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

Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 233 posts

Re: Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

#171

Post by marssaxman »

Vysero wrote: post #145
bcyn wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, it's not so cut and dry. It's sort of cyclical IMO: - There are already a ton of existing technology companies in the Bay Area, and also a ton of employees. - Students from schools around the country who are interested in tech might plan to move to the Bay Area due to the number of companies there. - If your company doesn't hire in the Bay Area, it may miss out on the chance to hire the employees in the gr…

So no tax or media related incentives to being in the Bay Area? You don't think it's worth more to Google to say: "Our headquarters are in SF" rather than: "Our headquarters are in podunk MT"? I wouldn't be surprised to find out that 90% of the reason FANG companies operate in large metropolitan areas has almost nothing to do with employees and everything to do with global image.

That does not make a lot of sense to me. Google did not open a Seattle office because it enhanced their "global image", but because the presence of Microsoft, UW, Amazon, and a generally thriving tech scene meant that they would gain access to lots of experienced engineers who might be unwilling to move to California. Now they employ thousands of people up here. Facebook did the same thing; they also have a large Seattle office, right down the street from Amazon. Apple has a Seattle office too, focusing on machine learning. Not quite up to a thousand people yet, last I heard, but they have plans to grow. Lots of ML going on in Seattle.

When Intel acquired the AI startup I worked for a couple years ago, they built us a downtown office, much bigger than our team currently needed. Why? Because there are lots of AI people in Seattle who will not move to California, and Intel wants a chance to hire them. But it's still a very small office compared to Intel's global footprint; it does not affect their "image" at all. It's just a practical way of gaining access to Seattle's engineering talent.

It is a simple virtuous cycle. The presence of good jobs draws people who want to work in the field, and the presence of people with experience draws the companies who want to hire them. Geographic concentration is efficient.

Re: Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

#172

Post by pertymcpert »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #153
foogazi wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it turned out it would be effectively a 3x salary decrease What do you mean by 3x decrease? X/3 ?

Right. Bad phrasing. I meant X/3. I.e. after subtracting the essentials, I'd be able to afford 1/3 of good and services equivalent to what I could afford in my current location on previous salary.

If you're only being offered 1.5x your salary to move to London, then assuming you're in Poland, your current salary is very high for your region.

Re: Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

#173

Post by kthejoker2 »

Vysero wrote: post #145
bcyn wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, it's not so cut and dry. It's sort of cyclical IMO: - There are already a ton of existing technology companies in the Bay Area, and also a ton of employees. - Students from schools around the country who are interested in tech might plan to move to the Bay Area due to the number of companies there. - If your company doesn't hire in the Bay Area, it may miss out on the chance to hire the employees in the gr…

So no tax or media related incentives to being in the Bay Area? You don't think it's worth more to Google to say: "Our headquarters are in SF" rather than: "Our headquarters are in podunk MT"? I wouldn't be surprised to find out that 90% of the reason FANG companies operate in large metropolitan areas has almost nothing to do with employees and everything to do with global image.

That's certainly true at my parent company (Accenture) - we're (in a completely neutral way) a completely different animal than "Silicon Valley unicorn", but we still have a huge gleaming building in SF because it projects a particular image.

Re: Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

#174

Post by kthejoker2 »

bcyn wrote: post #164
Vysero wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So no tax or media related incentives to being in the Bay Area? You don't think it's worth more to Google to say: "Our headquarters are in SF" rather than: "Our headquarters are in podunk MT"? I wouldn't be surprised to find out that 90% of the reason FANG companies operate in large metropolitan areas has almost nothing to do with employees and everything to do with global image.

Would that image or media related incentive exist without the huge amount of tech work in the Bay Area? My point is that the pull of the Bay Area is cyclical - supply of tech workers fuels the SV image which fuels more supply of tech workers. I think it all started with tech workers though. If Stanford or another incubator of tech innovators was in podunk MT, then we would be discussing that location instead.

Yes, look at all the AI growth at Carnegie Mellon, University of Waterloo, Tallinn, Estonia - any relatively well-managed metropolitan area can position itself as an "innovation hub", the US West Coast certainly doesn't have a monopoly on it.

Re: Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

#175

Post by hhujhyyy »

Jemaclus wrote: post #2

This is one of the things that's always bothered me. Let's say you hire me for your company in San Francisco and pay me $150K. You've made a calculation: my value to the company is greater than $150K, and $150K is a price you're willing to pay to leverage that value. In other words, the company will (eventually) make more than $150K per year off my contributions to the company. But now if I decide to move to Tulsa, O…

I think that some people in SF aren't probably worth SF salary. They are viable due to people used to working in co-located env and to having some superior peers. Also laws require equal pays for similar position in many countries.

Opening remote might make market more competitive. Speaking for myself, living outside US: I am able only to command 1/3 of SF salary(top in my market) although I could easily replace many people working in FB, earning much more than I do. Only if they were hiring in my city. (Pretty sure as had offers from Amazon, Gooogle etc. but they would require moving or local projects weren't interesting).

Re: Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

#177

Post by dlp211 »

economicslol wrote: post #158
volkk wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you remove B you've massively increased the available talent pool. i'm not convinced this is the case. maybe by a bit...but massively? if you look at all of the places that all of the top paying FAANG companies are located--lets keep it within the US for simplicity's sake--you've got basically all of the major cities with the top talent. I'm not really picturing THAT many brilliant developers that fall under the…

>I'm not really picturing THAT many brilliant developers that fall under the bucket of: a) really smart and able to pass FAANG interviews b) not willing to relocate if they did get a huge offer What about anyone that wants to own a home before they are 40? Even on FAANG salaries its very difficult to buy when millionaires are snatching up fixer uppers for $1M+ all cash.

Every person I work with is under 40 and everyone that wants to own a home, does. SF and NYC are not the only tech hubs in the US.

Re: Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

#178

Post by Tade0 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #120
Tade0 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relocating for most people is actually a bigger deal than it may seem. I personally have no problem with it and did just that at least once, but after returning I asked around and most if not all of my friends and family would not do the same even for - and this was especially shocking to me - 4x the salary. Apparently flexibility is rare and sought after.

Was that 4x the salary truly 4x, after subtracting out the costs of living? I got an offer for an on-site job in London the other day, that would technically be ~1.5x salary boost - and ~5x the salary I had the last time I worked for a local company. But after subtracting out the costs of living, it turned out it would be effectively a 3x salary decrease , and at the same time a significant degradation in the standar…

Given that it was Zürich where CHF = PLN looking at sticker prices(with exceptions), my cost of living as a percentage of salary actually went down since I was renting a room instead of a whole apartment.

In terms of what I could nominally save every month the difference was enormous.

But yeah, with a child on board I would definitely have to get something larger paying somewhere in the order of 25-35% of my salary. But that's just CHF = PLN again, so no increase here.

Re: Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

#179

Post by TeMPOraL »

pertymcpert wrote: post #172
TeMPOraL wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Bad phrasing. I meant X/3. I.e. after subtracting the essentials, I'd be able to afford 1/3 of good and services equivalent to what I could afford in my current location on previous salary.

If you're only being offered 1.5x your salary to move to London, then assuming you're in Poland, your current salary is very high for your region.

The salary I referenced is high for the region in general (and I had it on a remote contract with an US company, though in hindsight, it was under market rate), but not necessarily for our industry, for the position I would be otherwise aiming for locally.

From my calculations, London works out quite well if you're single and willing to sacrifice heavily on the living space. It also works out a-OKish for two-income families with children at kindergarten age. Not so well with a toddler; I was shocked to discover that daycare costs more than rent on a two-bedroom flat west-side.

Re: Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

#180

Post by jordhy »

Jemaclus wrote: post #2

This is one of the things that's always bothered me. Let's say you hire me for your company in San Francisco and pay me $150K. You've made a calculation: my value to the company is greater than $150K, and $150K is a price you're willing to pay to leverage that value. In other words, the company will (eventually) make more than $150K per year off my contributions to the company. But now if I decide to move to Tulsa, O…

Actually no one can precisely predict how much an employee is going to net for the company - companies lose a lot of money in bad hires. You are being payed according to a scale that works out to keeps costs down, as much as possible for a specific cost center.
Post reply on HN