning, urban remote workers move en masse to smaller, more right-leaning, less urban places.

One thing worth remembering - thousands of current "Bay area tech workers" grew up in other parts of the country, and moved to silicon valley primarily for job opportunities, but may not otherwise share in the religious, political or social views that dominate that space. So while in some cases there may be the conflict you're alluding to, for other people, they're just moving back home.

That's precisely the math that people are weighing. Live in comparative squalor in the bay or nyc in your cramped apartment with no grass and no light and little opportunity for change as time goes by and your family potentially grows, or move back home and live like an absolute king in a legitimate mansion with yards on all sides with a three car garage, basketball hoop, and a pool in that rich rich neighborhood with better schools than SF. It's like giving yourself a massive raise.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#114

Are companies going to start adjusting salaries for people who move (this makes zero sense to me, the value you add most likely doesn’t change because of where you live)? That’s where this gets weird... people move to these better-to-live places and then all the employers decides to pay them less because of location. Then you just push up housing prices with salaries that slowly reset over time to be cost of living a…

Some actually do and more will probably follow suit. This might put you in a bind for lateral movement as well. Much harder to build an effective network over zoom, and nepotism is for better or worse how the world works because there are probably 1000 qualified people for every job opening. If you get laid off from your remote job, it will be tough to land another one when your competition is suddenly the entire country where people are comfortable asking for salaries far lower than yours and companies are happy to exploit cheaper labor.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about left right. It's about rural vs urban and have money vs not. Everything that's terrible and soul crushing about a tourism economy is about to happen to random places that have thus far been spared that fate.

You can't reduce things to one dimension, I agree, but I disagree that left vs right is unimportant. When largely liberal city people migrate into largely conservative places, there's gonna be some conflict. Not to mention a lot of these tech workers are liberal and have money, so they'll be empowered to support changes that the locals may not be on board with but also may not have the means to combat effectively.

I agree with your first two sentences, then I think you loose your way.

SFO is a 'liberal' city, but the idea the tech people are majority liberal as well needs a strong does of supporting evidence. My own observation is that much like the rest of the rest of the populace, it's a spectrum. I have talked to many SFO folks looking to move out of there specifically because they want to be somewhere 'conservative', usually using more colorful language.

And I also have some doubts about the whole 'techies are going to come here and take over' trope. Sure, they will influence things (money always does), but entrenched political and social structures don't just melt away overnight. They know the rules of the game because they made them. I live in a pretty lefty area that's also pretty desirable to live in, and periodically you'll get an influx of individuals from other places that make noise about some aspect of the area that isn't conservative enough for them (taxation, commonly) and how they're going to change things. And the incumbent political actors spin up and work the system and it usually goes nowhere. I suspect you'll see much more of that than radical changes brought on by the arrival of tech money.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#116

I own a number of pieces of property in Whitefish Montana, where I decamped to the second my children were released from school for COVID reasons in March (we split time between TX and MT). Given what I felt were going to be significant economic disruptions due to unemployment and drops in income, I prepared myself with the understanding that our little resort town was going to be facing some hard times. Usually, sma…

Your experience could partly be explained by selection bias (e.g. sister comment “it's such a cool town!“). I am presuming you didn’t choose Whitefish randomly, and obviously you must have been an early adopter.

However, the flight to other locations does seem like a general trend. Anecdotally it appears to be happening to my neighbourhood...

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#117
post #86

I own a number of pieces of property in Whitefish Montana, where I decamped to the second my children were released from school for COVID reasons in March (we split time between TX and MT). Given what I felt were going to be significant economic disruptions due to unemployment and drops in income, I prepared myself with the understanding that our little resort town was going to be facing some hard times. Usually, sma…

I don't live in Whitefish (nor Montana), but I love it - it's such a cool town! What do you think about Bigfork as a place for future investment/growth?

I think that most of the towns in the Flathead Valley all have good potential - they are all nice little enclaves

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#118

People have been talking about this on HN for a few months now, and I never took it seriously since these threads are always filled with people quoting numbers saying it's not happening. That was until last month, when two tech workers from San Francisco moved into the neighborhood. Both have the same story: Their company went work-from-home when the pandemic started, then made it permanent, so the company employees…

Wait till Asia's borders open. The fanout will go transpacific. Especially in Southeast Asia.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#119

Are companies going to start adjusting salaries for people who move (this makes zero sense to me, the value you add most likely doesn’t change because of where you live)? That’s where this gets weird... people move to these better-to-live places and then all the employers decides to pay them less because of location. Then you just push up housing prices with salaries that slowly reset over time to be cost of living a…

>> this makes zero sense to me, the value you add most likely doesn’t change because of where you live

Salaries were/are so high because of the limited supply of qualified labour. If they now accept workers from everywhere the supply side constraint just got blown wide open.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#120

People have been talking about this on HN for a few months now, and I never took it seriously since these threads are always filled with people quoting numbers saying it's not happening. That was until last month, when two tech workers from San Francisco moved into the neighborhood. Both have the same story: Their company went work-from-home when the pandemic started, then made it permanent, so the company employees…

Wait till Asia's borders open. The fanout will go transpacific. Especially in Southeast Asia.

Except time zones
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