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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

#761

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only by some San Franciscans who've been sniffing their own farts for too long. Everyone else thinks that The Bay is culturually homogenous.

If I said something bad about "red necks" or other such subcultures people would get angry and indignant. But somehow it's become OK to make disparaging comments like that about San Franciscans.

Rednecks and San Franciscans aren't protected classes of people.

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

#762
post #753
post #689

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…

I’ve lived in SF for 11 years now and it feels like city is mostly full of people who actually want to be here now. Even in covid times, I feel like there’s a better sense of community and civic engagement with neighbors. I also was super annoyed by people who came to SF that said it’s not diverse, when it was them not exploring outside of the tech world. All anecdotal, but life in the city is actually kinda awesome…

I've lived in SF for two years now. I _choose_ to live in SF, at 34, and I commute to south bay for my job, with a bit more WFH now than before COVID but I sometimes still commute.

I don't want to get into details but the other thing I like about the people staying in SF because they chose to is a healthy disregard for authority together with a very smart sense about how to take care of themselves and others. It's saving me from terrible depression or going into complete isolation in COVID times.

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

#763
post #555

Nobody really brings up that the bay area is one of few places in the US where you can live without a car. Really, even compared to other "walkable" cities beyond a select few, similarly expensive places. Nobody really brings up that the bay area has better LGBT and other minority protections than anywhere in the US, either. Every time someone mentions cheap midwest cities I have to pull up https://crossingenres.com/…

Well, if you consider South Bay, that's not true. Spent one summer interning at IBM, living in South San Jose (capital expressway). Had an absolutely horrible time. Even getting a bottle of milk was 2 mile walk. Buses were once every hour.

I co-oped at IBM in south San Jose as well. My roommates also co-oped at IBM and either rode bikes like I did or had a car. We would ride our bikes to the light rail which were a little more frequent than once an hour. We also rode our bikes to the CalTrain station.

It's definitely not walkable. It's marginally bikeable. Biking was problematic because of the lack of bike lanes and the poor lighting. Light rail and CalTrain were quite accommodating to bikes.

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

#764
post #727
post #689

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…

I think you’re echoing OP’s point. Some people come to California for opportunity, and when they find enough success, they leave. They’re not CA natives, they’re expats from places with less opportunity and crappier weather. People who want to live in California view the taxes as a cost of enjoying California.

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

#765

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…

If I could, I'd leave tomorrow, but, besides tech, there is another unique aspect of Bay Area: the Biotech scene. My wife works in Biotech and the only other alternative for us would be the Boston area. But, after running some numbers pro/cons, the Bay Area wins. So we are stuck here ... for now.

Philly is supposed to have an _ok_ biotech scene, so I hear.

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

#766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a quiet suburb close to a lot of easily accessible nature, while still having Amazon 2-day shipping, ridesharing, Uber Eats, and luxury retail. Maybe I'm missing, but I don't see anything in that list that isn't true of almost every metro area in the US. I think people living in SF notice when new services come out that are only available there, like Uber was at first. But they don't notice when those services late…

The primary point is easy access to nature from a metro area. Other than easy access to nature, all of those points are true for major metro areas. But other than say, Salt Lake City, does any other metro area offer such close access to nature? Boston and Seattle are even much farther away...

Having lived in both for many years, I'm not sure how anyone could come to the conclusion that nature is more difficult to access in Seattle than the Bay Area. It is a 45 minute drive from the skyscrapers to the Cascade mountains proper; in the Bay Area, it is a 3-hour drive to reach anything comparable. Seattle is bounded on three sides by fresh and salt water in equal measure, similar to San Francisco, with a large boating culture. The city is even nicknamed ("The Emerald City") by virtue of its many expansive and semi-wild parks in the city, plus the general greenery of the surrounding region.

I am a pretty avid nature enthusiast that spends a lot of time in the outdoors. It isn't even close, whether you are looking for mountains, water, or parks. Seattle's reputation in this regard is well-deserved; I'm not sure if there is another metro of its size that is so embedded in and connected to nature. And if you look at map, it is easy to see why -- the city is essentially surrounded by water that is surrounded by very rugged mountains (which has provided challenges for growth).

FWIW, the other large metros in the Pacific Northwest (definitely Vancouver and to a lesser extent Portland) have similarly exceptional access to nature. Some of the Mountain West cities also have great access to nature, though not as diverse as Seattle.

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

#767

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…

My wife's family is here. If not for that we would be in literally any other part of the country now, enjoying a decent-sized house with a yard.

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

#768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a cherry-picked example and a bad-faith argument. What’s the trend of claiming arguments are in “bad faith?” It’s like a verbal tic people have developed recently. I didn’t “cherry pick” anything. The very first step of the author’s analysis was to exclude states that had banned same-sex marriage prior to Obergefell on the theory that federal law could be changed. That exclusion carried through all the subs…

I think you're myopically focused on a certain reading, so as mentioned, won't engage further.

Really? To me it reads that way about you. To put the point more simply, the left and socially liberal seem rather illogical these days. To me it seems like you’ve been proven wrong and are not willing to accept it.

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

#769
post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a whole long thing typed out. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt instead, and assume you didn't mean to generalize suburbs and exurbs as racist and homophobic, artless, desolate and uncivilized places. I live in a quaint little town by the water, a decent drive away from a major city. I'm a tech worker that chose to move, because city perks didn't outweigh the city stress. I would say that for anyone consid…

We actually do have high quality produce and food here in North Texas, too.

Pretty much anywhere other than SF can have fresher food. It’s a city, you can’t compete with farm fresh from down the road.

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

#770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I lived in SF it was socially acceptable to openly degrade tech workers. Nancy Pelosi's daughter went on TV and called SF tech workers "vermin" and "invaders" and described the presence of tech works as an "infestation". Open hostility and dehumanization is condoned. In no way did I feel oppressed, but it did come off as tone deaf the way people on one breath say stuff like that and in the next complain about ho…

Yeah it's so tough being a tech worker. I feel almost as oppressed as the billionaires.

Who said anything about oppression? I just don't think anyone wants to live and work in a place where they are unwelcome and unwanted.
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