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American tech giants are making life tough for startups

economist.com

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Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups

#21

Post by walshemj »

confiscate wrote: post #9
lardo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why contempt?

I assume it is because he thinks engineering involves making physical objects, rather than abstract ones. I am a software guy, and I have heard other hardware guys make similar statements as well. An example is a physical car engine (hardware), vs a video game rendering "engine" (software)

Which some what ignores the fact that a 2 stroke engine has three moving parts in its simplest form.

and mech engineering doesn't have its clients demand 5 months before a new engine delivery you now make it a rotary Wankel engine as that's the new hotness :-)

Ex BTEC A1 (Thermo Fluids ) Eng Tech BTW ;-)

Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups

#22

Post by pm90 »

adventured wrote: post #18
rambleraptor wrote: post #2

This is also responsible for geographic inequality throughout the country. The large tech companies are based out of Silicon Valley and Seattle. The majority of their employees and economic activity will be in those areas.

That has gradually changed a lot in the last ten years. A decent house is $150,000 to $200,000 where I'm at. That's 2,000-2,500 sq feet, 0.75 to 2 acres of land. The murder rate here is almost zero, violent crime is very low, and I have access to high speed Internet and normal shopping / consumer goods. I can day trip to multiple major metros. Public housing here is actually nice, safe, clean. The homeless rate is ne…

Engineers in sf make a lot more than 150k in their late 20s/early 30s even outside big 5

Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups

#23

Post by spyspy »

megy wrote: post #14
Naritai wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not discussed in this particular article, but economies of scale certainly favor incumbents in hardware as well. If you need confirmation, go ask Pebble guys how they fared after Apple Watch was launched.

I am not sure you can use one example of a hardware company failing as proof of anything. Just as you couldn't use the success of a software or hardware company proving the opposite, that there isn't a problem.

There are enough articles out there from hardware kickstarters that failed post-funding for me to believe that manufacturing new products on-price and on-time is insanely difficult. I'm sure Apple can design and manufacture 50+ iPhone prototypes for any yearly launch. But startups really only get one chance to get it right before their funding runs dry.

Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups

#24

Post by robertAngst »

pm90 wrote: post #22
adventured wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has gradually changed a lot in the last ten years. A decent house is $150,000 to $200,000 where I'm at. That's 2,000-2,500 sq feet, 0.75 to 2 acres of land. The murder rate here is almost zero, violent crime is very low, and I have access to high speed Internet and normal shopping / consumer goods. I can day trip to multiple major metros. Public housing here is actually nice, safe, clean. The homeless rate is ne…

Engineers in sf make a lot more than 150k in their late 20s/early 30s even outside big 5

That is after you include stock.

Not a bad deal today, but I'm still questioning if 1 trillion dollar companies exist or are overvalued.

Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups

#26

Post by xor1 »

perseusprime11 wrote: post #25

How is this news? Yesterday’s immigrants make life tough for future immigrants. Likewise, yeaterday’s startups make it hard for new startups. It’s a circle of life. Evolution at play. Capitalism at play.

Yesterday's young (and today's old) make it hard for future generations. Are you defending that?

Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups

#27

Post by adventured »

pm90 wrote: post #22
adventured wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has gradually changed a lot in the last ten years. A decent house is $150,000 to $200,000 where I'm at. That's 2,000-2,500 sq feet, 0.75 to 2 acres of land. The murder rate here is almost zero, violent crime is very low, and I have access to high speed Internet and normal shopping / consumer goods. I can day trip to multiple major metros. Public housing here is actually nice, safe, clean. The homeless rate is ne…

Engineers in sf make a lot more than 150k in their late 20s/early 30s even outside big 5

And housing is even more expensive in San Francisco than in Seattle, general cost of living is a bit higher, and CA has income taxes, adjust the figures accordingly.

The $1.3m house in Seattle will cost you $2m in SF.

Now you need $500,000 for a down payment. Your mortgage + taxes will cost you $110,000 per year, out of your $158,000 take home on a $250,000 income. You'll burn $3.8 million over 30 years on the equivalent of a typical middle-class house, before accounting for any repairs/improvements or tax increases.

You have $4,000 per month left to cover basics like: car, utilities, homeowners ins, food, home repairs, savings, life.

That's all assuming a $250,000 salary, which few people make in SF. The average is a lot closer to $200,000 total compensation, the median is even lower.

$250,000 salary is a helluva line to have to perpetually stay above for 30 years just to barely afford a modest middle-class house, while saving almost nothing besides that.

Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups

#28

Post by dmode »

adventured wrote: post #27
pm90 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineers in sf make a lot more than 150k in their late 20s/early 30s even outside big 5

And housing is even more expensive in San Francisco than in Seattle, general cost of living is a bit higher, and CA has income taxes, adjust the figures accordingly. The $1.3m house in Seattle will cost you $2m in SF. Now you need $500,000 for a down payment. Your mortgage + taxes will cost you $110,000 per year, out of your $158,000 take home on a $250,000 income. You'll burn $3.8 million over 30 years on the equiva…

That's not how the math works at all. 25-30 yr olds making 250k don't live in 2m homes. They usually share an apartment in SF and pay ~$2000-2500 on rent. Then when it is time to get married or move in with a gf, you get a starter home for 500-600K, putting 10% down. Now in a couple of years, your starter home has gained $200k in value. Sell that and use the proceeds for a larger single family home around 1-1.5mn. Meanwhile, since your partner is in the Bay Area, your household income is between 400-500K. Now you are 35 and you get a couple of promotions and are either a senior Engg manager or an architect/tech lead at L6 or L7. You then start pulling 200K just in RSUs. Meanwhile your house also appreciates in value. At this point, said engineer has 300-400k in liquid savings and another 300-400k in home equity. There is a reason why people move to Seattle and SF as the math largely works out

Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups

#29

Post by BurningFrog »

SirensOfTitan wrote: post #3

Another reminder, alongside the apparent Microsoft GitHub acquision, that regulators need to step up and prevent large tech firms from acting anti competitively. From another Economist article ("How to Tame the Tech Titans", https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/01/18/how-to-tame-the... ): > Two broad changes of thinking would go a long way towards sensibly taming the titans. The first is to make better use of exist…

> Such scrutiny might have prevented Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram and Google’s of Waze,

Then again one of the main reasons people start companies like Instagram and Waze is so they can be bought by these giants.

Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups

#30

Post by whatshisface »

osrec wrote: post #13
weliketocode wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely. Instead of a regulatory body proactively thinking about practices as anti-competitive, there appears to be a very reactionary approach of punishing large incumbents that pursue m&a out of necessity or approaching anti-competitiveness as partisan politics.

Yeah, I think regulators realise we have a monopoly brewing once they see people buying Google branded milk from Googlemarts, having driven there in Googlemobiles, using traffic directions from... Google.

That's not a monopoly - a monopoly would be if for at minimum one of those things, you could only find a Google-controlled version.
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