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Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

economist.com

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Re: Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

#61

Post by alephnerd »

selimthegrim wrote: post #57
Domenic_S wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I get paid more than my non tech peers yet still functionally have less spending power than a 25 year old from 30 years ago This seems like some non-generic case specific to your situation and not representative of the average experience. The median income in 1994 for over-25-year-olds (men only!) was $25,465 [0], women was less than half of that. Let's go with the figure for men for the sake of discussion. $25,465…

Where does the farming come in for Akron - because everything had rubber tires?

San Jose.

San Jose was a farming town until the 1980s.

Most of SJ's neighborhoods (eg. Alviso, Lick, etc) were actually small farm towns that merged into the City of San Jose in the 70s.

That's why SJ feels kind of bland - it's a very new city, sort of like Phoenix, Dallas, and much of Los Angeles.

Re: Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

#62

Post by spencerflem »

jprete wrote: post #55
spencerflem wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A word in support of this I've also seen a pretty stunning lack of empathy from tech workers who unquestionably have it better than almost any other working class (non-owner/shareholder) groups. I'm not saying that its great that tech workers are being laid off, but I get the schadenfreude other would have after a decade of being told that the solution to their problems is to "skill up" and learn to code. The real pr…

The GP paints with a very broad brush. Probably the vast majority of tech workers know there's a problem but don't know how to solve it.

Oh I agree, but for a lot of people techies are part of the problem itself. Gentrification is real, and the companies themselves are not seen as helpful either. And when techies do donate, they're often to pie in the sky stuff like AI alignment , or the giant long now clock , that comes off as out of touch at best.

I know for a fact that there's plenty of kind empathetic tech workers but I'm sure there are kind lawyers too and they don't have a lovely broad strokes reputation either

Re: Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

#63

Post by alephnerd »

art-not wrote: post #7
alephnerd wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Layoffs have been limited to tech And in all honesty, good. Tech Bros (myself included) needed to be cut to size. There was a lot of hubris by my peers in the 2010s.

I love the lack of sympathy for tech workers across North America or perhaps even globally, when tech hub salaries still don’t allow tech workers to even have a middle class lifestyle. Very few people I know get paid enough to buy a starter home within 2 or 3 hours of where they work. I get paid more than my non tech peers yet still functionally have less spending power than a 25 year old from 30 years ago, despite b…

> I love the lack of sympathy for tech workers across North America or perhaps even globally, when tech hub salaries still don’t allow tech workers to even have a middle class lifestyle

Do you have empathy for IBs, PEs, and other members of High Finance? The difference in TC between High Finance and the equivalent roles in Tech are not that significant.

Goldman Sach's IB Analysts starting salaries at the SF office were $90k with minimal bonuses in 2020. These same people could have worked at Google or Microsoft (and most of them legitimately had that option)

The overlap between Big Finance and Big Tech is massive, just like the overlap between random engineer and random corpdev drone in Dallas or KC.

Re: Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

#64

Post by alephnerd »

spencerflem wrote: post #62
jprete wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GP paints with a very broad brush. Probably the vast majority of tech workers know there's a problem but don't know how to solve it.

Oh I agree, but for a lot of people techies are part of the problem itself. Gentrification is real, and the companies themselves are not seen as helpful either. And when techies do donate, they're often to pie in the sky stuff like AI alignment , or the giant long now clock , that comes off as out of touch at best. I know for a fact that there's plenty of kind empathetic tech workers but I'm sure there are kind lawye…

^^^ this.

Re: Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

#65

Post by voisin »

tw04 wrote: post #20
ericmcer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Controlling inflation will hopefully be the main discussion around the next election, I am tired of watching the political theater around small side-issues and then paying $8 for milk and $6 for peanut butter. Why is our labor becoming worth less in real goods? Why is life expectancy decreasing? Can politicians address issues that affect every single person every day? I make good money in tech but it still feels like…

> Controlling inflation will hopefully be the main discussion around the next election You're conflating inflation with market gouging. Why would your local grocery store drop the price of milk? What's the incentive? You probably haven't stopped buying milk, I bet none of your neighbors have stopped buying milk. In most of the country you have at most 2 grocery chains that are probably mega-chains, and they have no i…

> A "free market" cannot function without competition and we've spent the last 50+ years allowing and encouraging market consolidation.

Perhaps the worst market for consolidation is political parties, neither of which seem serious about any form of antitrust enforcement.

Re: Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

#66

Post by voisin »

switch007 wrote: post #40
apwell23 wrote: post #3

There is so much excess money floating in the economy at the moment. Its insane. People emboldened by market and housing gains have to been spending ridiculous amounts of money like there is no tomorrow. Layoffs have been limited to tech.

Yup. Larger properties round here are going for £50-150k above last sale price (last sales being 4-6 years). It's madness.

In areas of Canada (Toronto and Vancouver vicinities), housing prices were increasing at $80k per MONTH. To only have your house increase by 50-150k over 4-6 years would be better than even the podunk unincorporated villages hours from any economic centre.

Re: Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

#67

Post by ylee »

alephnerd wrote: post #63
art-not wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the lack of sympathy for tech workers across North America or perhaps even globally, when tech hub salaries still don’t allow tech workers to even have a middle class lifestyle. Very few people I know get paid enough to buy a starter home within 2 or 3 hours of where they work. I get paid more than my non tech peers yet still functionally have less spending power than a 25 year old from 30 years ago, despite b…

> I love the lack of sympathy for tech workers across North America or perhaps even globally, when tech hub salaries still don’t allow tech workers to even have a middle class lifestyle Do you have empathy for IBs, PEs, and other members of High Finance? The difference in TC between High Finance and the equivalent roles in Tech are not that significant. Goldman Sach's IB Analysts starting salaries at the SF office we…

>Goldman Sach's IB Analysts starting salaries at the SF office were $90k with minimal bonuses in 2020. These same people could have worked at Google or Microsoft (and most of them legitimately had that option)

When I graduated from Columbia in 1999, I interviewed and got offers at various tech startups, but entry-level jobs on the "PM track" for those without a CS/engineering degree didn't formally exist at the likes of Microsoft or Yahoo as far as I know. I had a technical background, but was almost entirely self-taught, and had no interest in writing code for money anyway. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36027171>

Of my offers I chose Goldman, where I worked with tech companies. Thank goodness for that; I got to participate in the dotcom bubble without being directly swept up in its popping, and saw the Valley immediately post-bubble collapse. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34726735>

My GS starting salary was 40K. During that first year, because of the dotcom bubble, Goldman raised the salary to $55/65/75K for first/second/third-year analysts, and my end-of-year bonus in 2000 was close to 100% of salary. Then the full effect of the recession/market crash hit and the 2001 bonus was, well, much smaller.

Re: Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

#68

Post by art-not »

alephnerd wrote: post #63
art-not wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the lack of sympathy for tech workers across North America or perhaps even globally, when tech hub salaries still don’t allow tech workers to even have a middle class lifestyle. Very few people I know get paid enough to buy a starter home within 2 or 3 hours of where they work. I get paid more than my non tech peers yet still functionally have less spending power than a 25 year old from 30 years ago, despite b…

> I love the lack of sympathy for tech workers across North America or perhaps even globally, when tech hub salaries still don’t allow tech workers to even have a middle class lifestyle Do you have empathy for IBs, PEs, and other members of High Finance? The difference in TC between High Finance and the equivalent roles in Tech are not that significant. Goldman Sach's IB Analysts starting salaries at the SF office we…

I have empathy for anyone who is trying to make ends meet, whatever that means. Why wouldn't I have empathy for those people?

Re: Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

#69

Post by art-not »

Domenic_S wrote: post #41
art-not wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the lack of sympathy for tech workers across North America or perhaps even globally, when tech hub salaries still don’t allow tech workers to even have a middle class lifestyle. Very few people I know get paid enough to buy a starter home within 2 or 3 hours of where they work. I get paid more than my non tech peers yet still functionally have less spending power than a 25 year old from 30 years ago, despite b…

> I get paid more than my non tech peers yet still functionally have less spending power than a 25 year old from 30 years ago This seems like some non-generic case specific to your situation and not representative of the average experience. The median income in 1994 for over-25-year-olds (men only!) was $25,465 [0], women was less than half of that. Let's go with the figure for men for the sake of discussion. $25,465…

I'm Canadian for what it's worth. My mother who had a GED was able to purchase a house by my age. I can't purchase a house anywhere in southern Ontario at the moment. This fact is echoed across the majority of the country. My brother had to move to northern Alberta to be able to afford a house that had enough capacity for his family. And that naturally also changed the availability of social and job options

Re: Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

#70

Post by spencerflem »

art-not wrote: post #68
alephnerd wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love the lack of sympathy for tech workers across North America or perhaps even globally, when tech hub salaries still don’t allow tech workers to even have a middle class lifestyle Do you have empathy for IBs, PEs, and other members of High Finance? The difference in TC between High Finance and the equivalent roles in Tech are not that significant. Goldman Sach's IB Analysts starting salaries at the SF office we…

I have empathy for anyone who is trying to make ends meet, whatever that means. Why wouldn't I have empathy for those people?

Absolutely, all for working class solidarity.

With that said, I think most people recognize that there are some jobs where the goal is to make maximal money first, morals second. Like, oil executives for example I think most people would agree don't have the benefit of the doubt that they were just trying to make an honest living.

Its a sliding scale, and for some people I think 'tech bros' end up on the greedy / immoral side. I know that for me at least, anytime I'm outside of a tech hub, the response to saying that I'm a software developer is often 'oh . . .'

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