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Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

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Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#171

Post by scott_karana »

hwstar wrote: post #145
vessenes wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle is way, way cheaper, the people seem nice to me, and we've had like 9 months of sun, so much so that we were declared officially in drought. Just saying. Might not be Seattle that's the problem. As to traffic, I commute via boat, which is rad, since there are dolphins and orcas sometimes. Seriously!

Now, if Washington state would only ban noncompetes like California... Until more states ban noncompete contracts, I'll be staying in California.

You realize that you could, you know, get a Seattle job that didn't have a non-compete?

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#172

Post by rokhayakebe »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #4

That's ok. When Airbnb, Square, and Stripe IPO in 12-36 months, all of the people currently flooding into SF to work for them will surely be able to sell their pre-IPO shares to ... Well, I don't know, honestly. I doubt that employee #1000 at Square would even be able to pay the down payment on a SF condo with their earnings. Also, just FYI: Seattle isn't that much cheaper than SF, the people are way meaner, traffic…

How much does a decent house or decent condo cost in an nice (not very nice) neighborhood in SF? I can look at Zillow but I do not know which areas are good vs. bad.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#173

Post by hwstar »

Nicholas_C wrote: post #108
nullrouted wrote: post #2

Which is silly....honestly companies need to start opening offices in more affordable areas. Colorado (Blouder, Denver, The Springs), Texas (Austin, San Antonio), Missouri (Kansas City, Saint Louis)....there are so many places you can put your employees that saves them money as well as your company a lot of money not only in Salaries because you'll be able to employees less but your rent/power/etc.

There's a PE firm based out of Austin called Vista Equity Partners that does this. Recently they purchased a tech company and moved their headquarters from San Diego to downtown Dallas. This is probably a great way (for the PE firm) to get high salary employees to quit and hire employees at the lower Dallas salary rates. Also probably a stealthy way for them to shed headcount without layoffs and without running the r…

PE firms kill companies over the long term by sucking all of the value out, then spitting out the (much smaller) shell of a company.

When a company becomes controlled by PE, cost-cutting is the number 1 priority. Layoffs happen, the company slow-pays its suppliers and is constantly on credit hold, pay gets cut, benefits are cut, schedules become completely unrealistic, and misconceived products are launched which fail.

I've seen this all happen in the last company I worked for.

if you working for a company and it gets bought by PE, leave ASAP.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#174

Post by rconti »

ec072201-474b wrote: post #79

I was recently contemplating the hostility between tech workers and some SF residents who have lived here longer. Long-term residents blame tech workers for increasing housing prices and resulting evictions, but high rent is detrimental to both groups. Then I considered the interest group who is coming out on top in all of this: SF property owners. The total value of all residential property in SF is probably well in…

Prop 17 in CA magnifies the effect. When your property taxes can only go up by a small amount every year, there's literally no incentive for your property values to not go sky-high.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#175

Post by WalterSear »

vonmoltke wrote: post #162
WalterSear wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of those things that is a great idea until it isn't. When your employer goes belly up, in SF, you have to fight off job offers. That's not going to be the case elsewhere. It's also much harder on the employers: if you think finding one good job is hard, try hiring an entire team of decent employees at once. Ultimately, it's worth the extra cost of staying where the tech is, prefixing your city name ala 'S…

> When your employer goes belly up, in SF, you have to fight off job offers. That's a chicken-and-egg problem. Companies choose to set up shop there so employees will feel more comfortable taking risks because of the demand for developers. However, the demand for developers exists because companies tend to set up shop there.

So what?

Framing it that way doesn't make it any easier to resolve.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#176

Post by dopamean »

eastbayjake wrote: post #170
azakai wrote: post #136

The reasoning here seems wrong. Yes, > "the rule of thumb is that you shouldn't spend more than 30% of your monthly take home on rent", as they say, but that's just a rule of thumb. What actually matters is how much money you end up with. For example, assuming taxes remove 30% of income (probably close enough; would need to look up federal and state tax codes to be precise), 1. A Zynga employee makes 147,000, loses 3…

The other faulty reasoning here is that living without roommates is a reasonable expectation for most single, urban twentysomethings. Most engineers I know have roommates as much for social reasons as economic reasons. If you take most of those two bedroom rents and look at the cost per month per room, most are less than 30% of after-tax income. (And that's if you choose to live in SOMA, which also seems like an extr…

The Venn diagram of your friends and my friends must have no overlap. I know quite a few people who live in SF and not a single one has a roommate.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#177

Post by jaz46 »

This article is missing one really key point about working for these unicorn companies, the stock that goes along with salary.

The article is comparing salaries of mid-senior level engineers and that $120k-$150k salary also often comes with $200k - $1+M in stock. As a SF-based startup founder and having been in tech recruiting for years, the clear upside of working for a unicorn is the stock with much lower risk of downside, but still plenty of upside growth.

If you look at percentage of Total Comp to rent, the numbers aren't nearly as outrageous.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#178

Post by toomuchtodo »

saryant wrote: post #156
toomuchtodo wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll give you Denver, definitely high quality of life in Colorado. Not Vegas, most definitely not Texas (save for Austin), not Phoenix, and Atlanta is nowhere near friendly unless you work from home and never need to get into a car. Chattanooga is good, Nashville is good (but getting pricey), lots of space and smart people in North Carolina (Asheville or Raleigh Durham Research Triangle Park). I've heard good things…

I lived in Houston and San Antonio for several years. I grew up in the Bay Area and I now live in Boulder. I've also lived in Wyoming and France. Having sampled a fair number of places, I can safely say quality of life in Houston and San Antonio is far better than people on HN believe.

> I can safely say quality of life in Houston and San Antonio is far better than people on HN believe.

Unless you have a family. Texas schools are absolutely terrible.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#179

Post by vonmoltke »

meatysnapper wrote: post #74
nullrouted wrote: post #2

Which is silly....honestly companies need to start opening offices in more affordable areas. Colorado (Blouder, Denver, The Springs), Texas (Austin, San Antonio), Missouri (Kansas City, Saint Louis)....there are so many places you can put your employees that saves them money as well as your company a lot of money not only in Salaries because you'll be able to employees less but your rent/power/etc.

For people who like big dense cities, you have NYC and SF. That's it. SF has all the 99% of the good tech jobs and great weather. However, as soon as my employer opens up an office in Berlin, I'm out of the US. Even denser, even cooler and way better public transit.

> For people who like big dense cities, you have NYC and SF.

Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Miami would all like a word with you.

> SF has all the 99% of the good tech jobs

Boston would really like a word with you, now...

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#180

Post by toomuchtodo »

lukethomas wrote: post #105
toomuchtodo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lyft is moving its customer service team to Nashville due to the cost of SF rent. SFBA companies! Get it together! Learn to be remote teams. It makes you a better company in the end. EDIT: And you're not slaving your employees by forcing them to spend so much of their income on the unnecessary expense of SFBA housing.

Where I work (www.crystalknows.com) is based out of Nashville. I'm remote in Portland, ME (tons of good beer & restaurants) and I pay $1200/mo for a mortgage on a 2bedroom condo on the ocean. Just moved from Boston, and I'm saving a ton on living expenses. SF is the last place on earth I would move to.

I too am a remote worker, and I make an engineer salary while living in low cost-of-living US locals. You can live very well if you're not blowing your salary on rent in SF.
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