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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

#421

Post by rock_hard »

scarmig wrote: post #369
rock_hard wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

I agree that the SFBA has a very attractive pool of women, I just question whether they're available =) I've lived in a similar variety of metro areas as you, in North America, Europe, and Asia. San Francisco ranks dead last. Pretty much any guy can improve his dating outcomes by moving from SF to NYC, no matter what his standards are and what he's looking for, mostly because you can actually get regular dates with t…

There is likely a lot of factors at play

But personally I had no game with woman in NYC or LA....in part because what each party wanted from a partner was incompatible.

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

#422

Post by freyir »

jmnicolas wrote: post #397
sandworm101 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> and still come out ahead financially. Ya. Earning a SF wage but living elsewhere is great. But there is a flip side to this coin. As employees realize they can work from home, employers also realize they can have employees work from home. They will soon realize they don't need to pay SF wages. Those who convert their in-office jobs into work-from-home are a covid oddity. Those who will be hired in the future on th…

> employers also realize they can have employees work from home. I think it's even worse than that. Once they realize that you're working from home, why wouldn't they hire someone much cheaper abroad? I hope I'm wrong but I think in less than 5 years people will regret this WFH thing.

They’ve tried countless times for the last 30+ years. It has not ended well.

Maybe this time is different with the advent of better online collaboration tools. But these tools do little to help with real-time communication across time zones and language barriers.

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

#423

Post by headsupftw »

gumby wrote: post #152
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…

Come on: there’s a beautiful A/B test you can consult: in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, Boston’s route 128 was the “Silicon Valley” of its time. The US poured even more money into it than they did the Bay Area. Yet which grew and which stagnated?

An A/B test requires all other factors to be the same. Can you imagine a bunch of Harvard kids quit school, rent a house in Cambridge and code/party all year round?

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

#424

Post by ska »

jjeaff wrote: post #46
fumar wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The myth is from people that moved to California from other states. I moved from the the midwest to Southern California. I can't see myself going back to harsh winters and extreme summers. My overall well being has increased and the sunny days helpf with consistent mood levels. This is coming from someone who loved the four seasons and claimed they were required. I realized that humans populate most climates in the w…

Same here. I like the "idea" of four seasons. But after living in socal, I discovered I really only need a few days a year of the cold wintery weather. And then I'm over it. I get that from travel. Not to mention how summers are so much hotter in the Midwest and south. Mid 70s and sunny is hard to beat. It's like an eternal spring.

I think that's a personal thing; I found eternal spring pretty boring. It's not objectionable, certainly. It's just kinda meh. Don't get me wrong, you can get far far worse but I'd rather have seasons.

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

#425

Post by Fordec »

chucky_z wrote: post #222
birdyrooster wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ve been trying to hire these people for ages locally and remotely and we still couldn’t find them so I have no idea where you think all the talent was hiding until covid 19.

I agree with this. I cannot find talented and senior folks who fill the niche of my team (deep understanding of Linux systems, containers, and operating distributed systems). There seem to be a lot of SWEs in the world and very few SREs, let alone vanilla systems administrators for hire who are really good. I think as an industry everyone is pushed towards software engineering and the large clouds have vacuumed up ev…

SREs get treated like a cost center and no career progression. The majority by volume of sysadmins were automated out by the wave of cloud vendors, leaving over a decade now of undertraining. Those who are left are mostly mission critical unfireable greybeards.

SWE get to work on new products and get career growth towards bigger and more interesting projects as reward for delivery

Of course people focus on where the opportunities are. It's not the fault of an individual company but an overall industry mindset. "Reward it or lose it" should be a mantra of availability in technical industry expertise.

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

#426

Post by freyir »

foolfoolz wrote: post #372
sjg007 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it, software is eating the world, there aren't enough engineers and we see productivity gains like the cloud where you can basically run a global scale business with just a handful of people. We will probably see more of those companies than less.

when the work is remote we don’t need remote-california to save 10% on wages. we will go to remote-ukraine or estonia and hire twice as many engineers

Companies could already outsource their development to Estonia or Ukraine (and done do) but there are many hidden costs to this.

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

#427

Post by alentist »

danans wrote: post #400
alentist wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Bay Area > libertarian paradise What a strange notion. San Francisco has some of the most paternalistic laws in the US, courtesy of its board of supervisors. Some of them even wanted to ban corporate cafeterias, an issue which returned last year: https://sfist.com/2019/07/22/watered-down-version-of-sfs-tec... To pin the blame for these problems on libertarians , of all people, is the height of absurdity: https:…

>> the Bay Area >> libertarian paradise > What a strange notion. San Francisco has some of the most paternalistic laws in the US Not sure if you are aware but the Bay area is much bigger than just San Francisco. San Francisco isn't even the biggest city. There are very libertarian subcultures of the broader Bay Area, including in San Francisco, but most notably among the wealthy and business owners of Silicon Valley.

Not sure if you’re aware, but many of the links I shared are about the Bay Area as a whole.

> libertarian subcultures

I’m sure there are lots of subcultures. What does this have to do with who is actually governing?

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

#428

Post by mixmastamyk »

alentist wrote: post #382
vkou wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 jeopardize these resources. Wait, what? What exactly was local government supposed to do with this, ah gift? From the perspective of someone who doesn't live in the Bay area, it is a libertarian paradise for the haves, unlivable for the have-nots, and is the pinnacle of Americ…

> the Bay Area > libertarian paradise What a strange notion. San Francisco has some of the most paternalistic laws in the US, courtesy of its board of supervisors. Some of them even wanted to ban corporate cafeterias, an issue which returned last year: https://sfist.com/2019/07/22/watered-down-version-of-sfs-tec... To pin the blame for these problems on libertarians , of all people, is the height of absurdity: https:…

You may be reacting to the buzzwords rather than the broad strokes. While they do have many nanny-esque laws in the area, you'll find European cities do better on the aspects mentioned.

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

#429

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

scottlocklin wrote: post #92
kilbuz wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always have to ask, where are you moving and why did you pick it?

I always answer: fuck off; we're full. California, particularly Bay Area California is so ridiculously dysfunctional, the last thing any region needs is their refugees, who will bring with them the problems they're fleeing. Austin for example. Used to be a great place.

Unless you are Native American, you or one of your ancestors immigrated to the SFBA. So to say outsiders aren't welcome, when one is or descended from an outsider, is a little bit rich in irony.

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

#430

Post by alentist »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #428
alentist wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Bay Area > libertarian paradise What a strange notion. San Francisco has some of the most paternalistic laws in the US, courtesy of its board of supervisors. Some of them even wanted to ban corporate cafeterias, an issue which returned last year: https://sfist.com/2019/07/22/watered-down-version-of-sfs-tec... To pin the blame for these problems on libertarians , of all people, is the height of absurdity: https:…

You may be reacting to the buzzwords rather than the broad strokes. While they do have many nanny-esque laws in the area, you'll find European cities do better on the aspects mentioned.

I’m not sure what this has to do with my comment.
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