Stripe to move to South San Francisco • Hacker News Board

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#341

Post by graeme » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 5:40 PM UTC

abalone wrote: post #117

Decade wrote: post #67

What a completely unexpected consequence of the restrictions on office space, spearheaded by John Elberling of TODCO. /s He is now trying to make office space even more restricted, and his allies are working to reduce office space alternatively by raising the fees on office construction. https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/SF-Mayor-SoMa-n... https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2019/10/22/sf-... (Mo…

> working to reduce office space That's a rather uncharitable characterization. SF is just trying to tie jobs to adequate housing construction. We already have way too few houses, especially low-income housing.[1] Which is what makes Stripe's move here particularly low integrity: they'll have all the housing impact on SF without paying any of the corporate taxes. From your own source: "A separate economic feasibility…

SF'a govt is the cause of lack of housing construction: they forbid it.

And they've ended up with an endless number of one off, inefficient policies to try to address the problem this has created without addressing the actual cause of the problem.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#342

Post by darawk » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #324

darawk wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, taxing payroll is just as stupid. You tax net income, because it's normalized across businesses. Taxing payroll or revenue is just economic nonsense.

Net income isn't normalized across businesses. Most businesses aim for net income. Most startups don't even try, even if they've raised hundreds of millions of dollars and occupy fancy offices. (It's also very easy for IP-based businesses to shift where income is generated.) And that's the basic reasoning behind SF's gross proceeds tax. It's a uniquely SV tax that only works because so many unicorns built their house…

> Net income isn't normalized across businesses. > Most businesses aim for net income. Most startups don't even try, even if they've raised hundreds of millions of dollars and occupy fancy offices. (It's also very easy for IP-based businesses to shift where income is generated.)

Why would you want to tax a startup that isn't making any money? The whole point of government taxation is to generate revenue from profitable business activity occurring there. Taxing businesses that aren't even making money is ridiculous.

And sure, you can shift where profits are generated. But you can also just not be in SF. Which is exactly what's happening.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#343

Post by paulie_a » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

dmode wrote: post #230

paulie_a wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sample size is small but a company that raised 40 million and the CEO is considering leaving sv because his wife need to make rent with a roommate is not a great sign of the real estate. Sv isn't special. People are going to other tech hubs which are sprouting like crazy. Sv was when it made products. But sass can be done anywhere. People are leaving sv and housing prices are the reason. It's going to lead to brai…

I have a hard time believing this story. You can get 1-bedroom apartment around 3k in SF or neighboring areas. You can afford that with entry level wages

Well it's true and why he wants to move out of sv. There are plenty of better and cheaper places to live. Sv is no longer special.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#344

Post by jobhunt94110 » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 5:44 PM UTC

baby wrote: post #88

paxys wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that's an exaggeration. I know tons of people who commute from the city to south bay and vice versa. Plus South SF is pretty well connected by transit.

I live in SF next to a muni station and to get there I would need to take the muni, then the bart, then the bus. For a total of one hour at least. Driving in no traffic would get me there in 20min.

Same, but from my SF house it'd be 1:40 by public, and at least 30min driving. They're lucky that commuting anywhere in SF tends to suck.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#345

Post by kelp » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

myelin wrote: post #323

Tade0 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't South San Francisco just 10 miles from San Francisco? For some cities this would equate to moving to another part of the same city.

South SF is far less accessible than Stripe's current location in Townsend St (Soma, SF). I'm curious to see how many people leave because of this move. Tech workers in SF tend to live in Soma or the surrounding neighborhoods (FiDi, Mission, Dogpatch), which means for a worker without a car, their commute was previously a short bike, Muni, or Uber Pool, whereas to get to SSF they'll be looking at this (to get to a BA…

This. The major reason why I live in SOMA, and put up with all the significant downsides of that neighborhood, is because it means my commute is very short. It also means I have significant job and networking opportunities within a 30 minute _walk_ from home.

When I was last looking for a new role, I didn't even consider anything outside of SF.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#346

Post by jobhunt94110 » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 5:47 PM UTC

pc wrote: 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…

are shuttles planned? Asking as someone who was planning to interview at the current location in part for a better commute without needing a car.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#347

Post by manigandham » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 5:52 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…

1) They raised money from VCs which demand companies be close by. It's hard to leave when you're growing fast.

2) It's cultural and political signaling which is required in the SV atmosphere.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#348

Post by skybrian » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 5:57 PM UTC

Decade wrote: post #333

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.…

Maybe in the short term, but I would expect Stripe workers would now find the peninsula more attractive and gradually move there. There is also the Marina, which might make some ferry commutes from the east bay reasonable and even pleasant. (I still remember commuting from Alameda to Market Street by ferry to be quite nice.)

More density near transit seems like a good result.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#349

Post by daseiner1 » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 6:00 PM UTC

Keloo wrote: post #220

tshaddox wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people say “homeless are everywhere” regarding SF, they’re probably referring to the extremely troubled people who are conspicuously doing drugs or screaming incoherently on the streets. I don’t think those people would suddenly be fine if only the SF apartments were $500 a month instead of $3000. Of course, there are a lot more homeless people in SF than the very conspicuously unwell people I mentioned. There a…

I'm not from US and I'm not very informed about the homeless problem. But I wonder why homeless people don't move to another city. If I'd be in their situation (living in a city where I can not afford to rent a house and live a normal life) I'd go to another city where with a regular job I can afford a normal life and just build my life there. Sorry if it's a stupid question.

Oh, they do move to another city. They move from homelessness in their original town, to homelessness in San Francisco, often with transportation paid for by their origin city/state's government, because SF has extremely lax drug and vagrancy enforcement, a mild climate, and easy access.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#350

Post by davidw » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 6:09 PM UTC

damon_c wrote: post #283

cloverich wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on personality, but compare it to other climates where for parts of the year you can't comfortably go outside. Northeast you get snowed in regularly, 40 straight days of darkness and rain in northwest, 90+ days of 100 (ish) degree weather here in Austin. Probably grass is always greener type thing.

I prefer to divide climates into two categories. 1. Places where during certain times of year, sitting on a bench for a few hours will cause you to die from exposure to the elements. 2. Other places where you can sit on a bench all day on any day of the year and walk away from it. The Bay area is definitely in category 2 and that is a nice thing.

Yeah, this is my definition of good weather: I want to be able to go ride my bike outside without being cold and miserable (wet!) or uncomfortably hot. Even the best of clothes only go so far with the former and there's not much you can do about the latter besides drink a lot of water.