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Re: San Francisco

#211

Post by Spooky23 »

ryanSrich wrote: post #80

Eh. They can keep it. • Average engineering salary in sf: 116K / year [1] • Average rent for a one bedroom: $2,700 / month [2] After taxes you're coming in around 72k / year - 32k / year for rent You'll have roughly 40k to play with. That may sound like a lot but factor in food, health care, travel, energy, internet, phone, and numerous miscellaneous expenses and you'll be hard pressed to save anything over 10k a yea…

I live in a smaller place that isn't very exciting, but I make a SF style salary and pay $1,300/mo for a 4 bedroom house in a residential neighborhood. My office isn't a table with 4 rock stars and a dog, but the company will be there in 10 years too.

A good friend moved out to SF and loves it. He's mid twenties with no family, and living in sublets for 3 months at a time is fun for him. I probably would have dug that 20 years ago, but doing that now, with the prospect of moving to some lame suburb and commuting 2 hours when I start a family isn't so appealing to me.

In other words, most people do what works for them, today.

Re: San Francisco

#212

Post by acchow »

potatolicious wrote: post #182
hack_edu wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa-whoa-whoa hold up. The spiraling cost of rent 'threatens the well-being of our industry?' I say this as an engineer who's worked in the local industry during both booms and as a native-born "local." Sure, perhaps but only just like it does for every other industry besides fancy restaurants and cafes. Rent is too damn high and no one wants to pay it, and we seem to be the only ones who can. But lets get some pers…

I disagree. The rising cost of living will have nothing but detrimental impact on startups. When $1m used to buy a year of runway, now it's $2m, and you're not really getting any more for your money, you're just making sure your engineers have a decent roof over their heads. Your theory is sound except for one little problem: the Bay Area's transportation system is fucked. FUCKED . Completely, utterly, irredeemably f…

Why does high cost of rent threaten the tech industry? Can't it just shift focus to Boston/Tel Aviv/Berlin/Toronto/etc?

Re: San Francisco

#213

Post by acchow »

_pius wrote: post #210
potatolicious wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The rising cost of living will have nothing but detrimental impact on startups. When $1m used to buy a year of runway, now it's $2m, and you're not really getting any more for your money, you're just making sure your engineers have a decent roof over their heads. Your theory is sound except for one little problem: the Bay Area's transportation system is fucked. FUCKED . Completely, utterly, irredeemably f…

Your theory is sound except for one little problem: the Bay Area's transportation system is fucked. FUCKED. Completely, utterly, irredeemably fucked. BART is a joke, MUNI is like a fevered bad dream, Caltrain woefully inadequate. A little hyperbolic, I think.

Bay Area mass transit is far from fucked. There's a lot of infrastructure there that, with minor upgrades, could massively improve the situation. Take BART, for example. Not enough trains. Upgrade the system to support more trains and then BUY MORE TRAINS. Suddenly living in Daly City and commuting to SF is feasible.

Re: San Francisco

#214

Post by rahilsondhi »

nilkn wrote: post #198
potatolicious wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your math is reasonably fair, IMO. That being said, the type of work being done in DC and SF is vastly different. I attended an iOS conference in DC a few months ago (I'm based out of NYC) and was shocked at how few "tech company" people were present. Nearly everyone was working for a government agency, a government contractor, or freelancing with a primarily government client-base. Personally I don't think I can do…

Overall, SF makes me feel like the standard of living for developers is really going down, not up. For all that the startup culture has produced, it has also encouraged lots of people to basically save no money and significantly reduce their living standards all for the sake of "doing a startup." I'm always shocked to hear so many stories of people living in near poverty to work on a startup idea which is, in total h…

The roommate thing is really annoying. I'm a grown man with a full time job paying $100k+ and I gave to have roommates? That was not in the plan...

Re: San Francisco

#215

Post by [deleted] »

ryanSrich wrote: post #80

Eh. They can keep it. • Average engineering salary in sf: 116K / year [1] • Average rent for a one bedroom: $2,700 / month [2] After taxes you're coming in around 72k / year - 32k / year for rent You'll have roughly 40k to play with. That may sound like a lot but factor in food, health care, travel, energy, internet, phone, and numerous miscellaneous expenses and you'll be hard pressed to save anything over 10k a yea…

[deleted]

Re: San Francisco

#217

Post by nilkn »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #205
nilkn wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the weather here is great. I don't mind it at all. Your mileage may vary of course, but I find most people here do not find the weather to be a problem. > remember that ratios aren't really important when it comes to saving, only net Agreed, but the ratios have a big impact on what the net is. Right now, I wouldn't really be any better off going to SF in terms of saving potential. From talking with friends,…

It is certainly not the case that you need $300k a year to afford a $1M house. $800k for a thirty year term on 3.5% gives you around $3k/mo payments. That could be reasonably carried by someone making $120k after taxes (1/3rd net income rule). That said, for a lifetime home in this market you might need a little more than $1M, depending on what you're looking for and where you'd want to live. I don't think we actuall…

Yeah, I totally get why someone would go to the Bay Area. For me there were some particular reasons to stay in Houston. (1) I didn't want to leave my girlfriend behind; she couldn't have easily followed me if I had left at the time. (2) I really like the company I work for; amazing people, unique problems.

I lucked out in this regard; the biggest problem with Houston for developers is not the weather but finding a cool place to work. :P It's really a city for chemical engineers, not software engineers.

A lot of people here end up at Schlumberger or doing contracting for the oil and gas industry, which is decidedly not sexy. But it can pay well--there's an unfathomable amount of money flowing through the oil companies here. Not my cup of tea though.

Re: San Francisco

#218

Post by _pius »

rdouble wrote: post #152
davidw wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things that I really noticed when I moved from San Francisco to Italy was that here (Padua, Italy), there are young people, old people, rich people, and people not so well off. San Francisco is this kind of weird bubble where everyone has to have money to be there, so "regular people" don't exist. No kids, no old people, no people with sort of average jobs. I didn't like it, it felt too strange to me. I pr…

There are actually a lot of kids, and people with average jobs in SF. They just aren't white so tech people don't notice them. Regarding old people, retired people are actually the fastest growing demographic in the city.

There are actually a lot of kids, and people with average jobs in SF. They just aren't white so tech people don't notice them.

This, 1000x this.

Re: San Francisco

#219

Post by hack_edu »

subsystem wrote: post #192
hack_edu wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not already?

I would think that SF is still a fairly good place if you want start tech companies and SV is fairly good if you want to work for one with substance. In comparison LA doesn't seem to be the natural choice if you want to make movies nor if you want to be in one with substance. But this is mostly speculation.

Interesting. I see you analogy. I read that assuming you meant the next Hollywood in the sense that its the nexus of where people move to make it big and be cool in their industry, regardless of futility. Funny how it can be read both ways.

Re: San Francisco

#220

Post by rdouble »

subsystem wrote: post #192
hack_edu wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not already?

I would think that SF is still a fairly good place if you want start tech companies and SV is fairly good if you want to work for one with substance. In comparison LA doesn't seem to be the natural choice if you want to make movies nor if you want to be in one with substance. But this is mostly speculation.

LA still is where you want to be to make movies or TV shows.
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