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Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

oaklandlocal.com

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

#41

Post by shampine »

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.

Downtown LA here, it's dirty. Extremely dirty. But a wonderful place otherwise.

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

#42

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]

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

#43

Post by gcv »

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.

No. Coastal California is populated by Democratic voters, people who generally prefer high taxes and more (albeit of questionable quality) government services. SF is dirty because it has never had a Rudy Giuliani to clean it up — and the aforementioned residents would never vote someone like that into office.

(I grew up in NYC, and have been living in both SF and Oakland for the last four years.)

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

#44

Post by bartonfink »

justizin wrote: post #12
krakensden wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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…

That's interesting. Their Boulder office contacted me earlier this year about an interview, and I felt it would have been a pointless exercise since they'd fallen so far behind their competition (iTunes/Apple, Spotify, Grooveshark) that innovation and quality would take a back seat to revenue. Having just left a job at MapQuest (which is well on a similar advertising-driven downward spiral), I just declined and haven't heard anything further.

Glad to hear an anecdote that confirms I made the right read on that.

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

#45

Post by dllthomas »

ryanSrich wrote: post #33
dllthomas wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not all those jobs were development roles.

http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Pandora-Salaries-E262334.htm

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

#47

Post by ch4ch4 »

notjackma wrote: post #37
RyJones wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

BTW, Recology will not pick up trash that's not in the bin because the trash collection service is billed by volume. They'll usually ask the subscriber to upgrade to a larger bin.

[That's what happens when a private company is granted a monopoly to perform a necessary public service.](http://www.trashrecology.com/stop-the-sf-monopoly.html)

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

#48

Post by spamizbad »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #38
delackner wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

NYC has plenty of incumbent interests and populist temptations.

It has one major thing over SF that makes it work: It gains much more tax revenue per square mile than SF due to its superior density, which is derived from history and its superior zoning rules.

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

#49

Post by thrownaway2424 »

tzs wrote: post #7

According 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 inco…

Being in danger in Oakland is related to being part of a dense network of dangerous people. If you're not in that network, you're not in danger. I don't know why those people make their home in Oakland, but basically if you're not a criminal or friends with criminals than you'll survive.

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

#50

Post by thrownaway2424 »

NDizzle wrote: post #28

My personal experience is trying to run a food related startup in Oakland. It didn't go so hot, but then again I think we tried to do too much. We tried to make the food, deliver the food, and provide the technology to order the food. (a menu that changes day to day - different menu items based on what was in season, etc) In 2010. It may seem that you can be the 'local boy makes good' when in Oakland, rather than SF.…

Maybe people in Oakland don't need food delivered because we don't have multi-hour lines out the door of every restaurant like SF has :)
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