San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by nugget » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 10:55 PM UTC

Gratsby wrote: post #265

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.…

You quoted just a piece of it. > This is the most thriving technical community in the entire world. We live different lifestyles as a result. It's not better or worse, just different. I've been all over, including New York. I didn't appreciate Silicon Valley for what it is until I moved here. Do you have to pay that kind of money to work in tech? Not at all. You don't even have to pay that kind of money to work in te…

Silicon Valley schools seem to be a particular type of pressure cooker for certain types of kids. Do you notice/worry about this at all? The same could be said of high performing schools in other areas of the country too I guess, but there is just so much energy and ambition in the Bay Area, sometimes it seems to be one notch up on the intensity scale than anywhere else.

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

#292

Post by sotojuan » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 10:56 PM UTC

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.

Save, travel, and go on dates!

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

#293

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 10:57 PM UTC

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.

[deleted]

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

#294

Post by Gratsby » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 11:01 PM UTC

nugget wrote: post #291

Gratsby wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You quoted just a piece of it. > This is the most thriving technical community in the entire world. We live different lifestyles as a result. It's not better or worse, just different. I've been all over, including New York. I didn't appreciate Silicon Valley for what it is until I moved here. Do you have to pay that kind of money to work in tech? Not at all. You don't even have to pay that kind of money to work in te…

Silicon Valley schools seem to be a particular type of pressure cooker for certain types of kids. Do you notice/worry about this at all? The same could be said of high performing schools in other areas of the country too I guess, but there is just so much energy and ambition in the Bay Area, sometimes it seems to be one notch up on the intensity scale than anywhere else.

I do. The CDC came out to the High School because the suicide rate was so high.

As a parent, I have decided to completely pull back academic pressure. In fact, I regularly talk to my kids about the fact that it's OK to not be academic superstars. They are thriving at this level, but I won't hesitate to move if it changes once we get to high school. I want my kids to have opportunities I didn't. It's not so important that I'm willing to risk their health or happiness.

Our school district has a policy against too much homework, but that goes away with honors level high school classes. I was very surprised at their lack of homework compared to what we are used to, but oddly enough it's making for happier kids that are doing about the same as far as learning and retention. I have good kids though - and it's not a parenting thing. They are just better at being good kids than I ever was.

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

#295

Post by mcguire » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 11:01 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #46

So are there any tech hubs right now that aren't dealing with issues of rent increases, gentrifications, and growing pains?

Keep in mind that "tech hub" implies tech salaries. Shovel a big pile of money into an area and you will get inflation.

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

#296

Post by mcguire » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 11:03 PM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #166

peterwwillis wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DC, Maryland, Virgina. Also known as the Washington metropolitan area ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_metropolitan_area ). Delaware doesn't have much of a tech sector.

To me, DMV stands for Department of Motor Vehicles. DelMarVa is the geographic peninsula east of Chesapeake Bay and west of Delaware Bay. The ring of urban sprawl around the federal capital is "The DC Area". Unfortunately, "DC Metro" is the train system, and "DC Metropolis" is where Superman lives. The only (well paying) tech jobs in Delaware would probably be working on internal systems for credit card companies in…

"But I don't have the authority to just change the names of things."

PING!

You do now! Go for it!

-- The Naming Fairy

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

#297

Post by maerF0x0 » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 11:07 PM UTC

asabjorn wrote: post #165

maerF0x0 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe, i have neither a moral stance nor suggested solution for that. Seems to me that is a trait of capitalism/market economies; those who can pay the most get what they want.

Artificially restricting housing supply through SF-like approval processes is not capitalism, and rent control is a band aid. It is laws that highly favors the incumbents that already live there. Even if we determined who should be allowed to live here with some other mechanism than money we would still be housing supply constrained.

I agree that there are tons of things at play distorting markets.

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

#298

Post by timr » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 11:08 PM UTC

LoSboccacc wrote: post #287

timr wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, that's an aspect of it. But there's a heaping helping of cargo-cult superstition, too. For example, ask an entrepreneur to consider locating their office in Oakland: it's becoming more "acceptable" now that Uber has committed to a huge space over there, but a year or two ago, I had people telling me that locating in Oakland was the equivalent of wanting your company to die. For being a 20-minute BART ride from downtown SF. People have lost their minds.

Also, of course, few around here believe that there are good programmers outside of the city. Mostly, though, I think it's about 20-somethings who want to feel like they've made it because they're running a startup in the most expensive city in the country.

The cult is powerful, for such a group of disruptive, innovative thinkers.

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

#299

Post by supergeek133 » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 11:08 PM UTC

I keep saying it, and I'll keep on saying it..

Who is going to be the first to move? The capital or the talent?

One has to drive the other out. VC money isn't going as far as it used to, and talent has to increasingly eat more ramen just to live and keep the lights on in their company.

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

#300

Post by tryitnow » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 11:09 PM UTC

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…

If high-rise development solved the problem of high rents, then why is Manhatten so expensive?

Thought experiment: Let's say we do massive high density development in SF. A bunch of people move in, but now that SF is denser it's more desirable, so demand has increased as well, which drives rents right back up. Now we're stuck where we were before: high rents.

Having said that, I still support high density development because I think it leads to better living (and is better for the environment usually). I just am not optimistic that it will actually lower rents.