Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

oaklandlocal.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 60 posts

Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

#31

Post by delackner »

bane wrote: post #29
georgewfraser wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SF has the same number of homeless people, as a percentage of the population, as NYC: https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/ahar-2013-p... (page 15) SF: 7,000 / 840,000 = 0.8% NY: 64,000 / 8,400,000 = 0.8%

Yet NYC doesn't have the perception of human poop plastered all over every available surface in the same way SF does.

Walking down the street in SF near the Caltrain station, right on the street in a parking space I saw a huge pile of discarded construction of waste wood, with exposed nails and sharp edges. In any city with functioning cleaning services, this would trigger a cleanup response, since it is unsafe and a nuisance. Yet this pile of crap appeared to have been there for quite some time.

To me this is the soft version of the broken window theory. If your city can't care enough to clean up its messes, yes people will treat the whole thing like a trash heap.

Contrast.

In Shibuya every single night, 365 days a year, drunk people puke and toss waste all over an area about 4 SF city blocks. Every single morning a team of govt workers clean it to fairly acceptable levels. The homeless also congregate under the nearby train tracks, but there are so many public FREE toilets that no, I have never seen shit on the street.

SF is dirty because the people prefer low taxes to real government services. Shibuya CITY tax is hefty and rises considerably if your income is above a certain level, maybe 100k, I forget the exact numbers.

Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

#32

Post by dllthomas »

ryanSrich wrote: post #8
teej wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

19th St Bart is right by Pandora, which (per glassdoor) seems to have a number of jobs around $100k. Cutting the cost and time of a commute is worth paying for.

Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

#33

Post by ryanSrich »

dllthomas wrote: post #32
ryanSrich wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

19th St Bart is right by Pandora, which (per glassdoor) seems to have a number of jobs around $100k. Cutting the cost and time of a commute is worth paying for.

That still seems way low to me. A qualified software engineer or designer can command a six figure salary remotely, thus eliminating a commute and the need to live in an expensive city. If Pandora is doing $150k for mid level developers then I'd say it's worth it, but not a penny less.

Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

#34

Post by staunch »

bane wrote: post #27
nailer wrote: post #10

I 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.

This exact topic just came up in a conversation I had today about some friends moving to SF from Seattle. I told them they better check out the Human Wasteland map [1] when choosing where they want to live. Depending on their desired poop contact level, they may want to choose neighborhoods selectively. The good news, it appears most of the human filth concentrates into a relatively isolated part of the city. The bad…

> I found L.A. far more filthy on average than SF, just less poop everywhere

SF refers to a ~50 square mile area. LA refers to a nearly 5,000 square mile area. Most of LA is far cleaner than SF in every way. There are only a few areas that are comparable.

Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

#35

Post by aorloff »

guelo wrote: post #30
justizin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interviewed with one of them, and they picked a fight with me about advertising because I felt my previous employer had taken the absolute lowest possible road. I continually tried to acquiesce, even noting that they had a paid option, and they basically said that they hate their paid customers, who they lose money on (why not charge us more?!?), and that they only ever did a paid option because they were forced to…

Fuck Pandora. They use to have a mission. Nowadays they've even given up on the vaunted Music Genome project in order to play more "hits" and shove in more advertising.

If the startup is venture backed, the mission is creating shareholder value. The rest is just lip service. You should know as much too.

Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

#36

Post by pla3rhat3r »

It makes me happy to see other markets besides Silicon Valley and SF (yes I do not consider SF part of the Silicon Valley) get some attention about what they're doing.

US News did a great piece about my hometown, Portland about how it's becoming a great place to start a company.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/2014/12/...

I can attest to this. SF is a great place to start a company, but Portland is a different world. People are much more collaborative. If you start a company here, you'll be able to find help. It's incredible. I'm Bay Area born and raised, but I'll never go back. The underserved markets are less toxic, more collaborative, and foster an ecosystem in which people can focus on their product or services without a lot of underlying tension.

Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

#37

Post by notjackma »

RyJones wrote: post #18
nailer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad you acknowledge the problem, but I think you're understanding it through a narrow lens yourself: there are many cities worldwide with the the same levels of homeslessness as San Francisco (or higher), none are as filthy. Hell even in the US Portland has methheads everywhere: they don't shit on the street. SF has a unique problem. Your claims about for profit prisons may be true, but they don't change the fac…

Agreed. San Francisco is the filthiest city I've ever worked in. That the residents appear A-OK with public activity that would at least warrant a visit by social services or the cops in other cities amuses and amazes.

> San Francisco is the filthiest city I've ever worked in.

Literally.

How many of you reading this are in San Francisco and live in an apartment building? Go and check the trash room.

You'll probably find that Recology emptied out the bins today but left garbage, even if tied up neatly in trash bags, piled up against the wall or door.

Disgusting and unsanitary. What happened to common sense? What happened to people doing their job? Seriously, is there some law which says that trashmen are not allowed to place trash bags into a wheelie bin for expensive compacting trucks to get to work?

San Francisco is one of the worst run cities I have ever seen.

Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

#38

Post by JumpCrisscross »

delackner wrote: post #31
bane wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet NYC doesn't have the perception of human poop plastered all over every available surface in the same way SF does.

Walking down the street in SF near the Caltrain station, right on the street in a parking space I saw a huge pile of discarded construction of waste wood, with exposed nails and sharp edges. In any city with functioning cleaning services, this would trigger a cleanup response, since it is unsafe and a nuisance. Yet this pile of crap appeared to have been there for quite some time. To me this is the soft version of th…

>SF is dirty because the people prefer low taxes to real government services

New Yorkers pay similar taxes as San Franciscans. Yet our service level is substantially better. I think it comes down to city governments that are willing to make trade-offs (versus those that tend to get locked down by incumbent interests and populist temptations).

Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

#39

Post by notjackma »

delackner wrote: post #31
bane wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet NYC doesn't have the perception of human poop plastered all over every available surface in the same way SF does.

Walking down the street in SF near the Caltrain station, right on the street in a parking space I saw a huge pile of discarded construction of waste wood, with exposed nails and sharp edges. In any city with functioning cleaning services, this would trigger a cleanup response, since it is unsafe and a nuisance. Yet this pile of crap appeared to have been there for quite some time. To me this is the soft version of th…

Walk down the tourist area of Haight Street towards the park and you'll see pieces of cardboard and what looks like dog poop or human faeces smeared all over the sidewalk. Outside every store is someone smoking marijuana. It's a terrible place to go for a walk with a baby or kids.

Re: Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

#40

Post by [deleted] »

staunch wrote: post #34
bane wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This exact topic just came up in a conversation I had today about some friends moving to SF from Seattle. I told them they better check out the Human Wasteland map [1] when choosing where they want to live. Depending on their desired poop contact level, they may want to choose neighborhoods selectively. The good news, it appears most of the human filth concentrates into a relatively isolated part of the city. The bad…

> I found L.A. far more filthy on average than SF, just less poop everywhere SF refers to a ~50 square mile area. LA refers to a nearly 5,000 square mile area. Most of LA is far cleaner than SF in every way. There are only a few areas that are comparable.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN