731–740 of 1001 posts
Western Europe is about to finally see a substantial tech boom. It won't be due to any of the rather laughable government programs being attempted there routinely, rather, it's going to be caused by a large influx of US venture capital that has begun and will get a lot larger across this decade. That venture capital will reshape European tech dramatically, altering how they do tech start-ups and producing the first n…
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>> Anyone working for a Silicon Valley Depending on your definition of wealthy, "anyone working" full stop. A large number of americans do not work (too young/old etc). Others are sick. Many at the top of society don't earn much income (tax voodoo). And automation is coming. If we define "wealthy" as the top 25/15/10% of wage earners, how soon before that is basically just anyone with a fulltime job?
Wealthy is about how much wealth you have, not your income. In 2020, $121,411 was the median household net worth in the United States. This is up from $97,225.55 in 2017. The average household net worth in 2020 was $746,821. It was $692,100 in 2017. The disparity between these two numbers is itself a major problem, but not the point. If you have a net work of $120k you aren't wealthy, even if you earnt that all in th…
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I can't speak to San Francisco, but in Seattle at least, I never saw any flyers or graffiti telling LGBT people they were unwelcome and should leave town, nor did I ever encounter political discourse that LGBT people were somehow ruining the city, or scapegoating the LGBT community for local issues. So in my personal experience as an LGBT software engineer, I wouldn't be surprised if San Francisco was the same way.
I bike by "Go Home Tech Bro" stickers on stop signs pretty frequently in Seattle
In the last 10-15 years San Francisco gained a ton of residents that didn't want to be there at all. They moved there because the job opportunities in tech were too hard to turn down. I had some friends like this, they just never really liked the city. Now they're all leaving because their job is not making them stay. That's fine and I'm happy they have more choices now. But there's a flip side to that. One of my lea…
This story is insanely misleading though. Everyone here is talking about why the tech elite are leaving due to the quality of life when Keith Rabois specifically has like 3-4 IPOs he was an early investor in going public right now and makes no sense to stay in California in 2021 and pay state capital gains taxes on those sales. Same with Elon Musk and Tesla’s absurd stock price. And probably a lot of other people giv…
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I wasn't thinking about Trump at all. I don't think he (or any President) is very relevant at a local level, at least not on a short time-frame. The influx of people probably has something to do with it, although in Utah (where I live) there is not much anti-housing response. There is lots of construction going on both in Salt Lake City and in the surrounding areas, and lots of political support for it. The real prob…
> The idea that they can just start changing things without understanding how/why things were the way they were before. Not exactly a novel proposition. The Europeans who arrived in what is now New England, or the Caribbean or yes, even Utah, felt much the same and acted like it too.
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Cold is fine. Getting robbed at gunpoint isn't. That's the real Chicago you have to contend with.
Never happened to me or my friends. And apparently there's less poop on the sidewalks than SF.
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I've seen a lot of predictions for "races for the bottom" over the years, and yet it's hard to remember one that actually happened. Economies usually don't work like that. Even if some version of that happens, it will still pay off to move out of SF. I think one of the big problems in the US is that growth and wealth are concentrated to a few hyper rich coastal cities, where most people can't afford to move. While la…
It has already happened for manufacturing. Now US still is home to lot of high end manufacturing. But the point it no longer offers middle class living to millions of Americans. Now I do understand that of software people believe that programing is somehow special and can't be done in effective manner remotely or third world site at far lower cost. I have few observations here: 1) With massive proliferation of framew…
I've spent decades among software people and never heard this said.
The outsourcing to India etc is 2+ decades old already FFS! What impact it's had on US wages is hard to say, but it's been very good for a lot of third world engineers!
In the last 10-15 years San Francisco gained a ton of residents that didn't want to be there at all. They moved there because the job opportunities in tech were too hard to turn down. I had some friends like this, they just never really liked the city. Now they're all leaving because their job is not making them stay. That's fine and I'm happy they have more choices now. But there's a flip side to that. One of my lea…
This story is insanely misleading though. Everyone here is talking about why the tech elite are leaving due to the quality of life when Keith Rabois specifically has like 3-4 IPOs he was an early investor in going public right now and makes no sense to stay in California in 2021 and pay state capital gains taxes on those sales. Same with Elon Musk and Tesla’s absurd stock price. And probably a lot of other people giv…
Also see Uber/AirBNB "disruption" of not paying benefits/hotel taxes. I would be more surprised if they didn't "optimize" like that.
This is what happens when a city neglects basic quality of life issues, and allows petty crime to thrive. It happened to New York in the 1970's and took roughly three decades to recover from. Good luck, San Francisco.
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How much equity would you need to hold to compensate for a 30-40% decrease in wages?
Who is experiencing the decrease in wages? For many Americans the distribution of these jobs to other locations would result in an increase in wages. Not to mention, the top companies would still hire top talent in a competitive market.
You can hire competent Thai or Vietnamese programmers for $20K/year on Upwork, which is a princely sum in their countries. If all you want is someone to implement a spec, they'll do the job just as good or better than any American. Why would you pay $100K/year?
Most markets bifurcate into a commoditized low-end that makes all the volume and a differentiated high-end that makes all the profits. Think Android/iPhone, Windows/Mac, TSMC/Intel, Volkswagon/Porsche, etc. The commodity low-end programmer isn't the guy in Missouri, it's the guy in Minsk or Bangkok. You're either the one making up the specs (which will probably still be in Silicon Valley, because that requires communication and trust more than coding ability), or the one implementing the specs (which can be anywhere, with commensurate wages).