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Stripe to move to South San Francisco

sfchronicle.com

131–140 of 441 posts

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#131
It's a disappointingly boring corporate campus (the second photo in the article) for a well run company with lots of smart people.

The rendering shows a sad 1990's office park, complete with a path winding artificially along the water, office windows overlooking parking lots, and useless lawn accents that no one will ever play on. Imagine the desolate dystopian feeling when you came in to do a few hours work on a Saturday.

We should have the will, talent, and state capacity to build more San Francisco style urban landscape. High prices cause San Francisco's worst problems. More high quality urban areas would make these areas cheaper and more people could enjoy them.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#132

This blows, not so much because Stripe is leaving SF, but because it's going just over the border for tax purposes so 100% of employees who live in SF will stay in SF. The company just won't pay their fair share to the city to offset their impact. The line about this being about space and not taxes is hard to believe.[1] And for good reason. Last year Stripe funded an anti-homeless campaign just $1 shy of the reporti…

> The company just won't pay their fair share to the city to offset their impact.

The company's impact on what?

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> working to reduce office space That's a rather uncharitable characterization. SF is just trying to tie jobs to adequate housing construction. We already have way too few houses, especially low-income housing.[1] Which is what makes Stripe's move here particularly low integrity: they'll have all the housing impact on SF without paying any of the corporate taxes. From your own source: "A separate economic feasibility…

> SF is just trying to tie jobs to adequate housing construction And also making the assumption that only people who work in San Fransisco will live in San Fransisco? Because those Stripe employees who live in SF right now are likely not going to change their apartments. They'll continue living where they are, except now SF now longer benefits from the taxes that Stripe would otherwise have paid.

That's exactly why this tax dodge is such a low integrity move for Stripe. All their SF employees will remain in SF, but Stripe won't pay the corporate taxes to offset their impact on the housing market, transit infrastructure, etc.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> working to reduce office space That's a rather uncharitable characterization. SF is just trying to tie jobs to adequate housing construction. We already have way too few houses, especially low-income housing.[1] Which is what makes Stripe's move here particularly low integrity: they'll have all the housing impact on SF without paying any of the corporate taxes. From your own source: "A separate economic feasibility…

>SF is just trying to tie jobs to adequate housing construction If that was the case wouldn't a tax by number of employees be what to push through?

It actually used to be that way (payroll tax) until the tech industry pushed through the gross receipts tax. But taxing office square footage is also a reasonable approximation for headcount.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#136
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real question in my mind is why does Stripe bother to exist if they're barely breaking even. Stripe has a valuation of $35,000,000,000 USD[0]. The real question I have is how anyone thinks Stripe is "barely breaking even." 0 - https://www.forbes.com/sites/donnafuscaldo/2019/09/19/stripe...

Valuation and profit or loss are not connected (see Uber).

...WeWork, Theranos,...

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SF is just trying to tie jobs to adequate housing construction And also making the assumption that only people who work in San Fransisco will live in San Fransisco? Because those Stripe employees who live in SF right now are likely not going to change their apartments. They'll continue living where they are, except now SF now longer benefits from the taxes that Stripe would otherwise have paid.

That's exactly why this tax dodge is such a low integrity move for Stripe. All their SF employees will remain in SF, but Stripe won't pay the corporate taxes to offset their impact on the housing market, transit infrastructure, etc.

Doesn’t SF have some kind of municipal tax that the employees pay?

I work in a different city where I live. But pay ~20% municipal tax (not US) that pays for infra etc that I use.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#138

This blows, not so much because Stripe is leaving SF, but because it's going just over the border for tax purposes so 100% of employees who live in SF will stay in SF. The company just won't pay their fair share to the city to offset their impact. The line about this being about space and not taxes is hard to believe.[1] And for good reason. Last year Stripe funded an anti-homeless campaign just $1 shy of the reporti…

> Last year Stripe funded an anti-homeless campaign just $1 shy of the reporting threshold

I don’t get the sense that San Francisco’s homeless problem can be solved by throwing dollars at it. San Francisco chooses high housing prices by restricting construction. Its NIMBYs block tackling its homelessness problem.

Money won’t change those choices by San Francisco’s voters. It will just swell another city bureaucracy.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#139
post #131

It's a disappointingly boring corporate campus (the second photo in the article) for a well run company with lots of smart people. The rendering shows a sad 1990's office park, complete with a path winding artificially along the water, office windows overlooking parking lots, and useless lawn accents that no one will ever play on. Imagine the desolate dystopian feeling when you came in to do a few hours work on a Sat…

Come on, that's slightly unfair... "office windows overlooking parking lots" - but with a pretty nice sea view. And the path seems like a nice place to jog at lunch. Maybe even go for a swim?

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#140
Why are all these companies in San Francisco?

Because that's where it was the place to be for cool tech companies, start-ups, and venture capitalism.

Now that companies realize they can just move to Witchita, Kansas or wherever else they want, they will.

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