Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer
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Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer
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Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer
#2Oakland is incredibly close to San Francisco. If you want all the benefits of being in Silicon Valley's startup network with only a fraction of the cost, then Oakland is your spot. The only downside is that many businesses already realize this and have begun driving up renting costs.
Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer
#3Great article. The diversity in tech is definitely apparent in Oakland. Not just in employee demographics, but in how companies tend to think in a different manner.
The article mentions that start-ups in Oakland are driven by a social mission, and it's very true. I work at VSCO and we're based in Oakland. VSCO is not about giving likes, being popular, or generating money through ads. We are simply about empowering the community with the art of photography. Without trying to sound too self-righteous, I like to think that the tech companies coming to Oakland also share a sentiment of contributing to social causes bigger than themselves.
Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer
#4Oakland is incredibly close to San Francisco. If you want all the benefits of being in Silicon Valley's startup network with only a fraction of the cost, then Oakland is your spot. The only downside is that many businesses already realize this and have begun driving up renting costs.
> have begun driving up renting costs
The two bedroom I rented near the 19th St BART in Oakland was $1,700 in 2009 and is now on the market for over $4,000 a month.
Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer
#5Oakland is incredibly close to San Francisco. If you want all the benefits of being in Silicon Valley's startup network with only a fraction of the cost, then Oakland is your spot. The only downside is that many businesses already realize this and have begun driving up renting costs.
The real estate market in oakland is crazy- wild amounts of office space have changed hands over the past few years.
That said, SF has approximately "a downtown oakland" in office space in the pipeline.
Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer
#6Great article. The diversity in tech is definitely apparent in Oakland. Not just in employee demographics, but in how companies tend to think in a different manner. The article mentions that start-ups in Oakland are driven by a social mission, and it's very true. I work at VSCO and we're based in Oakland. VSCO is not about giving likes, being popular, or generating money through ads. We are simply about empowering th…
> I like to think that the tech companies coming to Oakland also share a sentiment of contributing to social causes bigger than themselves.
I'm pretty skeptical. It's telling, too, that there was no mention of the big companies with their names on towers.
Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer
#7According to Wikipedia, "Oakland has the fifth largest cluster of 'elite zip codes' ranked by the number of households with the highest combination of income and education". That's a good sign.
On the other hand, Oakland is also persistently near the top of the list of most dangerous cities in the US. One recent report put it at #2 [1]. That's generally not a good sign.
Is there much interaction between the high income/high education areas (presumably where you'd want to put your start up), and the high crime areas?
BTW, in addition to having one of the highest crime cities in the nation with Oakland, the Silicon Valley area also has one of the lowest. That would be Sunnyvale, which was the 10th on this recent list of safest cities in the US [2].
[1] http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/11/11/the-most-dang...
[2] http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/11/12/the-safest-ci...
Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer
#8Oakland is incredibly close to San Francisco. If you want all the benefits of being in Silicon Valley's startup network with only a fraction of the cost, then Oakland is your spot. The only downside is that many businesses already realize this and have begun driving up renting costs.
> have begun driving up renting costs The two bedroom I rented near the 19th St BART in Oakland was $1,700 in 2009 and is now on the market for over $4,000 a month.
In Oakland? That seems about right, considering it's a 2 bedroom, a comparable spot in SF would be closer to $6 or $7k.
Out of curiosity do you know the folks living their now? I'm always curious to hear who these people that are making enough money to justify a $4k rent payment.
The Bay Area never ceases to amaze me. The rent prices are so crazy yet the pay increase is negligible.
Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer
#9Great article. The diversity in tech is definitely apparent in Oakland. Not just in employee demographics, but in how companies tend to think in a different manner. The article mentions that start-ups in Oakland are driven by a social mission, and it's very true. I work at VSCO and we're based in Oakland. VSCO is not about giving likes, being popular, or generating money through ads. We are simply about empowering th…
> I like to think that the tech companies coming to Oakland also share a sentiment of contributing to social causes bigger than themselves. I'm pretty skeptical. It's telling, too, that there was no mention of the big companies with their names on towers.
Your skepticism for the bigger companies is certainly just. My comments are more inclined to smaller start-ups like GoldieBlox and Qeyno.
Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer
#10I don't live in the US, but it's weird: downtown San Francisco people tend to look down on Oakland, but every time I've been, San Francisco is unique in having human feces on the streets.
In Oakland: there's a bunch of parks, a hacker space called the sudo room, a bunch of JS related companies included npm Inc are headquartered there and the last JSFest was there.