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Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

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Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

#231

Post by randomacct3847 »

Bahamut wrote: post #228
randomacct3847 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is buying. A 300k house in Austin would be 1.5m in SF. Again, if you’re single and renting and ok with roommates SF makes sense, but if you’re buying 300k/year will not be enough to afford a 1.5m place (which probably won’t be renovated and in a bad location)

It is more than enough to buy - not sure what you're expectations are around buying here. Sure, it maybe possible to buy instantly in Austin, to my understanding in not as great neighborhoods if you want it cheaper, as I hear house prices have gone up there as well, but in 5-10 years of working at $300k+, it's very possible to buy in most of the Bay Area. The benefit becomes compounded in the Bay Area if you have a s…

Not if the best places are cash offers only. And cap on SALT taxes starting 2018 tax year means many high earners will not be able to deduct expensive property taxes and most income above and beyond their base salary.

300k is living with a roommate level IMO unless you’re just looking to buy a 1 bedroom and not have kids.

Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

#232

Post by newman8r »

jaggederest wrote: post #216
newman8r wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd probably go the opposite direction of East Wind: not require people to buy into a philosophy or make any community commitments. My biggest goal would be to use group buying power to buy good land and put in a sizeable well, some very minimal facilities (shower/ restrooms/septic), etc. Maybe a few RV pads. I've actually got some land in the desert and spent some time working out of a camper. If anyone's ever inter…

I mean that already exists, it's basically just an RV park, right? Without the philosophical bent and off-grid aspects, you can already find those things. I spent a big chunk of my childhood bumming around the country on vacation in an RV, and I think that's ultimately the source of my wanderlust, but it doesn't really build a community for the longer term.

There are similarities. It would be more spread out and have far fewer residents than an RV park. People could build what they want (tiny homes, earthbag houses, etc). It would also be more of a co-op compared to a commercial RV park. RV parks cost millions to build, this would be more than an order of magnitude cheaper.

I've spent time in RV parks too, I like them. Even the crappiest ones are ~$450/mo in California though.

I bought my 5 acres for a few thousand dollars. If you're able to pull it off, you can live insanely cheap. It's more about hacking cost-of-living than creating a cohesive community. My biggest issue with living in the desert was going it alone - if I had a group of 10 people who had a vested interest in the project, it would have been more enjoyable.

These are all just random thoughts though - maybe at some point I'll look into it more seriously.

Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

#233

Post by wtvanhest »

mikeash wrote: post #180
sytelus wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why doesn’t your employees move out of Bay Area with you? Assuming if you keep offering same comp, this would cut down mortgage expenses to half and even gain much better housing in better school areas. It should be no brainer to move out if comp remains same. So you can come in to shop for talent, have them work remotely until they are ready. No need to open expensive offices in Bay Area.

All the same reasons people don’t want to move everywhere else: family, friends, jobs (held by the spouse, for example), local culture, owning property, and just the general hassle of moving (it’s way easier to move jobs than to move houses). Move the company somewhere cheap and continue paying the same salary so your employees can live like kings there, and I’d wager you’ll still lose the majority of them.

McKesson did it. I have no idea how it worked out though.

Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

#234

Post by wolfgke »

chillacy wrote: post #129
raverbashing wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the "kinds of engineering talent" issue aren't a bit an issue of finding people that can be trained on the job/betting on the right people instead of just trying to get "person that does this exact thing at FAANG".

I think it could happen if the incentives are set up differently, otherwise right now you spend time and effort training people only to have them change jobs in 2 years at a better company.

> I think it could happen if the incentives are set up differently, otherwise right now you spend time and effort training people only to have them change jobs in 2 years at a better company.

- Can't you simply make a contract that binds them to your company for a longer time? (I don't know about the law in the US)

- Focus the training on technology that is rather specific to your company so that other conpanies are less incentivized to poach the employee because the training that you gave him/her is much less of use for other companies.

Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

#235

Post by wolfgke »

baddox wrote: post #123
sytelus wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why doesn’t your employees move out of Bay Area with you? Assuming if you keep offering same comp, this would cut down mortgage expenses to half and even gain much better housing in better school areas. It should be no brainer to move out if comp remains same. So you can come in to shop for talent, have them work remotely until they are ready. No need to open expensive offices in Bay Area.

Why would the assumption be that most people would want to move away from their homes because their current employer wants to save money? Sure, many tech employees probably moved to the Bay Area primarily to find employment, but even if they don’t enjoy other aspects of the area, a place you live in for a while will become your home, and abandoning your home is not an easy or obvious decision to make.

> Why would the assumption be that most people would want to move away from their homes because their current employer wants to save money?

If the company were willing to give their share of the saved money to the employee, the situation might be different.

Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

#236

Post by smallgovt »

yesimahuman wrote: post #185
ummonk wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bay Area has less than 1/30th the US population and yet the majority of US unicorns and decacorns have hailed from here. It's wildly disproportionate.

That wasn’t my point. The framing was clearly used like “lifestyle business” is used. There have and will be unicorns outside of the valley, but he doesn’t seem to want to recognize that, hence the “$100M” framing

I think you’re misinterpreting his point. He’s not saying there won’t be unicorns outside of the valley. He’s saying the cost/benefit of being in SV makes sense for unicorns but not for many 100m startups. As a result, you’ll still see a disproportionate number of unicorns in SV but more 100m startups will start moving away.

Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

#237

Post by inferiorhuman »

dmode wrote: post #208
inferiorhuman wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only a small portion of SF is matches the dystopian vision you claim. Even those portions are not any worse than other urban areas. If you believe that you either live an extremely sheltered existence in SF or you've not visited recently. San Francisco is pretty bad no matter where you go (except, perhaps, for the affluent areas like Sea Cliff and St Francis Woods). Out in the Outer Sunset I saw what looked like so…

I work near Civic center and go there everyday. You know, like, Chicago has 500 murders a year. Nothing in SF and Oakland even comes close to that. Oakland used to be the crime capital in the US. People can actually live in West Oakland now. Oakland hill homes now run at $2mn. Drug use in SF has been prevalent since, what like 60s. I have been living in SF since well before the boom. Mid market and Tenderloin used to…

Well, I grew up out here so yes I remember things like when the Mission was a war zone and when the Embarcadero was pretty sketchy due to that elevated highway.

I worked at Sixth and Market for a few years, so, yes I think it's largely worse than it was in the early 2000s. The big tech companies haven't helped the situation by attempting to sanitize it. Getting rid of the chess players did not help anything.

> You know, like, Chicago has 500 murders a year.

Nice whataboutism though.

Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

#239

Post by techslave »

consz wrote: post #206
zavi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of being a startup not looking at being a unicorn? I genuinely do not understand how somebody can cap off their ambitions like so.

I think it's sometimes hard to understand how quickly marginal utility of money decreases. As someone who makes high seven figures, I have genuinely no idea how more money could possibly affect my happiness -- there's just no appreciable difference between making 5m and 500m to me.

sounds like you have a distinct lack of imagination. interesting that you could reach 7 figures with that mindset. every power of 10 TC is another level of liberating.

At 7 figures you can still go broke. that isn’t fuck you money. you can’t buy houses around the world (and staff them) in a whim. you can’t go to davos and mingle with the true global power brokers. you can affect social change but only on a small perhaps local scale.

at 500m you can put the people YOU want into government to affect the change you want.

Re: Sam Altman: Bay Area is no longer the obvious place for startups

#240

Post by techslave »

debaserab2 wrote: post #101
_puk wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't take VC money if you want to build a lifestyle business.

Not prioritizing growth at all costs != lifestyle business Nor does not taking VC money mean you're a lifestyle business

you’re responding to the converse of GP’s statement, which yes, is not true. but he said none of those things. you have projected a false dichotomy which wasn’t proposed.
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