Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 542 posts

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#281

Post by Apocryphon »

msutherl wrote: post #116
bogomipz wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really - "This is the most thriving technical community in the entire world"? I'm calling BS. Have you been to New York City recently? Rents for a 1 bedroom are nowhere near that. Lets talk about that community - there are meetups? Wow. You can go to a meetup on any night of the week in New York or Austin. Besides that explain "the community"? Oh you go out and drink craft beers after work? You can do that anywhere.…

Perhaps if you are an engineer this perspective entirely makes sense, but if you're an investor, entrepreneur, or in any other occupation where 'the ecosystem' matters, you'll find that nothing compares to the Bay Area. This isn't about going to a meetup or going out for craft beer, it's about access to resources behind closed (unlocked) doors. But listen, I used to live in New York and there's a lot there too – just…

The hope implicit in this conversation is that founders and funders might hear the disgruntlement of the engineers, and send some of their money and efforts to other cities, to do a little to grow an ecosystem elsewhere. It's a vain hope dependent on deaf ears, as much as the "build, baby, build!" plea to zoning boards or "stop grifting your tenants" to landlords, but it still needs to be made. Someone's gotta give, and it can't just always be the tech workers and aspirant homebuyers and renters and all those with less power in these asymmetrical relationships.

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#282

Post by misframer »

qntty wrote: post #213
sfotoatx wrote: post #130

Lots of naysayers on HN, but I left SF last year and moved to Austin. I have zero regrets. In SF, my 1 bedroom, 650 square foot apartment in SOMA went from $2,600 to $3,200 over 3 years. In Austin, my salary went down $10k to $120k/yr. My 2 bedroom, 1,100 square foot apartment is $1,150/mo. The tech scene here isn't as vibrant as SF, but there's still plenty of great meet ups. All in all, yes there are some things I…

Sorry if this is off-topic (and maybe a bit personal), but as a recent graduate, I'm not sure what I would do with all that extra money. What do you (or most people) generally spend it on? I make less than that, but if I didn't have student loans, I wouldn't know what to do with it besides leave it in the bank.

If you don't want to think too much about investing, you could invest in a target retirement date fund, e.g. VTTSX (2060)[0], and let it grow for a few decades.

[0] https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundIntExt=I...

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#284

Post by derefr »

jimminy wrote: post #205
timr wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"a well-governed San Francisco could have positioned itself as the next NYC. The hub where all of tech gathers, the same way all of finance gathered in Wall St. Replace the 70 year old 2-storey homes with Manhattan style apartment buildings, and rent in San Francisco would have remained very reasonable, despite the rapid economic growth. This would have prevented exactly this problem where tech workers are forced to…

The fact that everything closed so early blew me away, when I moved there. Compared to the middle of nowhere WV it made zero sense. Even the grocery stores closed by midnight in SF. In WV, you can find food at most places until 12-1am 7 days a week. And the major local grocery is a Walmart, which is open 24 hours. Last Easter I had no clue nothing would be open, and didn't prepare for that. So I just had some crap pi…

Everything closing at 9PM is pretty much par for the course here in Vancouver, another city with the skyrocketing cost-of-living thing going on. I wonder if there's a correlation. Maybe everyone is rich enough to pay delivery services or maids or something to get their shopping done while they're at work, so there's no demand for 24-hour businesses?

Then again, another thing with Vancouver (that I think I've heard said a bit about SF, but less-so) is that there's no night life. The bars close at midnight. (Actually, you can't even get a license to operate a "bar" here; you have to build a sit-down restaurant in order to serve alcohol.) I wonder if the correlation is actually between this sort of Victorian-era teetotaling "healthy living" sensibility, and the sort of generalized NIMBYism that prevents highrises from deflating housing pressure.

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#285

Post by FireBeyond »

pklausler wrote: post #276
FireBeyond wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What rises with house prices - property taxes. Revenue for Metro. I am going to assume there's a non-negligible correlation.

Property tax revenue would rise with new construction as well.

Wow. Good point. No idea why I didn't consider this. :)

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#286

Post by chrischen »

timr wrote: post #186
whack wrote: post #111

It's hard to overstate the impact this is going to have on San Francisco, long-term. As Technology becomes the most important industry in America, a well-governed San Francisco could have positioned itself as the next NYC. The hub where all of tech gathers, the same way all of finance gathered in Wall St. Replace the 70 year old 2-storey homes with Manhattan style apartment buildings, and rent in San Francisco would…

"a well-governed San Francisco could have positioned itself as the next NYC. The hub where all of tech gathers, the same way all of finance gathered in Wall St. Replace the 70 year old 2-storey homes with Manhattan style apartment buildings, and rent in San Francisco would have remained very reasonable, despite the rapid economic growth. This would have prevented exactly this problem where tech workers are forced to…

Completely agree with you. The whole point of software and the internet is to destroy boundaries and borders, especially physical ones.

Companies neither have to have physical offices nor do they have to be located in the Bay Area. And unfortunately culture dictates that an office is always necessary and that you need to locate your tech company in the Bay Area for dubious reasons like fundraising (which should only take a small portion of the operation of your company anyways), hiring (good engineers might come here if they agree with the lifestyle, and the job opportunities, but that doesn't mean jobs should come here because good engineers are here), or synergy (the belief that the physical proximity to other tech firms may help your company. Only applicable to certain markets at best).

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#287

Post by LoSboccacc »

timr wrote: post #201
ebiester wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought about that, but as far as I can tell, it means about $10-$15k of equipment and a dedicated work room. I need a mobile-connected "smart" whiteboard for every team member, a good microphone, webcam, speakers, a separate computer + monitor devoted to video conferencing, and a team that is geographically dispersed rather than partially-colocated. ...and hopefully, everyone has first class redundant internet,…

I'm not suggesting that you have to have a distributed team -- though, you certainly can, and $10-$15k is trivial compared to the economic penalty of hiring good engineers in SF. I'm just saying: consider locating your company somewhere else. There are great engineers all over the world, and most of your customers are not here.

They aren't in the valley for customer nor for techies, but for easy vc money access brought by locally connections. For now.

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#288

Post by derefr »

largote wrote: post #248
metanoia wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because everyone in SF seems to be a morning person. In my building everyone (except me) is asleep by 10pm. In NYC things are only getting started at 10.

Definitely this, it's ridiculous how early stuff closes around here and how early people go out. Moving from Mexico it was a big shock.

This doesn't square with my perception of SV programmers always mentioning staying late to hack on their startup. Do they actually mean that they got there at 6AM, so staying until 5PM is "late?"

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#289

Post by sre_ops »

rconti wrote: post #251
humbleMouse wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny you mentioned not being able to get a good meal after 9:30pm. That was the most frustrating thing about being in San Francisco for me. I hated that the whole bay seemed to shut down @10pm - almost as if everybody has to wake up the next morning to work another 12 hour day to pay the insane rent.....

I guess I always end up in the wrong parts of NYC because I kept finding that all the restaurants closed at 10pm (during the week, at least)... say, in Chelsea.

LES, East Village, West Village, Nolita, Bowery, Chinatown, Little Italy. Even Chelsea stays open late.

In a couple of years everyone who has not figured out what it means to be by the Googleplex will be out of business.

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#290

Post by chrischen »

humbleMouse wrote: post #196
timr wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"a well-governed San Francisco could have positioned itself as the next NYC. The hub where all of tech gathers, the same way all of finance gathered in Wall St. Replace the 70 year old 2-storey homes with Manhattan style apartment buildings, and rent in San Francisco would have remained very reasonable, despite the rapid economic growth. This would have prevented exactly this problem where tech workers are forced to…

Funny you mentioned not being able to get a good meal after 9:30pm. That was the most frustrating thing about being in San Francisco for me. I hated that the whole bay seemed to shut down @10pm - almost as if everybody has to wake up the next morning to work another 12 hour day to pay the insane rent.....

Perhaps part of the reason is the massive wealth gap between the tech migrants (tech workers) and the local population. It causes a lot of friction between locals and the new migrants. The lower earners are being forced out of the city and they probably make a up a large chunk of the service workers.

The public transit system shuts off by 12 AM - 1PM, and most service workers would likely have to live outside of the city, as well as most people coming into SF to work. The city is forced to shutoff at a certain time because of the transit situation, even if not for any other reasons.

Post reply on HN