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San Francisco Bubble

blog.larrold.com

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Re: San Francisco Bubble

#301

Post by restalis »

bduerst wrote: post #208
mbesto wrote: post #62

This is why the free market is so great. 1. Everything too expensive? Good, don't live here, eventually enough people will leave to drive all of the costs back to other market norms. 2. Dumb startups? Good, they will fail, people won't be able to afford to live here and they'll leave. 3. People are spoiled? Uber is cheaper and more convenient in some cases than taking the local transportation. When people stop taking…

What about the people who have already lived there, who aren't on engineering salaries and work service positions? I think it's fun to be flippant, but there still certain demographics that are being displaced and negatively impacted by the bubble.

"What about the people who have already lived there, who aren't on engineering salaries and work service positions?"

I'm trying to look at it in more brighter light, so I'll say that they can sell high their place (which is wonderful thing from a market player's prospective), then offer themselves as a gift to enrich some other lucky place (which is good for many under multiple reasons). It's a win-win!

Re: San Francisco Bubble

#302

Post by Animats »

YuriNiyazov wrote: post #58
thelarry wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very hypocritical.

Yea no kidding. "AppNexus helps brands connect with consumers, empowering agencies and advertisers with a uniquely powerful approach to programmatic online advertising." Thanks for working on Ad Tech, the very thing that powers this bubble by trading attention as a commodity. Other people work on silly startups, but this shit is akin to HFT.

Interestingly, this bubble is not powered by ads. Only one of the top 25 "unicorns" worldwide, Snapchat, is ad-based. The others provide a good or service paid for directly by their customers.

[1] http://fortune.com/unicorns/

Re: San Francisco Bubble

#303

Post by popmystack »

whybroke wrote: post #166
mbesto wrote: post #62

This is why the free market is so great. 1. Everything too expensive? Good, don't live here, eventually enough people will leave to drive all of the costs back to other market norms. 2. Dumb startups? Good, they will fail, people won't be able to afford to live here and they'll leave. 3. People are spoiled? Uber is cheaper and more convenient in some cases than taking the local transportation. When people stop taking…

This is the archetype of magical thinking. You could just as well have said god will do those things with the amount of support you offered. But it seems there is such an unquestioning faith in "the invisible hand" that the mere suggestion that misrembered high school economics may be an oversimplification, let alone in error, is viewed as unspeakable blasphemy. Particularly ludicrous is: >4. Bad engineers? Yup, I've…

There is absolutely no reason for this post to be down voted. I am not sure why people are okay with "it will fix itself" -- it is an absurd position.

Re: San Francisco Bubble

#304

Post by stvswn »

bpchaps wrote: post #272
stvswn wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what are the problems? "Everyone rides an Uber" is great for the Uber drivers. "People spend too much on organic produce" is great for the farmers. "Even bad engineers are in high demand" is great for the mediocre engineers. Housing is a problem, but this post didn't mention it. So before we start making changes, what are the problems in your opinion? And, then, what changes are you proposing?

Rose tinted glasses much? Have you ever been to a poor area in your life? Even mentioning Uber, organics, bad engineers and mediocre engineers ignores places like the south side of Chicago and any gradient between. It's not as pretty outside as you think it is.

Wait I'm missing something. How does largesse in the Bay Area cause poverty elsewhere?

Re: San Francisco Bubble

#305

Post by popmystack »

AlwaysBCoding wrote: post #258
wtracy wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, it's a complete myth that San Francisco is expensive to live in. Cool. Can you point me to where I can get an apartment in SF for less that $1k/month?

Bernal Heights, Portrero Hill, actually there's Maybe not a single apartment to yourself, but definitely a room in a shared apartment. There are a lot of cities btw where you can't get a single one-bedroom apartment for < $1,000

You can't just change the qualifications of his question and then go "I answered it!"

Re: San Francisco Bubble

#306

Post by Spooky23 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #195
mbesto wrote: post #62

This is why the free market is so great. 1. Everything too expensive? Good, don't live here, eventually enough people will leave to drive all of the costs back to other market norms. 2. Dumb startups? Good, they will fail, people won't be able to afford to live here and they'll leave. 3. People are spoiled? Uber is cheaper and more convenient in some cases than taking the local transportation. When people stop taking…

Ok, as a perennial voice for free markets I agree with your observations, but not your point. Having lived through it I see the damage it is doing to individuals who will take years to recover. Too many engineers today, perhaps like sports players, take a big salary, project it across 30 years and then say "Wow I've got millions headed my way, do I really need to bag my lunch?" I've watched as they became both broke…

SFO is a region and city that lives in a boom/bust cycle. It's just the nature of the beast.

If you're attracted to the boom, but don't have the wherewithal to get rich, by definition you're not the type of person who plans well.

Re: San Francisco Bubble

#307

Post by stvswn »

pgodzin wrote: post #248
stvswn wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what are the problems? "Everyone rides an Uber" is great for the Uber drivers. "People spend too much on organic produce" is great for the farmers. "Even bad engineers are in high demand" is great for the mediocre engineers. Housing is a problem, but this post didn't mention it. So before we start making changes, what are the problems in your opinion? And, then, what changes are you proposing?

Well the problem is the people who haven't been included in the tech boom and are living on salaries that can't afford those things and are being forced out of their neighborhoods. You can say it's just free markets again but there is a huge human cost.

Being forced out of their neighborhoods is a housing issue. I think I agreed that housing is a problem. I totally agree we need much, much more housing in the Bay Area. Of course reasonable people can disagree about whether rent control and restrictive zoning helps or hurts the situation for the poorest neighbors. But no one was talking about housing.

Re: San Francisco Bubble

#308

Post by stvswn »

acchow wrote: post #221
stvswn wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what are the problems? "Everyone rides an Uber" is great for the Uber drivers. "People spend too much on organic produce" is great for the farmers. "Even bad engineers are in high demand" is great for the mediocre engineers. Housing is a problem, but this post didn't mention it. So before we start making changes, what are the problems in your opinion? And, then, what changes are you proposing?

Can whoever downvoted this explain why they did so?

Thanks, it's interesting that I simply asked "what are the problems?" and that offended people so much that they downvoted -- but then I got three different answers.

One person says "collective values, worship of the free market." Another person says "there are poor people in Chicago." Finally there's a third person who says "people can't afford to live in their neighborhoods because cost of living got too expensive."

So they haven't agreed on the problem, but they agree on the enemy - it's the spoiled engineers and their high salaries.

Re: San Francisco Bubble

#309

Post by AlwaysBCoding »

popmystack wrote: post #305
AlwaysBCoding wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bernal Heights, Portrero Hill, actually there's Maybe not a single apartment to yourself, but definitely a room in a shared apartment. There are a lot of cities btw where you can't get a single one-bedroom apartment for < $1,000

You can't just change the qualifications of his question and then go "I answered it!"

But if the question is getting a single one-bedroom apartment for < $1,000 a month I think that excludes a lot of cities. New York, DC etc... So it's not meaningful to say SF is a bubble because of a trait that exists in many cities.

Re: San Francisco Bubble

#310

Post by niuzeta »

wesleyfsmith wrote: post #210
brianwawok wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if I am developing an app for millions of users - I would hope there is at least 1 engineer on the team that understands O(n) vs O(n^2). If the app is for 10 users or for the other 75% of employees, may be less important...

I taught at a bootcamp for a while and always covered big O. It's pretty important for interviewing. Bootcamp kids know more CS than you might think...

It sounds like prep school for interview exam
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