San Francisco Bubble • Hacker News Board

Re: San Francisco Bubble

#381

Post by svhoapres » Sat, Jan 30, 2016, 7:15 PM UTC

superuser2 wrote: post #322

pc86 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with everything you said but I think you're underestimating the importance of fighting lifestyle inflation at all costs. It's incredibly hard to justify a six-figure burn rate under any circumstances, even in San Francisco. If you've got a job making multiples of the median household income in the US, it's incredibly irresponsible to live in a manner that wouldn't support a pretty major pay cut at any point.

Young developer here. The "lifestyle inflation is evil" mantra never made sense to me. The definition I usually find is "living better than a college student once you are a working professional," so apologies if you mean something different. I was raised to save 15% for retirement, to never carry a credit card balance, to build a 6 month emergency fund, etc. All of these priorities come first. But, after they are fun…

Plan on getting out of software ASAP as age discrimination is rampant in the business.

Re: San Francisco Bubble

#382

Post by svhoapres » Sat, Jan 30, 2016, 7:19 PM UTC

No one wants to "throw this out there" but I will.

SV has been overpriced for decades and it is only the importation of CHEAP h1b labor that has allowed the growth to continue.

You know something is a miss when you build ever and ever more future slums being 4+ story apartment buildings resulting in h1bs stuffed 12+ into an apartment paying $3K+ or even more for a 1BR apartment.

Americans won't live like that. Or so I hope.

If you didn't have h1bs then the jobs most likely would have gone to cheaper parts of the country as the wage costs would have started to rise to levels such that the products couldn't be developed here.

Works for me.

We have (or had) a choice of allowing IT to be offshored "like everything else" or wreck Silicon Valley making it into a (future) slum.

We made the wrong choice.

Re: San Francisco Bubble

#383

Post by angelbob » Sun, Jan 31, 2016, 12:16 AM UTC

beachstartup wrote: post #352

superuser2 wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young developer here. The "lifestyle inflation is evil" mantra never made sense to me. The definition I usually find is "living better than a college student once you are a working professional," so apologies if you mean something different. I was raised to save 15% for retirement, to never carry a credit card balance, to build a 6 month emergency fund, etc. All of these priorities come first. But, after they are fun…

hn has an outspoken minority actively competing in the cheapskate olympics. everyone's circumstances are different, do what makes sense to you. there's always some penny pinching proselytizer trying to tell other people how to live. i find it better to focus on making more money.

Sure. You just have to be careful with the "make more money" mentality because it eventually leads you out of being a full-time software developer.

You can go manager or freelancer, of course.

Re: San Francisco Bubble

#384

Post by angelbob » Sun, Jan 31, 2016, 12:20 AM UTC

pjlegato wrote: post #335

dawnbreez wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason free markets are great isn't their speed (though they are often faster than your average politician); it's the self-regulating nature of it. You don't have to tell people to stop buying overly-expensive food, nor do you have to tell the food stores to cut their prices. Over time, they each realize that the higher price isn't working; the customer buys elsewhere (either across the street or aceoss the state…

Telcos are actually a great example of how the free market (eventually) routes around incumbents who fail to satisfy market demand. The telcos have stalled residential broadband for decades, leaving most of the US stuck with early 2000s-level cable modems or DSL. None of them will make a move. So what happened? https://fiber.google.com/about/

I wish you were right. I'm in Fremont, a half hour from Mountain View and Google. Google Fiber's still not available.

Re: San Francisco Bubble

#385

Post by crimsonalucard » Sun, Jan 31, 2016, 2:50 AM UTC

someear wrote: post #59

There are lots of dumb startups. But a handful of these dumb startups are going to turn into big, meaningful companies that change some aspect of people's lives, hopefully in a positive way (at a minimum they will offer employment). Because of that, it's worth putting up with these "dumb" ones because 0.1% of them will pay off the other ones. Companies evolve, and some don't stay dumb forever.

meaningful way? Something like Facebook has certainly changed things, but whether or not the change is meaningful remains up for debate. Most of these 'changes' just make our lives slightly more convenient or seem a bit more futuristic, but these are illusions.

Change that is categorically meaningful involves things like a cure for cancer, a new source of energy, etc..etc.. If we are to judge whether this startup trend has changed peoples lives in a meaningful way, we should look for changes that are categorically meaningful.

Re: San Francisco Bubble

#386

Post by crimsonalucard » Sun, Jan 31, 2016, 3:04 AM UTC

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…

Such a simple answer for a problem that is vastly more complex. Here's 2 simple ideas for you:

1. Some people can have more freedom than other people.

2. In a free market, rich people have more freedom than everyone else.

A free market is not truly free. Although this concept is frighteningly obvious it is incredibly hard to articulate. You are essentially telling people to get the fuck out of San Francisco because they're not rich enough.

Re: San Francisco Bubble

#387

Post by bduerst » Mon, Feb 01, 2016, 5:44 PM UTC

smokeyj wrote: post #358

bduerst wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I don't get your argument. Not being displaced by an economic bubble is a now a sense of entitlement? Based on your experience you described, you weren't displaced.

If you feel entitled to not be displaced - then yes, that's a sense of entitlement. I was amazed by the people who felt entitled to a lower cost of living - all while blaming IT workers for gentrifying their beautiful oasis. I would have thought they lived in SF their whole life to feel that level of angst. More like a couple years. Intermittently. While their parents pay for their art degree.

That's very tautological of you, but I'm guessing English isn't your first language.

A sense of entitlement is an English idiom for "having too high of expectations", and typically associated with narcissism. Expecting to not be displaced from your home after 20 years is not a sense of entitlement or narcissistic.

Re: San Francisco Bubble

#388

Post by stvswn » Mon, Feb 01, 2016, 8:57 PM UTC

bpchaps wrote: post #332

stvswn wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forgot to answer your question. Yes I've been to a poor area before. I also forgot to apologize for mentioning Uber, organics, and engineering. You're right, but acknowledging the existence of those concepts I'm totally ignoring the South Side of Chicago. But by bringing up Chicago, you're completely ignoring sub-Saharan Africa and Bangladesh. It's not so pretty there, either. Are you going to apologize for that? L…

Because these areas are part of the nuance that allows SF-like mentalities to exist. Ignoring that nuance ignores the larger problem on how these bubbles can happen.

I really can't make any sense of this. Is it supposed to make sense? How can something be part of a nuance? What is the nuance you're talking about? And if ignoring the nuance means ignoring the "larger problem," how is it that it is a nuance at all? Is nuance just supposed to be a word for something you don't care to explain?

Re: San Francisco Bubble

#389

Post by bpchaps » Tue, Feb 02, 2016, 12:12 AM UTC

stvswn wrote: post #388

bpchaps wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because these areas are part of the nuance that allows SF-like mentalities to exist. Ignoring that nuance ignores the larger problem on how these bubbles can happen.

I really can't make any sense of this. Is it supposed to make sense? How can something be part of a nuance? What is the nuance you're talking about? And if ignoring the nuance means ignoring the "larger problem," how is it that it is a nuance at all? Is nuance just supposed to be a word for something you don't care to explain?

To me, 'nuance' is just a word to describe "the sub-surface stuff that has no immediate and apparent effect within a local system." So, when I say "ignoring the nuance ignores the larger problem", I'm suggesting that there's a large set of problems occurs when you ignore the lon-local effects - ideologically and physically.

It's a complicated problem with many, many components. Nuance is more relevant than you think it is. Think of fractals and weather patterns.

An effect of SF: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/globalcity/ct-global-city... Why it happens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital_flight

Re: San Francisco Bubble

#390

Post by scorpion032 » Tue, Feb 02, 2016, 1:32 PM UTC

Does anybody know of any major open source contributor that lives in SF?

I used to be active in the Python/Django community earlier and am getting involved in the JS-React-Redux community. Not only do most people live outside SF, they live in a remote place that you wouldn't have heard about.

Software, good software is creative and creativity needs serendipity. The pressure to meet the next funding round criteria or to get an Uber through the traffic hearing my next track not making eye contact with my uber-pooler isn't the best frame of mind conducive to creativity.

I'm sure a lot of top CEOs and the top guys in select areas have a great social circle - smartest people who they eat/hangout with, which is very good. But there are also a lot of me-toos, for whom just living in SF is the thing they are achieving that feed their egos.