What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco • Hacker News Board

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#151

Post by bostonpete » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 6:36 PM UTC

smhinsey wrote: post #71

petercooper wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LA has some of the worst road surfaces I've seen anywhere , even on the freeways. On the flip side, though, I suspect the US has more than 5x the roads despite only having 5x our population.

It's also a really big deal when you shut down a freeway, even if it is for maintenance that'll improve it. Not many cities make national news with road closures like LA has done with the 405. The cost of this maintenance goes way beyond time & materials.

Major highways in metro areas are regularly resurfaced and repaired. It doesn't take a long-term shutdown of the road. They just shut down one or two lanes late at night, repave or repair a section of the road, and then do the same for the other lanes a different night.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#152

Post by fennecfoxen » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 6:37 PM UTC

DanBC2 wrote: post #13

>The most crushing aspect I saved for last though. Taxes here are significantly higher than I’ve experienced anywhere. This means you’re squeezed both on your take home pay and your expenses. ...and some weirdness means they don't spend that money on roads, so the road surfaces are lousy . Maybe I've been spoiled by our great road surfaces in UK.

"...and some weirdness means they don't spend that money on roads"

Of course they don't! They spend it on public-sector employee pensions, and boondoggle public-transit projects like that high-speed rail link between Bakersfield and Fresno. :P

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#153

Post by bherms » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 6:38 PM UTC

noname123 wrote: post #124

sakopov wrote: post #98

In my opinion the high cost of living kills everything else on that list. I'd much rather have a comfortable living, travel the world and be optimistic that i will have no problems buying a nice house for me and my spouse/family if i need to/should i want to. I don't really see this possible based on what i hear from a couple of friends living and working there. Both consumed by their tech jobs, some cool things to d…

Just curious, in your opinion, what should be the net worth target for people making regular tech income in their 30's, 40's and 50's if they want to eek out comfortable living in retirement, inflation-adjusted?

Not my opinion, but I once read somewhere that you should aim for a savings (+investments) of 1x salary by 30, 5x by 40, 10+x by 50.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#154

Post by mjn » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 6:38 PM UTC

jacoblyles wrote: post #103

gambiting wrote: post #97

Oh US and your complaining about taxes. "You leave with ONLY 65% of your income after paying taxes". In Denmark you pay 60% in taxes, so you leave with 40% of your income in your pocket. And petrol is now more than $10/US gallon.

How healthy is the angel funding scene in Denmark? The western European model seems great if you want a life safely doing what has always been done.

Depends strongly on the area, with probably more focus than in the U.S. on whether the company will produce either scientific or cultural innovation in addition to profits, because many of the funds come from nonprofits or state initiatives. There is a lot of seed funding for companies that can show they'll produce a scientific impact, through either state-funded "research commercialization" grants (where a company will propose to turn academic research into a product), or through quasi-charitable private initiatives like http://www.novo.dk/composite-364.htm

There is also a ton of arts funding, much larger than in the U.S. on a per-capita basis, to the extent that it bleeds over into funding tech companies too. For example, Playdead (makers of Limbo) got their initial ~$150k in funding from the Danish Film Institute, and I know two founders with seed funding from the Nordic Game Program.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#155

Post by mstefanko » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 6:39 PM UTC

droz wrote: post #113

I was amused by point "SF is a super fit city." As someone who lives in Boulder, CO and frequently visits SF, I feel like SF has a lot of out of shape people compared to Boulder. Guess it's all relative.

haha totally is. I moved to SF from Pittsburgh, a home of cold winters, hot summers, and greasy foods. I felt like I didn't see an obese person for the first 6 months of living here, but it was all relative to what I was used to seeing on a regular basis.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#156

Post by bherms » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 6:40 PM UTC

jes5199 wrote: post #149

Here's one that I don't see discussed much: The tech meetup culture isn't that great. In other cities with moderately sized tech communities (Seattle, Portland, Austin...) the user group communities are a strong social force - it's how people collaborate, and how they share skill and technology news. In SF, people are too busy working late at their well-funded post-startup jobs to go hang out and talk about code as a…

Also meetups here suck because most of the people in the tech scene aren't really that fun to be around. I've been to a few launches and it was nothing but the following: 1) people inflating their egos talking about worthless metrics, how many exits they've been a part of, and how what they're doing now is changing the world (guess what, it's not), 2) people just looking to be a part of the "it" crowd of SV, 3) people looking to find some engineer dumb enough to be their tech guy and execute the idea they have for a paltry equity stake.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#157

Post by kjackson2012 » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 6:40 PM UTC

bluetidepro wrote: post #8

OP, did you honestly not know how expensive it was, as well as a few of these other points in the article? I would be shocked if that's the case. Most of the items in the post are pretty well-known things about the San Fran area. More or less, the title is a bit of link bait, and I doubt most of you don't already know these things about San Fran (or the bay area, for that matter).

No. I've been living here for 15 years and the rent increase in the last 1.5 years has shocked everyone. I thought it the worst was during the dotcom bubble and my rent went from 1900 to 2300/month for a 2ba/2ba, but I've seen some rents go up $1000/month in the last year, and 2br/2ba in SOMA is $4k/month.

It's on a pace that we've never seen before.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#158

Post by run4yourlives » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 6:40 PM UTC

michaelhoffman wrote: post #88

run4yourlives wrote: post #72

This seems more of a "West Coast vs. East Coast" article than it is a "San Fran" article. For the most part, the author is highlighting the differences that anybody living on the East Coast will experience in moving to one of the western coastal cities, save perhaps LA, which as everyone already knows is its own little planet. Most of these "hints" hold true for San Diego, San Fran, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. T…

I'm sorry, I just don't think these points are true for the other cities you mention. As a Seattle inhabitant, the descriptions of San Francisco-specific weather, rent, cost of living, costumes, events, transients, canine-friendliness, fog, commuting, and other things just do not apply here. Of the first few things mentioned, only the strong neighborhood identity is something we share.

It's most certainly true with regards to weather. Nights are noticeably colder everywhere on the west coast than in the hot, humid north east.

canine-friendliness

I'm not sure you understand what a canine-unfriendly city looks like - Seattle is certainly canine friendly.

fog

Not as bad, sure, but fog in Philly or Toronto is like an bi-annual event.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#159

Post by philwelch » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 6:41 PM UTC

sakopov wrote: post #98

In my opinion the high cost of living kills everything else on that list. I'd much rather have a comfortable living, travel the world and be optimistic that i will have no problems buying a nice house for me and my spouse/family if i need to/should i want to. I don't really see this possible based on what i hear from a couple of friends living and working there. Both consumed by their tech jobs, some cool things to d…

Be sure you're counting both sides of that. If you can get work in a lucrative field, higher cost of living is offset by higher income, and you actually get ahead on aggregate since some expenses are the same nationwide.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#160

Post by aliston » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 6:41 PM UTC

jasonshen wrote: post #91

driverdan wrote: post #83

I considered moving to SF but chose Austin instead. I refuse to live in a state with such a dysfunctional government and ridiculously high taxes. Some of the same reasons I left NY. You can do tech anywhere. You do not need to live in the bay area. If you really like the city pick a place (like Austin) with inexpensive direct flights and go a few times a month. You'll still save money.

You CAN do tech anywhere, just as you CAN be a banker outside of NYC or an actor outside of LA. Doesn't mean it's the most efficient or effective way. I have lots of respect for people who choose to live in other parts of the world but to suggest that there's not much difference between living in SF or Austin for someone interested in starting or working for a successful technology firm is inaccurate. I don't count f…

^This. I've lived in both SF and Austin. Austin is a bad ass city. In terms of quality of life, as a young and single male, it is a complete and total no brainer that Austin is better than SF. Better nightlife, more attractive women, cheaper cost of living, less bums, more sunlight, better weather (if you prefer hot to cold), better urban/outdoor balance...

BUT, in terms of the startup scene, SF is in another league. Austin has some successful startups, but they seem to be largely enterprise focused. It's going to be a long time before you see a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Yelp, Dropbox etc. founded here. If you're doing a startup, particularly in the consumer space, SF is the place to be.