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The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

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Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#291

Post by timr »

wbl wrote: post #276
timr wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The simple fact is that if you own a Bay Area home, you will oppose increased supplies because it makes your home less valuable." Yeah, this is a bit of "yimby" rhetoric that's pretty simple-minded. People don't oppose new construction because of abstract fears like "property value"...they oppose them because of concrete fears, like changing the character of the neighborhood, or increasing traffic. I'm not saying I…

Neighborhood character is what they cited when they kicked out Willy Mayes. We are talking in some cases about people who bought houses knowing construction was permitted opposing it. Traffic goes down when we have mixed use zones vs. Euclidean zoning.

"Neighborhood character is what they cited when they kicked out Willy Mayes."

I see. Because people have used this complaint to do bad things, it is therefore always incorrect. Got it.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#292

Post by hbosch »

timothycrosley wrote: post #67
rl3 wrote: post #61

What are the best alternatives to the Bay Area? Off the top of my head I'm thinking Portland, Seattle, Boston, Austin and Chicago in no particular order. The annoying part is that there's so much talent concentrated in the Bay Area that it makes going elsewhere very difficult, especially if you have specific senior talent in mind that have already established their lives there. Hopefully telepresence tech gets so goo…

Depends on what viewpoint your coming from, but from that of a software developer there are many alternatives that have been much better than San Francisco for years, especially Seattle https://www.codementor.io/blog/best-cities-software-engineer... , which is also set up for future success as it keeps building http://www.spur.org/news/2017-06-15/keep-building-oakland . Honestly, I think what we are seeing, is a shif…

> For example: the biggest "Technology" company recently in Seattle is Amazon, a store first - that leverages technoloy.

Amazon is most definitely a technology (or, at least, a logistics) company with a store, not the other way around.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#293

Post by pcwalton »

timr wrote: post #80
pcwalton wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simple fact is that there are a lot of people who need to live in the Bay Area. Wishing people would just leave is what the NIMBY organizations have been trying for decades. It doesn't work, and it inflicts undue hardship on everyone who wasn't one of the lucky ones who bought in early. The only thing that does work is confronting the fact that a lot of people need to live here and encouraging housing supply to m…

"Wishing people would just leave is what the NIMBY organizations have been trying for decades." ...and yet, this crisis is only about 5 years old. Between 2008 and 2012, San Francisco rents were going down , not up. San Francisco's population declined in the 1980s. Say what you will about construction rates, but this is an acute housing crisis, brought on by an asset bubble, instigated by historically low interest ra…

I am much less interested in what "should" happen in a macroeconomic sense than what is happening: lots of people need to live here right now. It's worth remembering that the people most hurt by NIMBY policies are not, by and large, the tech workers making six-figure salaries. The victims are the teachers, firefighters, artists, nurses, secretaries, and everyone else who isn't a programmer.

Yeah, it might be nice if the US tech industry were more geographically distributed throughout the country (though that would also potentially have negative consequences due to constant relocation necessary when switching jobs). But NIMBY policies have broadly failed at getting people to move away. They have, in fact, just made the situation worse.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#294

Post by x2398dh1 »

sulam wrote: post #105

The smart bet IMO is out of the US altogether. Eastern Europe (and Moscow/St Petersburg), China, Brazil, Argentina.

All of those countries you listed have horrible internet infrastructure and in some cases massive amounts of censorship (particularly China). I have been working in China for over a decade - wouldn't recommend it for software engineers at all.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#295

Post by wbl »

timr wrote: post #291
wbl wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neighborhood character is what they cited when they kicked out Willy Mayes. We are talking in some cases about people who bought houses knowing construction was permitted opposing it. Traffic goes down when we have mixed use zones vs. Euclidean zoning.

"Neighborhood character is what they cited when they kicked out Willy Mayes." I see. Because people have used this complaint to do bad things, it is therefore always incorrect. Got it.

It's fundamentally about turning public space into a private club. Fine. Just don't expect me to be happy about paying for roads and sewers in places that keep poor people out.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#296

Post by e40 »

CalChris wrote: post #183
kevinburke wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an example of how Bay Area housing politics are silly.. there is a document that local governments use that purports to show that building more housing creates demand for even more housing, and use it to justify not building things. By that logic, these arsons will help reduce rents in Oakland... it makes no sense.

By that logic, these arsons will help reduce rents in Oakland... it makes no sense. No. That is a fallacy on your part, denying the antecedent .

I think Kevin was being snarky.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#297

Post by x2398dh1 »

kasey_junk wrote: post #161
jpao79 wrote: post #65

A few questions for HN: 1.) Do you think San Jose will ever become "a thing" for tech startups? Is there enough to do there? There is a WeWork and San Pedro Square in downtown San Jose. Or is a waterfront view what make San Francisco, Seattle and Portland what they are? Also, if you did want to live in San Jose there where are the up and coming places for HNers to live? 2.) Cupertino used to be cherry orchards and su…

> If housing was unconstrained in the Bay Area and at cost parity with the MidWest, wouldn't that remove any reason to live in the MidWest? That is hilarious. The Bay Area centrism to imply that there is no reason to live any where else besides cost is absolutely ludicrous.

There is a comment in this thread recommending moving out of the Bay Area and directly to China, Russia, Brazil as good alternatives.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#298

Post by eastbayjake »

timr wrote: post #80
pcwalton wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simple fact is that there are a lot of people who need to live in the Bay Area. Wishing people would just leave is what the NIMBY organizations have been trying for decades. It doesn't work, and it inflicts undue hardship on everyone who wasn't one of the lucky ones who bought in early. The only thing that does work is confronting the fact that a lot of people need to live here and encouraging housing supply to m…

"Wishing people would just leave is what the NIMBY organizations have been trying for decades." ...and yet, this crisis is only about 5 years old. Between 2008 and 2012, San Francisco rents were going down , not up. San Francisco's population declined in the 1980s. Say what you will about construction rates, but this is an acute housing crisis, brought on by an asset bubble, instigated by historically low interest ra…

This is manifestly untrue. The city has been out of vacant land since 1954 and common talk of a "housing crisis" in San Francisco started in at least 1966 [0]. We have been failing to build enough housing to meet demand for decades.

What is true is that for decades people who came here at some time in the past complain about how newcomers are overturning its way of life, despite having been newcomers themselves at one point.[1] Aging hippies complained in the 80s that yuppies were ruining the Haight, despite having been "neighborhood-ruiners" themselves when they came in the 1960s; the Mission used to be an Irish and Italian neighborhood before it was the center of Latino culture in the city, but it's the neighborhood most vociferously complaining about newcomers and insisting on building moratoriums to stop the neighborhood from changing.[2] It's all deeply hypocritical and unprincipled, but also completely unsurprising.

tl;dr: San Francisco has always been an expensive place to live and we've never built enough housing to meet demand [3]

[0] https://experimental-geography.blogspot.com/2016/05/employme...

[1] https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/04/15/san-franciscos-current-...

[2] http://sfist.com/2015/10/07/san_francisco_has_always_been_a_...

[3] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/san-francisco-housing-cr...

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#300

Post by sliverstorm »

kevinburke wrote: post #168
e40 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Four large apartment buildings in the East Bay have been burned by arsonists (likely the same one or group) in the last year. One in Uptown a few weeks ago. One, in Emmeryville was burned down twice . I agree, we need to build more housing. It seems it's not quite that simple, though.

As an example of how Bay Area housing politics are silly.. there is a document that local governments use that purports to show that building more housing creates demand for even more housing, and use it to justify not building things. By that logic, these arsons will help reduce rents in Oakland... it makes no sense.

Maybe it does make sense. I want to live in Oakland even less now.
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