Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis

#181

Post by hlfshell » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 4:01 PM UTC

slm_HN wrote: post #23

carsongross wrote: post #2

> If you’re trying to bootstrap, being based in San Francisco is awful. Especially if you have a family. I rented a four bedroom house in a great neighborhood in Sacramento that was a bike ride from Midtown for $2900/mo. We ended up buying a bigger house in the same neighborhood for even less per month. No commute, food is cheap, etc. The cost savings are enormous, and I'm sure it's more expensive than St. Louis... Y…

I know this isn't exactly the best metric, but the demand for programmers in St. Louis seems very low. When I look at Craigslist I see a couple Java jobs, a couple PHP jobs and even one godforsaken VB.net job. Even Jeff Atwood doesn't use VB.net. So I'm doubtful that it would be easier to keep the contracts coming in while in St. Louis.

I haven't commented on a Hacker News item for a long time. As a programmer who's constantly looking to expand his team with someone I can trust to do good work, we can't hire them fast enough. The tech scene here is rapidly growing and it's not hard for a good programmer to land a spot in a tech company here.

Re: Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis

#182

Post by ulfw » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 4:08 PM UTC

beachstartup wrote: post #83

if i had a business based in SF and wanted to move, i would move to west LA. actually, i already did that, years ago. SF is a pain in the ass to live in, even if you have lots of money.

100% agree! Santa Monica/West LA is so much better in terms of price/value, weather, quality of life, food, things to do. Just traffic sucks

Re: Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis

#183

Post by ulfw » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 4:08 PM UTC

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #103

A lot of people say SF/SV/etc is terrible because it's full of Californians, but I've lived all over the country and known lots of people from lots of states and I'd rather live among Californians than Missourians or (god forbid) Texans.

A large number of IT folks in SF aren't from California or even America for that matter.

Re: Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis

#184

Post by dugmartin » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 4:36 PM UTC

colanderman wrote: post #171

dugmartin wrote: post #93

The last picture is of the City Musuem. If you are ever near St Louis with kids you have to go there. It is one of the coolest places I've ever been to. http://www.citymuseum.org/site/

You don't need kids to have fun there.

I think I might have had more fun than my kids did. Climbing outside in rebar tubes 40 feet above the ground is a lot of fun. We didn't do the 7 story slide though - we walked up there but the line was not moving at all.

We are going back this summer (I live in New England but go home to Southern Illinois every summer for a visit).

Re: Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis

#185

Post by csense » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 4:44 PM UTC

Why relocate instead of hiring remote workers?

Re: Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis

#186

Post by walshemj » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 5:12 PM UTC

a3n wrote: post #165

walshemj wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then how come all the pics I have seen of the buss/gentrification >90% protesters have been young whites?

Probably because they are predominately young whites, but always remember that the picture you see is the photographer's choice (by taking it or not) and the editor's choice by running the one he did and not the ones he didn't. Every picture tells a story, but not necessarily the only one.

True enough but this has happened more than once

Re: Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis

#187

Post by doorhammer » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 5:24 PM UTC

icantthinkofone wrote: post #163

doorhammer wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are definitely some bad parts of st. louis, but I have to say, the one main rule: stay out of east st. louis. It's pretty bad news. Luckily, if you're in the missouri section of saint louis, you'd have to stumble pretty badly to accidentally cross the Mississippi and end up there.

To be clear, East St. Louis is not part of St. Louis and isn't even in the same state.

Yeah. But how the city is technically setup doesn't stop people from being confused and stopping there.

I'm not saying that east st. louis is terrible as an indictment of st. louis. I love stl. I can't wait to move back. I've just met a lot of random folks who don't realize that east st. louis is different, and stop by.

Luckily, if you stay on the west side of the river, you're pretty much fine. I lived in the city near the botanical gardens for awhile and it was great.

There are sketchy places in St. Louis itself, but they're not as bad as east st. louis, and that's like just about any other city I've been.

Re: Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis

#188

Post by doorhammer » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 5:49 PM UTC

fractalsea wrote: post #178

doorhammer wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good idea of what it looks like in St Louis: http://weatherspark.com/averages/31697/St-Louis-Missouri-Uni... Humidity was always the killer for me. I remember flying from San Diego to St. Louis. It was 75 degrees and dry in San Diego, and 102 degrees with 94% humidity in St. Louis. I wanted to die, heh That said, I always liked the variety. It means that I have pretty strong, nostalgic feelings associated with the se…

That site is a brilliant resource. Thanks for sharing. One of my main considerations when moving somewhere is the climate. It would be cool if the site had links to places with similar climates (could be calculated with some kind of distance metric from all the variables). I loved the climate in Sydney, so it would be nice to see a list of places in the world where it's similar.

No problem. That's actually the first time I've seen it as well, and it seems to have pretty much all the information I'd like about climate.

And yeah, I've never looked around for one, but being able to search for cities within similar bounds would be nice. Makes me wonder if there are national weather databases you could use to perform your own queries and get similar results.

Re: Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis

#189

Post by mixmastamyk » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 7:04 PM UTC

danmaz74 wrote: post #177

mixmastamyk wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more typically called Panini, which is Italian for "$9 grilled-cheese."

The Italian for "grilled chees" is actually "formaggio arrosto". "panini" is just the plural of "panino", ie, a sandwich.

It's a joke... I'm surprised at the lack of imagination from the four guys above.

Re: Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis

#190

Post by mixmastamyk » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 7:06 PM UTC

seniorsassycat wrote: post #179

vinceguidry wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when you all crowd into the same tiny city and bid up the rents into the stratosphere, your available dating pool shrinks to a puddle (yet another consequence of the skewed gender balance in tech. sigh.) Women don't live in SF? Or are you just talking about women in tech? They're rare everywhere.

Tech workers have a low female population, SF has a high tech worker population, therefore SF has a low female population. I don't know if that's true, but I think that's what the commenter was saying.

Yes, combined with the fact that California has a low female population.