Stripe to move to South San Francisco • Hacker News Board

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#331

Post by buboard » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

charlesju wrote: post #250

dawg- wrote: 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…

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…

i often wonder to what extent these are rationalizations about the apparently unbeatable availability of capital

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#332

Post by gamblor956 » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 5:21 PM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #99

dickeytk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? It specifically talks about it and even provides 2 quotes with contradicting points of view: “Alex Tourk, spokesman for sf.citi, a tech business group, said San Francisco needs to consider changes to its business taxes. The city is currently reviewing the tax system, which brings in a total of $1 billion annually. But those taxes could climb higher under the revised system. “Unfortunately,…

> Taxes don’t have a lot of impact on business decisions. Said nobody involved with any big business. Amazon in New York, Apple’s avoidance of repatriating cash, etc. Taxes have a massive impact on business decisions all of the time. This kind of ignorant thinking is what destroyed the yacht manufacturing industry in the US. “Oh, what difference can a small tax make? Whoops, doesn’t matter because I’m a politician an…

Businesses say that taxes make a huge impact because they don't like paying taxes.

But they do business where they need/want to do business, regardless of the tax situation. Complaining about taxes is just an attempt at leverage to get tax rebates/concessions/exemptions/etc or to structure the final holding company in a way that artificially shields profits so the executives can pay themselves larger salaries and bonuses.

Source: I was a former tax/legal advisor for a number of multinational companies. Out of a few hundred tax structurings, I can count on one hand the number of times that tax rate differentials affected material operational decisions.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#333

Post by Decade » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #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 furth…

This absolutely is bad for San Francisco. South San Francisco is building lots and lots of offices, but not building nearly as many homes. While San Francisco is harmfully negligent at building homes, it is at least building more than its (painfully low-ball) estimated need for high-priced housing. The rest of the peninsula isn’t even building that much. All the counties are far behind at building less-fancy housing.

The effect of moving these high-income jobs to San Mateo County is that Stripe employees will now live in San Francisco and commute to San Mateo, increasing the pressure to gentrify communities near the transit infrastructure, while freeing Stripe’s former office space for another high-tech company that can make even more profit per employee.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#334

Post by hellllllllooo » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 5:25 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #326

hellllllllooo wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> That number is a myth The article [1] posits reasonable hypotheses for why the number might be lower, but doesn’t attempt to calculate it, ending with “math...always making things confusing.” San Francisco spends a lot on its homeless problem. (Using the article’s numbers, stripping out eviction prevention, about $200 million a year.) It has little to show for it. [1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Myt…

> San Francisco spends a lot on its homeless problem with little to show for it.

$241 million from a budget of over $12 billion from a city that with businesses that collectively make hundreds of billions every year. Doesn't seem like that much. Same as 1 SoftBank funded startup that inevitably wastes it.

Little to show for it? The money is going to help people in a awful situation. Just because they haven't disappeared from the streets doesn't mean it's wasted.

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

#335

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

dawg- wrote: 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…

[deleted]

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#336

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 5:31 PM UTC

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #23

I can tell you recruiting for South San Francisco was way harder than recruiting for SF. If I lived in SF without a car, that'd be a deal breaker for me. They're going to start losing people, or see a huge spike in chronic working from home. I guess they have to move somewhere at some point, and no move is without trade-offs. Regarding the gross receipts tax, couldn't they just move their HQ-on-paper to any place tha…

[deleted]

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#337

Post by gamblor956 » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

AdieuToLogic wrote: post #80

cjlars wrote: post #5

Articles misses that this is in response to SF's gross receipts tax. Payment processing is an ultra low margin business, no way they can compete while paying ~1% of revenues to the city.

> Payment processing is an ultra low margin business, no way they can compete while paying ~1% of revenues to the city. Stripe charges %2.9 + $0.30 per transaction. That is not an "ultra low margin" by any means in the CC processing domain. Actually, that is a massive markup when compared to other ISO's and VAR's. Depending on the Merchant's processor and their volume, significance, and sophistication, their Discount…

Hypothetical: Item costs $100.

Stripe's fee is $3.20 (2.9% plus $0.30).

The question is how much of that is gross revenue? Many take the position that the portion that Stripe pays to Visa/MC is not gross revenue to Stripe because it was never their revenue; they were just collecting money the merchant would have owed to Visa/MC. If so, then Stripe's gross revenue is only the $1 they have left after paying Visa/MC on the merchant's behalf.

But others take the position that the entire $3.20 is gross revenue to Stripe, and that the amount they pay to Visa/MC is a COSS of that revenue.

If Stripe pays Visa/MC less for that $100 transaction than the merchant would if Stripe weren't involved, than it's clear that the $3.20 is gross revenue to stripe and the Visa/MC fee is a COSS. But if Stripe would owe Visa/MC the same as the merchant would, then arguably the Visa/MC was never revenue to them in the first place. It comes down to the terms of the contract--is Stripe merely forwarding on the merchant's Visa/MC fee or is it assuming that liability on behalf of the merchant?

When it was growing, Stripe took the position that the entire $3.20 was gross revenue, because it made them look good. (See also, Groupon, Uber.) Now that they're a very big company though, it makes them look too good for tax purposes, even if the financial reality is very different. But having chosen their accounting method, they're stuck with it.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#338

Post by reaperducer » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

dawg- wrote: 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…

People in tech used to accept being relocated as part of the job. From what I read on HN, that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

It was common to joke in the 80's that IBM stands for "I've Been Moved."

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#339

Post by Decade » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

all_factz wrote: post #175

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What alternative solution actually fixes this, though? Lower the cost of building housing. Streamline permits, zoning, and environmental review. Publicly commit, in other words, to driving down housing prices over a decade. (Note: not land prices! That’s the compromise.) This makes it cheaper to... Build enough shelters for the transient homeless population. Now that they’re a stable problem, we can focus on the gr…

I’ve lived in the SF Bay Area pretty much my whole life and I just want to say you hit the nail on the head. Do you know of any politicians who are working to make this happen? I’m pretty liberal, but I sometimes feel we live in such a bubble here that even ideas like these are a third rail...

Permit streamlining (in order to make affordable and supportive housing more tractable), increasing regional transit cooperation, these are projects of sub-groups of YIMBY Action. https://yimbyaction.org/join/

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#340

Post by matahwoosh » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 5:37 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #314

ergocoder wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 do…

You're incorrect, Square has non-SF offices, too. I think @nrp has put it well in his comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21342101. Square is categorized differently than Salesforce by SF tax law and pays a different proportion of taxes than Salesforce.

EDIT: corrected username