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Stripe to move to South San Francisco

sfchronicle.com

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Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#221

Post by dehrmann »

AdieuToLogic wrote: post #80
cjlars wrote: post #5

Articles misses that this is in response to SF's gross receipts tax. Payment processing is an ultra low margin business, no way they can compete while paying ~1% of revenues to the city.

> Payment processing is an ultra low margin business, no way they can compete while paying ~1% of revenues to the city. Stripe charges %2.9 + $0.30 per transaction. That is not an "ultra low margin" by any means in the CC processing domain. Actually, that is a massive markup when compared to other ISO's and VAR's. Depending on the Merchant's processor and their volume, significance, and sophistication, their Discount…

> Stripe charges %2.9 + $0.30 per transaction. That is not an "ultra low margin" by any means in the CC processing domain.

That's revenue, not margin.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#222

Post by dmode »

ohduran wrote: post #159
dawg- wrote: post #149

I am not in the bay area, in fact I've never even been to the West Coast. So I am going to ask what may seem like a stupid question to some of you. I mean this in as polite a way as possible, but why wouldn't established companies like Stripe just fuck off to another city entirely? It's a successful company with a great product - that I'm sure many people would like to work for. They could surely lure talent from the…

A corollary to this well reasoned question would be: has Silicon Valley area peaked in terms of startup creation? On the one hand, you've got the talent there, attracted because the big tech is concentrated in the area; on the other hand, the living costs makes a ramen-profitable startup in SV way more expensive than a non-SV one. How should I look at this issue from the perspective of an outsider? Should I join the…

Actually, SF has increased its lead over other regions in startup creation over the last few years. See VC dollars invested and you will see how much of that is concentrated in SF

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#223

Post by ghaff »

dmode wrote: post #215
mc32 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe but I think people will figure out the talent deserts have more oases than people think. There are more options for talent than just SV. Remember much of the US talent in SV come from other parts of the country. Many would stay local if given the opp to stay local. So instead of drawing talent to SV, SV could seek the talent in those markets (where talent is growing).

It is not about an oasis, it is about top of the funnel. To hire 1 eng, you have to interview 5-10, and have to phone screen 20-30, and have have hacker rank tested 100-200. Now scale that to a 1000 person eng team

That may be true but plenty of companies around the world that are nowhere near California somehow manage to hire technical talent. The Bay area has a higher density than many places but there's more competition for hiring too.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#224

Post by dmode »

friedman23 wrote: post #193
mbesto wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bay area by moving to a lower cost of living area where mid-level employees can afford to buy an actual house relatively close to work? Stripe is not hiring "mid-level" employees. Or at the very least that is not the type of people they are compensating to run critical roles. Good luck telling a Senior Staff Engineer who makes $500k (plus probably a couple of million in RSUs) that they have to move to Albuquerque,…

> Albuquerque, NM This is not the only other option. Imagine telling an engineer, hey I'll pay you $500k a year in Atlanta, Miami, Philadelphia, Chicago, or Boston? Rent is immediately cut in half and some states have no income taxes. Their disposable income essentially triples.

If you are still lying $500k, what’s the point of that move ? Also, network effect doesn’t change. I will never move out of SV/SF as I know I can walk down the street and get another $500k job

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#225

Post by dehrmann »

dmode wrote: post #62

As someone who has worked in South SF for years, it is pretty bad for employees. It is a cultural wasteland with few restaurants or interesting things to do. Transit is also poor as both BART and Caltrain are in awkward locations. And the fog is worse. This will be like Uber’s move to Oakland, which got rolled back pretty quickly

> Transit is also poor as both BART and Caltrain are in awkward locations.

How many cities have Both Bart and Caltrain?

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#226

Post by dehrmann »

khuey wrote: post #65
paxys wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that's an exaggeration. I know tons of people who commute from the city to south bay and vice versa. Plus South SF is pretty well connected by transit.

I've never heard anyone in SF say that South San Francisco is well connected by transit before. BART takes a rather circuitous route to get to the city's western edge and most Caltrain service skips its (rather sad) station.

Is that the station where you might exit onto the tracks of an oncoming (but waiting) train?

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#227

Post by kerkeslager »

alexhutcheson wrote: post #200
dawg- wrote: post #149

I am not in the bay area, in fact I've never even been to the West Coast. So I am going to ask what may seem like a stupid question to some of you. I mean this in as polite a way as possible, but why wouldn't established companies like Stripe just fuck off to another city entirely? It's a successful company with a great product - that I'm sure many people would like to work for. They could surely lure talent from the…

Moving offices is really disruptive to people's lives, and causes a huge amount of turnover in your workforce. A brief excerpt from Peopleware[1]: "The typical person being moved today is part of a two-career family. The other half of that equation is probably not being moved, so the corporate move comes down hard on the couple’s relationship at a very delicate point. It brings intolerable stress to bear on the accom…

That's all true, but assumes a quick move.

A move strategy could be as simple as, opening up an office in a cheaper location:

1. New teams are created at the new location.

2. New hires on existing teams are placed at the new location, with exceptions if teams have a strong need to be in the same place.

3. Make it clear that you'll help people relocate to the new office if they choose to--some people will take you up on it.

Eventually, the original office will shrink and remaining staff can be allowed to work remotely (which should be a big part of a culture anyway, IMO).

Turnover is already high at tech companies, but in this case your turnover facilitates the move--as people leave at the old location you replace them at the new one. There will still likely be some turnover caused by even the slow move, but that turnover already exist with any move--even the move to south SF will probably cause some turnover because the location is just less convenient for some people.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#228

Post by jwagenet »

forthwall wrote: post #19

Kilroy Oyster Point is a pretty inaccessible area from San Francisco, you would need to take a limited train via Caltrain that's around 40 minutes to get there. I'm pretty sure this is definitely a blowback from the gross receipts tax and nothing more, even for commuters from the Peninsula would still have to get to the really strange south SF station which is also only accessible via limited express...or commute int…

South SF only get one train an hour, yes, but it only takes an on schedule train 15 minutes station to station.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#229

Post by wbronitsky »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #123
x0x0 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you ride Bart? You're going from a local commute to bart -> walking to the office, to a local commute to bart -> going to a station that is skipped by 3/4 of bart lines (ie requires an xfer for Antioch, Pleasanton, or Fremont) -> a shitty bus. NB: Bart is ass and generally is too incompetent to align train and bus schedules. This adds probably at least 45 minutes each way for anyone coming from SF or East Bay loca…

Do you ride Bart? How do you think most East Bay commuters are getting to San Francisco?

This isn't a very helpful argument. I live in Oakland and commute to San Francisco and rarely take Bart because there are many other options that don't involve me breathing directly from someone else's exhalation like we all are forced to on Bart.

Personally, I take casual carpool, https://sfcasualcarpool.com/, to work and a transbay bus home. Total cost is $6.50/day, which is cheaper than commuting by Bart, and because I live 30 mins walking from Bart, it is also much faster.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#230

Post by dmode »

paulie_a wrote: post #84
dmode wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is surely exaggerated right ? I know CEOs of large startups who live in mansions in Woodside, Berkeley, Mill Valley etc

My sample size is small but a company that raised 40 million and the CEO is considering leaving sv because his wife need to make rent with a roommate is not a great sign of the real estate. Sv isn't special. People are going to other tech hubs which are sprouting like crazy. Sv was when it made products. But sass can be done anywhere. People are leaving sv and housing prices are the reason. It's going to lead to brai…

I have a hard time believing this story. You can get 1-bedroom apartment around 3k in SF or neighboring areas. You can afford that with entry level wages
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