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BankSimple moves to Portland

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Re: BankSimple moves to Portland

#51

Post by binarycleric »

dreamdu5t wrote: post #48
Pakourama wrote: post #11

Portland? WTF? Why? It's a hipster dump. Rains 9 months a year, has 12% perpetual unemployment, plus the USA's largest resident homeless population, which isn't terribly shocking given the awful job market. But, if you can actually get a job the salary will be circa 1994 and yet the property and rent prices are in fantasy land stuck in the 2006 housing bubble. Oh, plus the city has one of the highest suicide rates in…

LoL, like Boston, NYC, or the Valley are any less of a joke. All of America is same sprawling hollow suburbia.

Visit Pittsburgh someday. We have some hollow suburbia but we don't have the typical endless suburban sprawl. We do have a fair amount of hipsters though, just a warning.

Re: BankSimple moves to Portland

#52

Post by ry0ohki »

al3x wrote: post #37
ry0ohki wrote: post #6

I really love Portland, and I'm sure it's a great new home for BankSimple, but I am a little shocked that a company would move to a city where literally everyone in the company would have to be relocated. I've seen companies move to SF or NY before because of VC raised, but this is almost the opposite!

We don't have to relocate "literally everyone" in the company. We have myself (one of the co-founders), three engineers, and a project manager here in Portland already. A couple of other people planned on moving for personal reasons in the next few months. Still, there are a number of people in the company who are uprooting their lives in NYC, SF, and elsewhere, and we really appreciate that they were willing to do s…

Ah somehow I missed you had people in Portland on the first read. It makes much more sense especially if some of the founders are located there.

Re: BankSimple moves to Portland

#54

Post by tolmasky »

ronnier wrote: post #16
dminor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What disgusted you?

The place was filthy and dilapidated. Seeing people covered in tattoos and piercings gets old and tiresome for some reason. It's just not the place for me, but awesome for those who fit in there.

Are you sure you're thinking of Portland? Portland is consistently named one of (if not THE) America's cleanest cities. http://www.google.com/search?q=americas+cleanest+city

What are you comparing it against?

Re: BankSimple moves to Portland

#55

Post by harryh »

dailo10 wrote: post #19

Portland is basically where San Francisco was at 20 years ago. In terms of a tech hub, the only thing missing is a stronger university presence.

This is not true. There is a history of technology entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley going back (at least) 60 years. There are a great many pieces of human infrastructure that exist in SF that do not exist in Portland from the largest collection of technology VCs & Angels in the world, to lawyers that understand corporate structure and stock options, to bankers that understand IPOs, and of course thousands and thousands of engineers.

A 20 year difference if a vast understatement.

Re: BankSimple moves to Portland

#56

Post by thos3000 »

jvoorhis wrote: post #41
shrikant wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OT, and completely uninformed question: how's the scene in recruiting straight from Portland State University? (I ask out of idle curiosity, because I once had the opportunity to do an MS in CS there a while (6 years) back, and I passed up because I couldn't take on the financial burden - please drop me an email if you feel this might threadjack the discussion here.)

We haven't tried recruiting from PSU ourselves, but we probably should. Galois ( http://corp.galois.com/ ) recruits students from PSU's CS program. My colleagues from PSU's mathematics dept have also been a pleasure to work with.

Yup, Galois is the most obvious direct recruiter from PSU, but there are others, to be sure, but not enough. I've got a few friends in the MS and PHd programs at PSU and they certainly don't have people beating down their doors, I'm sorry to say. It would certainly be good to see more direct recruiting and internship opportunities opening up.

Re: BankSimple moves to Portland

#57

Post by geeksam »

larrykubin wrote: post #43
Pakourama wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the rampant unemployment, underemployment, low paying jobs if you can actually get one, and the huge homeless population which is more a reflection on how abysmal the city and local economy is than those unfortunate enough to be homeless themselves. Don't forget the nonstop rain and suicide hotline numbers posted on every bridge or parking garage higher than 20 feet, since nearly everyone is cranked out on a…

Wow, can't believe all of the negative comments on here towards Portland. My wife and I moved here a couple months ago and can't stop thinking about how much we love the place. We were just joking last night about how if we listened to people on the internet, we would have never made such a great move out of fear we would be depressed and living in the streets. We've had a completely opposite experience from the poin…

I moved to Portland from California in 2001. I love it here, and can't imagine ever moving back. That being said, the big adjustment for me (and for many folks moving from further south) isn't the rain. It's that the days are so much shorter in the wintertime, and even when the sun is technically up, you can't see it through the cloud cover.

It's easy to love Portland in the summer (and, having grown up in Sacramento with weeks of temperatures over 110 degrees, I was very surprised to discover that I actually like summer now). The real test is whether you still love it in the middle of your second or third winter. ;>

Re: BankSimple moves to Portland

#58

Post by scottkrager »

shrikant wrote: post #36
jvoorhis wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's already here. Our company (AppFog) was founded in Portland and we just secured our Series B. We have offices in the same building as JanRain and yet another co-working space. In Old Town or the Pearl District, there are startups on every other block. Interestingly, our biggest challenge right now is recruiting. If you're considering moving to Portland, we could use you. http://blog.phpfog.com/2011/06/10/we-are-h…

OT, and completely uninformed question: how's the scene in recruiting straight from Portland State University? (I ask out of idle curiosity, because I once had the opportunity to do an MS in CS there a while (6 years) back, and I passed up because I couldn't take on the financial burden - please drop me an email if you feel this might threadjack the discussion here.)

I know Intel recruits heavily out of PSU.

Re: BankSimple moves to Portland

#59

Post by ironchef »

bh42222 wrote: post #53

Portland is a great town.... but seriously gastro-pubs are silly, get some real restaurants people.

the portland area has some amazing restaurants, such as: Beast, Pok Pok, Nostrana, Le Pigeon, and Gruner. Those are all beard nominees. Not one of them is a gastropub. Have you not been to any of the above? If not, I'd suggest you get to "some real restaurants"

Re: BankSimple moves to Portland

#60

Post by skrebbel »

al3x wrote: post #39
skrebbel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I heard that my milkman's aunt heard from a friend that Alex Payne said he would quit unless everybody moved over to become his neighbour!

Cute. But, actually, if my co-founders had decided to move the company to another city entirely, I would have happily moved. Portland happens to be a good fit for what we're doing, particular from a customer service hiring perspective.

In fact, you made me wonder: how the hell do you determine that one city is better than another for "customer service hiring"? I don't imagine there's indexes for these sorts of things.

Or education programmes for customer service people, at all. Or a single "best profile", even?

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