The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups • Hacker News Board

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#301

Post by sliverstorm » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 7:35 PM UTC

narrator wrote: post #117

kevinburke wrote: post #6

Both top-level comments have mentioned housing prices. I grew up in the Bay Area and want to stay here and I am trying to work to change policy to help build more housing. Unfortunately due to law, bad policy and NIMBY's the market is not going to solve this problem on its own, without political change rents and housing prices will keep increasing. Here are some political actions you can take to help: - call your Sta…

Why does everyone have to squeeze into San Francisco and the peninsula? Can't you tech workers gentrify West Oakland at least? Guess a few street thugs are a force more powerful than million dollar home prices. I bet those guys are really proud of the chaos they create that forces all of you to avoid their neighborhoods.

Yeah, it seems like despite all the market distortions, the most fundamental issue is the notion that San Francisco can fit everyone who wants to live there.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#302

Post by vram22 » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 7:36 PM UTC

amyjess wrote: post #279

vram22 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So the founders of TI (Cecil H. Green, Eugene McDermott, and J. Erik Jonsson) started their own university with an explicit focus on STEM subjects. Interesting. I had two German friends in high school. They used to carry TI calculators, and I think I remember them telling me that TI was founded by Germans. Is that right? (I can google the info, but thought of asking since you have some background there.) The founder…

Nope. Cecil H. Green was an Englishman who spent some time in Canada before moving to the US. Eugene McDermott and J. Erik Jonsson were both born in the US; I can't find much on McDermott's ethnic background (but I'd guess Scottish or Irish), but Jonsson's parents were Swedish immigrants. By the way, due to their philanthropic and political work (Jonsson was the Mayor of Dallas for a while, and he helped greenlight D…

Thanks for the info. US history and culture is interesting, more so because of it being a melting pot. Endless interesting stuff to read about.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#303

Post by sliverstorm » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 7:40 PM UTC

crawshaw wrote: post #108

fatbird wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should give up. People should leave the area. They should move where they can find a job and a cost of living that's reasonable. The fact that people don't give up is why landlords can afford to charge $2,800/month for a 1 bedroom. You can't rent at $2,800/month if no one will sign the lease.

Many do. The cost to society is enormous. If housing and labor markets were entirely elastic, and those are the only two factors your people need to consider, then "go away" could be a reasonable government policy. But people are more than their income and their cost of living. Consider a recovering opioid addict making minimum wage. Medicaid for health care. They are recovering, not relapsed, because of great suppor…

Moving obviously doesn't work in all cases. But urbanizing doesn't permanently remove the problem, it delays it. Ultimately any plot of land has a maximum carrying capacity. If some of these issues are not solved, what's to say that a decade after we urbanize, we won't be right back here with this same problem?

Personally, I have definitely noticed many people who have convinced themselves they have to stay despite their miserable conditions. Nevermind they have no family in the area, few friends, and despite their very well paying job they can barely afford food & rent. They could surely never be happy elsewhere!

It's like some kind of bubble, where we imagine the whole rest of the country is a backwater hellhole and won't even imagine we could leave.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#304

Post by readhn » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 7:50 PM UTC

wbl wrote: post #280

mcguire wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a sense, I think you are right. This is a comment from a recent thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14763198 Is seems to me that the problem is the amount of money flowing into SF and once that dries up, housing prices will go with it.

That is not the case. Prices have steady risen since the 1970's.

Prices on pretty much everything increased since 70s. Its just with some assets/localities the prices deviated too far from the trend line..

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#305

Post by WalterBright » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 7:52 PM UTC

wbl wrote: post #277

WalterBright wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple should have build a couple apartment towers next to it.

Cupertino didn't let them.

Apple has enormous influence, and Jobs was a very good salesman. Maybe Apple didn't try very hard.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#306

Post by wbl » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 7:57 PM UTC

readhn wrote: post #304

wbl wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not the case. Prices have steady risen since the 1970's.

Prices on pretty much everything increased since 70s. Its just with some assets/localities the prices deviated too far from the trend line..

Real prices on manufactured goods have tumbled.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#307

Post by Hydraulix989 » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 7:59 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #266

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compensation isn't nearly as elastic as housing prices though. Not only that, the demand side for housing is also the supply side for the job market, so prices are squeezed on both sides.

> Compensation isn't nearly as elastic as housing prices though. Because there is usually room to give. If people were on the brink of actually having to leave due to rising costs, incomes would lose their inelasticity pretty quickly, insofar as the need for labour is required. There is always superfluous work that is useful at a low price, but fine to give up completely if costs grow too high. > Not only that, the d…

"If someone in a low-cost area has a gross income of $30,000, and expenses of $25,000, then someone in a high-cost area with a gross income of $150,000 can take on expenses of $145,000 without being any worse off."

I disagree: $5,000 has a lot more buying power in the low income area than the high-cost area.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#308

Post by timothycrosley » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 8:05 PM UTC

hbosch wrote: post #292

timothycrosley wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is all about perspective. Now that's definitely the case with AWS and service first design etc. But from the beginning it was trying to be a bookstore, an online one, for sure. But not pure technology, as say a search engine or an operating system - that don't require much integration with existing physical infrastructure.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#309

Post by randomdata » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 8:09 PM UTC

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #307

randomdata wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compensation isn't nearly as elastic as housing prices though. Because there is usually room to give. If people were on the brink of actually having to leave due to rising costs, incomes would lose their inelasticity pretty quickly, insofar as the need for labour is required. There is always superfluous work that is useful at a low price, but fine to give up completely if costs grow too high. > Not only that, the d…

"If someone in a low-cost area has a gross income of $30,000, and expenses of $25,000, then someone in a high-cost area with a gross income of $150,000 can take on expenses of $145,000 without being any worse off." I disagree: $5,000 has a lot more buying power in the low income area than the high-cost area.

I guess that ultimately depends on what you want to do with your discretionary money. The day-to-day costs are already accounted for in our hypothetical examples.

Someone in a low-cost area may want to travel to the city to take in the entertainment and amenities available in the big flashy city, in which case that money is being spent in a high-cost area. Similarly, someone in a high-cost area may want to travel to a low-cost area to take in what it has to offer and thus will spend it in a low-cost area. In that case, the person with $5k in a high-cost area is actually still better off.

If you're going buy an iPhone with that money, the price isn't going to vary much in either place. If the $5k is saved in both cases, there is no real difference either.

Re: The Decline of Investment in San Francisco Startups

#310

Post by randomdata » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 8:14 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #239

RobertoG wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe they were born there and their family, community and network is there? or is that a nonsense thing to say in the States? In some places of Europe that would be a pretty normal feeling.

> "or is that a nonsense thing to say in the States?" It's a nonsense thing to say in front of the educated American elite. Most of America agrees with you, but as we've seen, there is a disturbing trend amongst American elites to mock anyone who is unwilling to sacrifice their families, communities, and networks in the name of career development/personal advancement. I'm not into most aspects of the populism that is…

> Most of America agrees with you

The ever increasing urbanization rate suggests otherwise. If the majority of Americans had stuck close to their families, these cities would be small settlements at best, and maybe wouldn't even exist at all. In reality, the high cost (which may come in the form of lower income) of living elsewhere has pushed most into these cities.