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Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

bloomberg.com

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Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#271

Post by talmr »

luckylion wrote: post #264
talmr wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair - I used to live in Ohio and my parents and I lived in a 2 bedroom apartment that cost $600/mo about fifteen years ago. You could buy a 5 bedroom house for $250k. The school district I attended was also top notch. It was a great family area and I remember the mall, rec center, and numerous parks. I checked zillow recently and 5 bedroom homes are ~$300k and apartments are about $800/mo. At the time, my dad…

So if you lived in that Ohio suburb, your code quality would be reduced vs living in California?

I don't think my code quality would be reduced by location. If anything, I'd probably have less stress and more time to learn and improve. Making software and learning new stuff is pretty much a hobby, and more time to devote to hobby would be awesome.

Personally, I have not ever worked at a remote-friendly company. If the tides were to change and facilitating remote work becomes a first class priority, then I don't see why I couldn't thrive. My biggest irk right now is we can't just have ad hoc breakout sessions with different stakeholders (product, ux, eng) and come to quick conclusions. Zoom meetings are horrible, and I'm not really sure which tools are great for easily whiteboarding ideas. Someone recommended Google Jamboard.

Another concern moving inwards would be that I lose access to the hordes of other like-minded individuals who love technology. I won't be getting the same quality of meetups there for sure, since the area isn't a tech hub.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#272

Post by Apocryphon »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #233
davidw wrote: post #209

Another thought: those workers and their companies could contribute to changing the situation in Silicon Valley and the rest of California: https://cayimby.org/ Without a change in housing policy in the US, this just becomes a big game of musical chairs: Guy moves from Silicon Valley to Portland, Oregon. Portland gets too expensive for some other family, who move to Boise, Idaho. And so on...

>Guy moves from Silicon Valley to Portland, Oregon. Portland gets too expensive for some other family, who move to Boise, Idaho. And so on... Yup. It's a fundamental values problem that can't be fixed without a major ideological shift. A large number of people do not believe that people have the right to do more or less whatever they want on their property. Until that is fixed you're always going to have people sayin…

Maybe the endgame is that these tech megacorps just do it themselves and build their own cities on empty land.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#273

Post by TulliusCicero »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #224
TulliusCicero wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most techies in SF could afford to live relatively close to work, or without roommates, or both. The reason why they don't is still due to the high rent though. When living with a roommate or two, or living a bit further away means you get an extra $1000+ a month to spend on other things, that can be very enticing.

This isn't true, at least of all the tech workers I've worked with. None of them could afford to live within a 30min commute of a downtown SF startup.

That sounds rather implausible, given the average dev salary in SF and the existence of BART.

For example, living in Daly City would give you a ~30min commute, and the average rent there is $2,500, so $30,000 of post-tax income annually. High, obviously, but certainly doable on most SF dev salaries; Hired says the average there is 145k gross, so perhaps 100k or so after tax: https://hired.com/page/state-of-salaries

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#274

Post by Dirak »

zaidf wrote: post #14

People won't continue making their current SF salary by working out of Farmville, Ohio. I think this point is missed by many I fully expect Twitter, for example, to come out with salary adjustment policies for people who want to work from home from an entirely different city and state

From first principles, the value gained from paying top dollar for SF based engineers is their talent and their being in the environment of SF -- the tech capital of the world. If everyone is working remote, then the environment aspect of the deal disappears and all that's left is talent correlating with salary.

Based on this assumption, I think it's actually more likely that the Staff level engineer at Twitter who moved to Kentucky for a lower cost of living will still be making the same range of salary and the SWE 1 in SF would make significantly less.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#275

Post by _2d30 »

epistasis wrote: post #91
shuckles wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The land values are legit. That they cannot be amortized across many occupants is not.

I get where you are coming from, but my intuition is that we have actually created a massive bubble in land prices by restricting use so much. Land would get a hell of a lot cheaper if we massively decreased demand by letting people live in ways that use less land.

Land value != property value

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#276

Post by lliamander »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #261
lliamander wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people have the option to work remotely, they're more likely going to move to places where land is plentiful and cheap.

That's not helpful for the majority of people that actually like where they live. I live in the middle of a city because I like living in the middle of a city , for reasons that have nothing to do with where I work. Most people are not harboring a secret desire to suddenly move to a completely different type of neighborhood for the cheap land if they no longer have to commute. Being forced to purchase a larger living…

You make some good points.

I don't know that your desire matches with the majority of people living in a big city. I mean, I'm sure there are lots of people who do like living there, but there are also lots of people who have moved from elsewhere to big cities specifically for job opportunities. Being in a big city has its advantages (jobs, access to more specialized businesses and ammenities) but also its costs (crime, lack of natural beauty, etc.).

I think you may find that, after everyone who wanted to leave the city can, the costs for those who want to remain might settle down.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#277

Post by take_a_breath »

ghaff wrote: post #254
take_a_breath wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What decisions were made years ago? I honestly have no idea what you are talking about. A lot has changed in a matter of 3 months. Decisions are constantly being re-evaluated with new information. I was simply opining on how something like "an increase in working from home" might actually have larger societal impacts. This article suggests people might move away from expensive places like Silicon Valley. I am suggest…

>Does a one-time stipend of $1,000 cover that? Probably not for many people. On the other hand, commuting is usually not cheap--even if it's just a transit pass. Your points about space are reasonable though most people I know with houses seem to be doing OK. (But then we're a large distributed company so many are on video calls from home on a regular basis anyway.) It's certainly fair though that, if you have a tiny…

==On the other hand, commuting is usually not cheap==

Not cheap, but tax advantaged and sometimes even reimbursed. The tax advantages for working-from-home are much harder to unlock, especially in the short-term or if you work from your bedroom.

Anyways, I thought it was an interesting economic thought-exercise to discuss the second-level impacts of a work-from-home society. I've seen a lot of talk on people fleeing cities, but I think there is a lot more nuance to the discussion.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#278

Post by edmundsauto »

geddy wrote: post #73
ardy42 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a damn shame, really, the slavish devotion to one's car and spending hours a day sitting in traffic apparently is apparently preferred over actually getting time back in your everyday life. It's like people have adapted to having no life outside of work, and now they're just so bored they'd rather lose that time than just find a new hobby or learn something. I don't think I've ever thought about anything more…

>It would probably help the discussion if you didn't straw-man the people who don't want to work from home and dismiss their perspectives out of hand. Wasn't doing that at all. People who want to go to the office and don't have an hourslong commute in traffic aren't the people I'm referring to. I'm referring to the people who have hourslong commutes sitting in traffic. People who are close to their jobs and want to g…

The people you are talking about also probably don't like their commutes, but are willing to make that tradeoff. Your intentional use of inflammatory language makes it clear you are not looking for meaningful discussion. Your description of them is inaccurate and completely undercuts any point you were otherwise trying to make.

I suggest rewriting it as less a critique of other people's values, and more an expression of your opinion for how you see the situation -- without attack others. When you criticize other people's decisions without being empathetic, people aren't going to engage with you. And what is the point in posting in a forum with other people, if not to hear their perspectives and maybe learn something?

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#280

Post by whatok »

returningfory wrote: post #55
seibelj wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Boston and commute on the subway. I specifically live in a major city because I like the city atmosphere, events, night life, restaurants, etc. I have co-workers that live in the suburbs and do the car thing (although many take the commuter train), but I don't. So I have no problem commuting to work. I like the subway.

+1. There's a bias on HN to compare working-from-home with the commuter experience _in the Bay Area_, and conclude working from home is better. For many of us in places like New York, living in the city and going to the office is much more preferable lifestyle than working from home in a random place.

I live in New York, have a reasonable commute (20-30 mins each way), and vastly prefer working from home. The commute is only one factor in my preference and I can't really decide whether saving time outweighs what used to be a dedicated time slot for reading non-work stuff.
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