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Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

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Re: Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

#341

Post by Apocryphon »

CalChris wrote: post #140
bgorman wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without William Shockley moving to the west coast, the "Silicon" part of Silicon Valley would likely be elsewhere in the world.

That's a counterfactual. Yeah, maybe Shockley's project happened elsewhere it Silicon Elsewhere could have happened somewhere else. But it didn't happen elsewhere. But you are assuming that it would have catalyzed elsewhere. For example, it could have catalyzed in Murray Hill, New Jersey after the transistor but it didn't. Anyways, people are always leaving the Bay Area. If you came here five years ago, first you wer…

Magic Leap is based in Plantation, part of the Miami metro. So- you're still right.

Re: Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

#342

Post by throwaway0a5e »

gonehome wrote: post #264
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience living in an area that has high net migration from California is that the people leaving bring California's policies with them.

Anything specific? One guess I'd have is that an influx of new people creates that anti-housing response anywhere which can lead to some of the same problems. I suspect that's less about CA policy and more about bad incentives around housing being an investment in the US. If you mean that most people from CA don't like Trump (or the Republican support/defense of him), then yeah I think you're probably right about tha…

It's not anti-housing. It's never anti-housing. Nor is it ever "neighborhood character" or whatever. The places that people are moving to have plenty of land to build.

What people don't like is that when upper middle class city and inner suburb types move in local ordinances that restrict what you can and can't do on your own land seem to always follow. And given a generation or so of change in that direction, it gets you the same overpriced, impossible to develop hellscape that those people were seeking to flee in the first place. This isn't unique to CA. Their stupidity isn't special. This pattern has played out all over the east coast and midwest.

Re: Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

#343

Post by corytheboyd »

vmception wrote: post #299
corytheboyd wrote: post #57

It sucks to be locked up in the apartment watching my favorite places die. I grew up with San Francisco in my life, and have lived here myself for 10 years. Just trying to give out some positive energy for this place, but also it deserves all of the negative comments lol. Anyway, I too am moving on, San Francisco (in February), thanks for helping make me who I am today :)

You see the irony right? I'm only mocking the gatekeeping done in SF but they'd say you would have no claim to "watching SF die" if you moved there in the last ten years, because you killed it. Rents have only dropped to levels seen in the last few years lol, and will just "crater" to 2010 levels once tech and students finish leaving.

“Tech killed SF” is such a tired scapegoat. I also didn’t even work in tech when I first moved here, does that unfairly change your perception of my “killing SF”? Without the tech angle, arguments like this to me are reduced to the weight of “KIDS THESE DAYS DON’T GET IT AND RUIN EVERYTHING THAT I USED TO LIKE”

Re: Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

#344

Post by rock_hard »

scarmig wrote: post #270
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #70

I'd love to hear from people who want to stay in the Bay area what is unique that you cannot find elsewhere in cheaper locales. I lived in Mountain View for 3 months during 500 startups and the valley proper was the most garden variety suburban existence you could find anywhere. I lived in SF proper off and on and can attest that it certainly has (had?) fantastic restaurants/shops and a particular type of culture tha…

1) SF & Valley: Education levels of the people here. You can get that in a couple other places--DC, NYC, Boston--but not too many others. Relatedly, two easily accessible world class universities are in the Bay Area: Boston beats us here, but we beat NYC and DC. 2) SF & Valley: Diversity. Bay Area cities top the list of largest number of foreign born residents, with only LA and NYC being competitive. 3) SF & Valley:…

Agree with all points except "Dating scene for men"

As somebody who has lived on three continents in major metro area's as well as countryside IMO SFBA has the best dating scene.

I am married now, so I have been out of the single pool for a couple years...but before that I will say that SFBA had the most attractive pool of available woman in the world, if intelligence, creativity, independence, being self starters and physical attractiveness is what you value.

I sure found the love of my life here.

Re: Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

#345

Post by ed_balls »

ijidak wrote: post #4

There is a supremacy, but the idea that it is threatened is hyperbolic, designed to get readers. This is a small shift in the grand scheme. It might help create new centers. But the gravity is going to be around the universities and infrastructure that is unique to the area. Shifts like that rarely happen overnight. Especially not because of something as temporary as a pandemic.

> Especially not because of something as temporary as a pandemic.

One could argue that diseases were major contributors to the collapse of the Roman Empire - internal problems didn't allow them to keep the external forces at bay.

Re: Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

#346

Post by maxwell »

qqqwerty wrote: post #287
maxwell wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so if California's "free-wheeling culture" caused SV to be where it is, what factored into CA's cultural development? Why the lack of free-wheeling culture elsewhere?

Are you serious? SF's Castro is the gay capital of the world. Summer of Love. The Emerald triangle. The Hells Angels. I could go on.

But why there? Why not somewhere else?

Only seemingly non-random factor you gave is the Emerald Triangle, which could be the answer.

Re: Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

#347

Post by TomVDB »

gonehome wrote: post #235
TomVDB wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That $5M is hyperbole, right? Nobody will deny that Bay Area housing is expensive, but even today, $1.5M will get you a decent single family house with a garden in Santa Clara. That’s a ridiculous amount of money for most, but it’s not in $5M exit territory, and something that’s relatively easy to manage for a 2 tech income family: $1.25M loan is $5600/m mortgage, $1500/m in real estate taxes.

$5M is a little hyperbolic, but $4M is not. $1.5M will get you a shack - really old maybe a little bigger than 1000sqft in Santa Clara if you can find one at that price at all. $4M gets you a nice, newer 2900sqft house (comparable to what you'd get in the other regions I mentioned). $1.5M would have been enough in 2012, but it's gotten worse since then.

2900ft houses is a good way to skew the argument in your favor, but it's a bit of a strawman: the vast majority of houses in the Bay Area aren't 2900ft to begin with, yet 2000ft house are plenty, with 4 bedroom, on, say, a 6000ft lot. You can easily find one of those for $2M, and they're not shacks.

This is a $2M house, 2600 sqft, 5BD house on an 11000 sqft lot: https://www.redfin.com/CA/Santa-Clara/2602-Birchtree-Ln-9505....

But going back to my earlier price range. I took me all of 2 minutes, not months of open houses to come up with these:

For $1.6M, you get this 2200 sqft house: https://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Jose/1244-Broadleaf-Ln-95128/h.... Or you get this 2500 sqft house: https://www.redfin.com/CA/Santa-Clara/1453-Franklin-St-95050....

Re: Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

#348

Post by raunakdag »

TuringNYC wrote: post #241
stryan wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your experience may be your own; I live just outside of DC as well (though on the MD side) and get bombarded with DC and MD job offers all the time. Perhaps not to the same extent as CA, but saying only 1 or 2 seems like a personal situation.

One more thing for outsiders: Security Clearances are huge here, which really changes outcomes. @stryan Would love to chat offline if you're open? Really struggling in deciding whether I can continue to live in the region long term, despite being in love with the area and the people.

As someone who lives in the DMV (VA) - what’re the biggest factors influencing whether you can continue to live here long term?

Re: Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

#349

Post by ivalm »

cam0 wrote: post #18
solumos wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Better"'s subjective - some people prefer extreme seasons (Midwest), 4 distinct seasons (East coast), 50s year-round (Northwest/SF), or sunny/70s most of the year (Miami? LA? Texas? Not a lot of experience personally).

Miami/LA/Texas more like 90's most of the year

Unless you are very inland LA is not 90s most of the year. Heck, it’s not even 80s most of the year. It’s 70s.

Re: Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy

#350

Post by scruple »

dv_dt wrote: post #178
ylhert wrote: post #33

Tech in SFBA reminds me of the Resource curse ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse ). SFBA did nothing special to attract the wealth of technology companies, they effectively got lucky with Shockley/Fairchild/Traitorous 8 and the boom in technology that followed. It seems the local gov't have squandered an opportunity to truly capitalize on the gift they were given, and perhaps even done their best to jeopa…

I think there was an element of hippy culture mixed in there that contributed to success from openness and willingness to experiment on paths not directly connected to profit. Also, I hardly think the opportunity was squandered - it's paid off for a long run. I do think there are challenges ahead for the model to continue to succeed faster than other areas.

> I think there was an element of hippy culture mixed in there that contributed to success from openness and willingness to experiment on paths not directly connected to profit.

I'd call it counter culture but I otherwise agree with you.

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