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Stripe to move to South San Francisco

sfchronicle.com

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Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#291

Post by majormajor »

friedman23 wrote: post #232
dmode wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are still lying $500k, what’s the point of that move ? Also, network effect doesn’t change. I will never move out of SV/SF as I know I can walk down the street and get another $500k job

> If you are still lying $500k, what’s the point of that move ? I think you mistyped here. The point of the move is that $500k in San Francisco vs $500k in any other city in the US (except New York) result in substantially different qualities of life. $500k a year income in Miami can get you a mortgage on a 3 bedroom house and a boat. In SF, you get a mortgage on a 1 bedroom apartment.

The company wouldn't move if it still had to pay 500K.

500K in SF gets you a smaller place and plenty of discretionary income. Companies in other places can often give you a house, but not match the discretionary income.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#292

Post by ghaff »

rpmcmurdo wrote: post #266
charlesju wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. San Francisco is really nice. It's 87 degrees today at the end of October. There is good food, decent public transportation, culture, ocean, forests, etc. It doesn't snow here or get blistering hot, so productivity is very steady year round. 2. Because San Francisco is very nice (perhaps) and we have good schools around here. A lot of hires come from UCB, Stanford, UCLA, USC, and other UCs. Those account for sever…

SF has always been expensive. When I moved here, my grandfather who was an actuary for an insurance company (i.e. walking financial database) told me that back in the 1930s, they had to pay 2-3x salary for people based there due to the high cost of living. If you read old issues of the SF Chronicle, you'll find the same story repeated across generations. The only time SF was every really cheap was during the 70s into…

And the Bay Area as a whole wasn't cheap in the late 80s. (SF may have been cheaper because, as you suggest, upper middle class people weren't rushing to move to SF or most other cities in that period.) But I turned down recruiting from the Bay Area during that period in part because the cost of living was too high relative to where I lived on the East Coast.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#293

Post by giarc »

wbronitsky wrote: post #216
giarc wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Maps tells me this is a 14 minute drive (old HQ to Oyster Point Park). 16-30 minutes if you want to arrive at 8am. Is that correct? Is that such a game changer? Do that many people not own vehicles or can't carpool to work?

When I commuted into the Stripe office by car from Oakland, it would take me about 45 minutes to get there, and well over 60 minutes to get home. With this move, you can add about 30 minutes, at least, on to each end. And that's on a good day and assuming you are already commuting by car. From Oakland/the East Bay, there is no good way to get to South San Francisco by public transportation. You are looking at a 2+ ho…

>From Oakland/the East Bay, there is no good way to get to South San Francisco by public transportation.

Is the ferry considered public transportation? I don't live in the area at all, so I'm just poking around on Google Maps to see what the situation is like, so I'm geniuingly asking.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#294

Post by petewailes »

alexhutcheson wrote: post #241
kerkeslager wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all true, but assumes a quick move. A move strategy could be as simple as, opening up an office in a cheaper location: 1. New teams are created at the new location. 2. New hires on existing teams are placed at the new location, with exceptions if teams have a strong need to be in the same place. 3. Make it clear that you'll help people relocate to the new office if they choose to--some people will take you up…

Any examples of a big company actually doing a gradual move this way? It doesn't seem like it would work. Satellite offices are tough to do right. It's very hard to build trust between individuals at the different offices without regular face-to-face contact. In the absence of this, you end up with negative relationships between teams at different sites: "The team in Springfield doesn't care about quality" vs. "Those…

Lots in the financial industry over the last 3 years in London, due to Brexit. Soft moves by letting one office shrink due to natural decline from people moving on and not rehiring in that office, but in another elsewhere.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#295

Post by NetToolKit »

ergocoder wrote: post #217
abalone wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is just....staggeringly stupid. It just penalizes low margin businesses, for no reason. How can anyone possibly think this is a good idea? You might want to ask sf.citi, the SF tech industry lobbying group who came up with it in 2012. Here's a video of Jack Dorsey campaigning for the gross receipts tax as CEO of Square. [1] The argument then, of course, was that we shouldn't tax early stage pre-revenue tech co…

It's unfair because Square pays more tax than Saleforce. Not because they have to pay tax. It would be great next time if you can mention the whole reason around. unfairness. Here's the tweet: https://twitter.com/jack/status/1053312151136362496 Do you think that's fair?

I haven't researched this issue much, but I think it's fair to expect that the CEO of Square could have anticipated this becoming an issue if Square succeeded.

abalone's comment that "they've changed their tune. ... and they still shouldn't pay taxes" could simply be hyperbolic, depending on how charitable people are in their interpretation (e.g. "shouldn't pay [the full amount of] taxes").

I think the main thrust of abalone's comment stands: the CEO of Square pushed for a tax that many think is absurd (e.g. darawk), and now that Square has grown and the tax is unfavorable for them, Square wants to change the tax that it seems to have lobbied for (and presumably thought was fair back then) -- that makes Square seem opportunistic [and not having the community's best interest in mind when the CEO lobbied for the tax]. At least, I think that is abalone's implication.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#296

Post by pc »

Stripe cofounder here. Quick comment to say that we're excited about the move. South San Francisco is a cooperative and open-minded city. In being an infrastructure company, we have to take a long-term view, and we think this can be a good for many years. And while the Bay is tricky from a commuting standpoint no matter what the location, the the presence of a marina right beside this site opens up a lot of interesting new transportation options for us throughout the Bay.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#297

Post by gamblor956 »

adventured wrote: post #110
baby wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a national issue and SF is a symptom. Instead of pushing for healthcare, housing, more aids, and so on, people are just blaming it on mental health.

Your premise doesn't align with the facts . Poverty and homelessness are near all-time lows in the US right now, comparable to Canada. You wouldn't know that by looking at the streets of San Francisco (or Los Angeles for that matter). At a national level homelessness has declined dramatically since 2000. While San Francisco's problem has only kept getting worse. The US as a whole isn't seeing the homelessness problem…

Your missing the part where many states chose not to accept the housing funds, like Texas under Rick Perry, and instead just bought their homeless bus tickets to California.

Texas still just buys their homeless bus tickets to California. When I ask homeless people in LA where they are from, Texas is the #1 response. The LA Times just ran an article this week about people who to come LA seeking stardom and are homeless within a few weeks because they didn't bring enough money to pay rent because they thought they'd be a rich megastar within a few days.

It's truly fucked up for LA and SF to get blamed for having a homeless problem when most of the homeless in CA aren't even locals.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#298

Post by [deleted] »

friedman23 wrote: post #232
dmode wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are still lying $500k, what’s the point of that move ? Also, network effect doesn’t change. I will never move out of SV/SF as I know I can walk down the street and get another $500k job

> If you are still lying $500k, what’s the point of that move ? I think you mistyped here. The point of the move is that $500k in San Francisco vs $500k in any other city in the US (except New York) result in substantially different qualities of life. $500k a year income in Miami can get you a mortgage on a 3 bedroom house and a boat. In SF, you get a mortgage on a 1 bedroom apartment.

[deleted]

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#299

Post by unlinked_dll »

dawg- wrote: post #187
lsc wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there some hidden reason that companies like this insist on staying in the same area despite the many potential advantages of looking elsewhere? the long term root is that there is a huge productivity advantage to clusters of workers. (or, at least many people believe so) Around here, if you strike up a random conversation in public, it's very likely you will do so with someone who does something relevant to wha…

Thanks for the insight, again I fully admit that I don't know the details of the housing/jobs market over there so it was really interesting to hear your perspective. I think the movie industry example is an interesting connection to make. For the last few years Atlanta has overtaken LA as the top producer of feature films in the country, largely due to crazy huge tax incentives for movie studios, and has earned the…

>the last few years Atlanta has overtaken LA as the top producer of feature films in the country

I've worked in the film business a bit. I'd say it's more like colonization than relocation. Atlanta is a place for filming at low costs, most of pre/post production and the organizational aspects still happens in Los Angeles. Most of the talent is still in LA and flies out to Atlanta for a few weeks. They're saving a buck on shooting, paying a bit for local work (mostly infrastructure stuff) but they aren't really generating value for the city.

The issue with any other city becoming the "SV of the XX" in my opinion comes down to VC and business culture. I think California created something unique when it came to powering ventures and crazy ideas, whereas other parts of the country tend to be more risk averse. Whenever I see new initiatives to draw startups to new cities, the common thread is low amounts of seed money with draconian term sheets from people with very little experience and no network effects to speak of.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#300

Post by alexhutcheson »

freeAgent wrote: post #274
alexhutcheson wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any examples of a big company actually doing a gradual move this way? It doesn't seem like it would work. Satellite offices are tough to do right. It's very hard to build trust between individuals at the different offices without regular face-to-face contact. In the absence of this, you end up with negative relationships between teams at different sites: "The team in Springfield doesn't care about quality" vs. "Those…

Almost every successful medium- or large-sized company has done this. As they grow, they open new offices, which they seed with existing staff who are willing to either permanently or temporarily relocate. Most of the time those offices have specific areas of focus, at least when they're starting out. That way they minimize cross-geographic dependencies. To pick a totally non-random example, Stripe has followed this…

Yeah, I specifically meant the "grow a new satellite office into a new HQ" transition. I know companies open satellite offices all the time, but moving your HQ to one of them is much less common.
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