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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

#141

Post by cma »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #8
stanrivers wrote: post #3

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)? Price is the intersection of supply and demand. A buyer will ask a seller to accept a lower price if they think the seller is willing to accept a lower price. A seller might accept a lower price if they don't think they can get a higher price. You are paid $X because the buyer couldn't find someone willing to accep…

A remote employee as commodity is essentially fungible, in which case why would a company bid more on the same employee living in a higher cost of living area than the same employee living in a lower one?

It would only make sense if employers collude so that those employees can't get competitive offers. Otherwise, why wouldn't another company bid more since location doesn't change the value?

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

#142

Post by 762236 »

Until the fires it was hard to imagine giving up the weather and outdoors here in the Bay Area. Now we have COVID which means you want to be outside, but fire smoke that you shouldn't breath, so you want to be inside. I have a lot of HEPA filters running inside, and if I exercise outside, I wear a P100 even at VO2max. But if my daughter weren't keeping us here for her friends, I'd consider moving away now.

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

#143

Post by [deleted] »

blantonl wrote: post #82

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…

[deleted]

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

#144

Post by pdonis »

WaxProlix wrote: post #5
stanrivers wrote: post #3

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…

Salaries have very little to do with how much value one adds. If anything, it's more about how much value can be extracted. If companies can pay less and get the same value, they totally will.

> Salaries have very little to do with how much value one adds.

Yes, it does; but it's not how much value you, as an individual, add, but how hard it would be to find someone else who could add the same value but would work for less money.

> If companies can pay less and get the same value, they totally will.

Yes, which means companies are aware of how much value an employee adds; they are just also aware of what the current market price is for that amount of value. Whereas, many employees are not aware of that.

In any case, the primary benefit of the observation that the more value you add, the more you get paid is long term, not short term: it tells you that, if you want to increase your total lifetime compensation, you need to become harder to replace. In other words, you need to add, not just value, but some particular kind of value that fewer other people could add if they were hired in your place. The scarcer the kind of value you add is, the higher the price you can get for it.

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

#145

Post by abeppu »

I wonder when the reverse will happen. As rents in SF dive, will people that were force to outlying parts of the Bay Area return? Will younger LGBT folk be able to afford to live in/near the Castro? Will more people _not_ in tech be able to live here?

SF has felt like such a one-industry town for quite a while, and that can mute some of the richness and diversity that normally makes cities interesting (and perhaps more broadly valuable?). If some tech workers are happier in the mountains, that's great that they can now live that life and keep their jobs. But I hope that in their places, we see a new diversity of people of range of jobs who can choose to live in a city that was previously out of reach.

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

#146

Post by nomdep »

p1necone wrote: post #140
kjs3 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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', usual…

You only have to look at any slightly politically charged topic on HN to see that there are plenty of far far right wingers in tech. Edit: see I'm even being downvoted by them now :D

Many techies are individualistic. That used to be considered left-leaning, but in the last years some people have been pushing the idea that is something from the right, instead.

We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us.

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

#147

Post by microtherion »

floor2 wrote: post #106
silicon2401 wrote: post #49

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.

> thousands of current "Bay area tech workers" grew up in other parts of the country, and [...] may not otherwise share in the religious, political or social views that dominate that space.

I know a few, who grew up in rural Michigan, and Oregon, respectively. But from conversations with them, I get the impression that, while they carry some traces of their roots with them, they also have much that sets them apart from their background (putting a high value on formal education, cultural tolerance, etc).

And ultimately, Bay Area values WERE formed by the people who moved there. Janis Joplin? Texas. Nancy Pelosi? Maryland. Donald Knuth? Wisconsin.

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

#148

Post by humanrebar »

ulfw wrote: post #139
code4tee wrote: post #59

I saw a great quote recently that said something like “Everyone loves work from home until you lose a deal to the competition that turned up to your customer in person.” There’s an element of truth to this. Best advice I’ve heard is to say the draw for living in a city may go away but you need to be close. Living in the middle of nowhere isn’t going to look like such a great idea when people start gathering together…

Not everyone is a salesman though. Why would an engineer need to be in an office coding away so "he can turn up to his customer"?

Your customer is the person handing out raises, promotions, key assignments, etc. The person who makes it to happy hours will have the edge, fairly or not.

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

#149

Post by humanrebar »

throwawaygh wrote: post #25
stanrivers wrote: post #3

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…

Pay for software engineering will contract because it turns out programming is not that difficult and there was nothing special about the sf set except their need to cover stupid high rents.

Not quite. Consider pay for athletes and entertainers. Why pay Robert Downey Jr. big bucks? There are millions of actors out there!

No, there could be a long tail of meagerly paid folks, just like baristas who aspire to be professional singers. But some folks (allegedly the best of the best somehow) will be getting top dollar.

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