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The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

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Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#3

Post by flyingprogram »

parandeh wrote: post #2

Another explanation could be that real estate costs is driving founders and startups out of the city. If most of the founders don't live in SF, they're more likely to open offices in the valley. Heavy traffic to/from SF doesn't help with the situation.

But that hypothesis doesn't let the author post a click-bait title/article!

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#4

Post by ben_jones »

parandeh wrote: post #2

Another explanation could be that real estate costs is driving founders and startups out of the city. If most of the founders don't live in SF, they're more likely to open offices in the valley. Heavy traffic to/from SF doesn't help with the situation.

Or the hour+ commute. The opportunity cost of not only that much time 5 days a week, but the tiredness, delays, and other hassles that are involved, are just something you avoid if you have the leverage.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#5

Post by ultimoo »

TL;DR: The investments are moving from the city proper to South Bay over the last 2-3 years. Mostly a good writeup backed by sufficient data points.

If I may anecdotally share my observations, of the handful of people that I personally know who have founded Startups in 2016 and 2017 -- all of them are in their late 30s, and have dependents (spouse, children, pets). All of them currently live on the peninsula or in the south bay, even if at some point in the past most of them lived in the city.

It is increasingly getting harder and harder to justify the costs of living in the city in view of the small livable space that your apartment gets you. Add to that a lousy school system, a never-ending homeless problem, and an incompetent MTA. Living in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, or Mtv. mitigates most of these flaws while retaining all the upside of being in the bay area.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#6

Post by kevinburke »

Both top-level comments have mentioned housing prices. I grew up in the Bay Area and want to stay here and I am trying to work to change policy to help build more housing. Unfortunately due to law, bad policy and NIMBY's the market is not going to solve this problem on its own, without political change rents and housing prices will keep increasing. Here are some political actions you can take to help:

- call your State Assemblymember about SB 35, which would streamline (read: Force cities to approve) the production of housing near transit. Up for a vote very soon

- call your State Assemblymember and ask them to vote Yes on AB 71, which would end the state tax deduction on second/third homes and use the money to build affordable housing.

- contact the Brisbane City Council and ask them to build housing on the Baylands, near Bayshore Caltrain. The developer wants to build 4,400 units and the city wants to build 0. Baylands@ci.brisbane.ca.us

- Ask for more housing in the Central SOMA plan. BART and Caltrain are packed every commute hour and they want to add 50,000 new jobs and only 7,500 new housing units. Best is to show up for the hearings, failing that, email the plan director, steve.wertheim@sfgov.org. http://sf-planning.org/central-soma-plan#contacts

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#8

Post by m-j-fox »

kevinburke wrote: post #6

Both top-level comments have mentioned housing prices. I grew up in the Bay Area and want to stay here and I am trying to work to change policy to help build more housing. Unfortunately due to law, bad policy and NIMBY's the market is not going to solve this problem on its own, without political change rents and housing prices will keep increasing. Here are some political actions you can take to help: - call your Sta…

The one that confuses me is AB 71. Aren't 2nd and 3rd homes basically rental stock? Owned by individuals and not the Irving Company if you care about that.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#9

Post by [deleted] »

ultimoo wrote: post #5

TL;DR: The investments are moving from the city proper to South Bay over the last 2-3 years. Mostly a good writeup backed by sufficient data points. If I may anecdotally share my observations, of the handful of people that I personally know who have founded Startups in 2016 and 2017 -- all of them are in their late 30s, and have dependents (spouse, children, pets). All of them currently live on the peninsula or in th…

[deleted]
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