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Stripe to move to South San Francisco

sfchronicle.com

311–320 of 441 posts

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#311
post #296

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 interesti…

Having lived in Alameda (ferry to work daily), gotta say nice location.

I only apply for jobs which I can ferry to and it'll definitely enable employees at Stripe live in more affordable locations.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#312
post #149

I am not in the bay area, in fact I've never even been to the West Coast. So I am going to ask what may seem like a stupid question to some of you. I mean this in as polite a way as possible, but why wouldn't established companies like Stripe just fuck off to another city entirely? It's a successful company with a great product - that I'm sure many people would like to work for. They could surely lure talent from the…

Some employees would be afraid to live in a non-California state where non-compete agreements can be enforced. Even if Stripe eschewed them, their next employer might not.

This is a concern I'd have, and a major point of tension in my job search.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#313
This is described as somehow bad news for San Francisco, but I don't see it. Load balancing can be good news both for the old location (less crowded, less competition for housing) and the new one.

Maybe it's counterintuitive for some, but San Francisco is nothing like a old Midwest factory town where reduced jobs and economic activity would be a serious issue. It would be even better if they had moved somewhere further away that needed the jobs and economic growth more, but this isn't a bad result.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gross receipts tax was Jack Dorsey's idea . As CEO of Square he lobbied for and received a switch to the gross receipts tax in 2012.[1] He only started complaining about "fairness" when it became about helping the homeless. [1] https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/SF-Citi-video-plugs-...

You merely mentioned fairness, but you didn't mention which aspect. Jack has been vocal about wanting to pay tax by revenue (or whatever way) to the city. The point that he objects is that Square pays tax more than Saleforce, when Saleforce's revenue is way way more than Square's. This is an example of US political debate. Everyone immediately accuses the person of being evil (i.e. not wanting to pay tax and of hatin…

It makes perfect sense.

Square has the one office in SF, so essentially all of its gross proceeds arise from that office and are subject to the tax.

Salesforce has offices everywhere and a substantial amount of its revenues come from the work of employees outside of San Francisco. This revenue should not be subject to the SF gross revenues tax (and it would be illegal for SF to tax such income).

The question boils down to this: is the disparity in taxes reasonable given the SF-based gross proceeds generated by Square and Salesforce?

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#315
post #296

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 interesti…

South City is also one of the worst cities in the Bay Area in building offices and rejecting homes. The long-term view is that we need more homes near jobs. What are you doing to get South City to build more homes?

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is SSF still a large city in terms of cost of living and owning a home? Personally, by living in a large city I'm giving up the ability to own a home in exchange for access to niche resources such as ethnic enclaves, bohemian artist communities, cultural events, groups dedicated to uncommon hobbies, etc. Just having trendy restaurants and coffee shops wouldn't do it for me.

|bohemian artist communities Do bohemian artist communities still exist in San Francisco? How can they afford to live there?

*65 year old bohemian artist communities that bought their property in 1972

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving offices is really disruptive to people's lives, and causes a huge amount of turnover in your workforce. A brief excerpt from Peopleware[1]: "The typical person being moved today is part of a two-career family. The other half of that equation is probably not being moved, so the corporate move comes down hard on the couple’s relationship at a very delicate point. It brings intolerable stress to bear on the accom…

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…

There're network effects between teams in a big company just like there're network effects between startups in a big city.

As others have mentioned, the big tech companies are all actively doing this. Nevertheless, it's not really taking. I know 3 people who moved from Google's NYC office (the 2nd largest) to Mountain View because all the top-priority projects were in Mountain View. As a general rule of thumb, you want to be where the executives are, and the executives are going to be at headquarters because a.) that's where their home is and b.) that's where all their most productive people are.

There's a steady conveyor belt where young single folks move from satellite offices to headquarters when they want to advance their career and then older folks move to satellite offices when they have kids, to be with their families or enjoy a better quality of life. This is healthy in the sense of maximizing happiness for everyone, but it means that the most ambitious, highest priority projects and most talented people are going to cluster at headquarters.

(As a side note, I feel like not enough people understand that the cost-of-living in SF is an effect of the wealth that's been brought into the area by the tech industry, and isn't just a random fluctuation. If some other metro area suddenly had a large concentration of successful companies that paid high wages, the cost of living would go up there too, until COL-adjusted salaries equalized peoples' preferences for living there.)

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#318
post #296

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 interesti…

> interesting new transportation options for us throughout the Bay.

This sentence made me think - I wonder how expensive it would be for a startup to run a private boat commuting service. Google has their buses, but obviously they have near-limitless resources.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Last year Stripe funded an anti-homeless campaign just $1 shy of the reporting threshold I don’t get the sense that San Francisco’s homeless problem can be solved by throwing dollars at it. San Francisco chooses high housing prices by restricting construction. Its NIMBYs block tackling its homelessness problem. Money won’t change those choices by San Francisco’s voters. It will just swell another city bureaucracy.

Considering the city already spends around $30k per year per homeless person it's pretty obvious money is not the solution.

That number is a myth. An intentional butchering of the homeless stats and spending numbers for political purposes.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Myths-like-homel...

The number is more like $3800 per person per year:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Bu...

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#320
post #309
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?

Google maps work commute estimates in CA are not accurate at all. Probably looking at 30-45mins during rush hour which would be soul crushing if you've previously fought 20 other applicants for a year long lease at a place in walking distance of the old HQ

I work in CA and the estimates are usually accurate to ±10%. There are some rare exceptions for rapidly evolving situations.

Of course, if you do a driving estimate outside of commute hours, it won't match a commute time estimate, in many places.

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