Imagine those who don't work on tech.
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Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent
41–50 of 288 posts
Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent
#42Imagine those who don't work on tech.
I imagine rent control comes in handy for some of those people. Then there are the few who won the lottery and have both!
Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent
#43Always remember the #1 industry sector in CA is real estate, not tech. Furthermore, this is why I generally won't consider offers for work in the Bay area (as much as I love NoCal). I do the math and realize I'm cutting my own throat. On the other hand, I'd love to get a great offer and then buy a Blue Bird bus and convert it into a rolling home but only if I could semi-permanently park it in the company parking lot!
I would say you can park in Palo Alto in an RV for free... but it looks like that's changed in recent history. Kind of sad! :(
Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent
#44Do (m)any of the SF startups allow workers to occasionally commute from places like Sacramento? I actually knew bankers who lived in Sactown and got up at 5AM to head out to SF every morning. But technology requires less in-person time. And Sacramento is much, _much_ cheaper than the Bay Area...I shared a great 2-bedroom place in the nicest area of town for around 1,200, where you could walk to great food, parties, and bars. I now pay way more for that to live in a converted garage in Palo Alto...in fact, this garage costs more than my nice 2-bdr apartment did in downtown Manhattan.
Even if you commute 3 times a week from Sacramento, you'd save a lot of money while still having a good social life...and 3 days/week in-person seems sufficient for a lot of dev work projects.
Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seattle is way, way cheaper, the people seem nice to me, and we've had like 9 months of sun, so much so that we were declared officially in drought. Just saying. Might not be Seattle that's the problem. As to traffic, I commute via boat, which is rad, since there are dolphins and orcas sometimes. Seriously!
Bainbridge Island is cheating :) Seattle is still quite affordable, especially where startups tend to have their offices (in boring east side office parks).
Bainbridge island, where green bell peppers are $4 each.
Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent
#46Surely this will end well
Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent
#47I remain surprised that Bay Area tech companies don't move to Sacramento. Near the Bar Area for quick access, near the state seat of power for lobbying, well away from major faults so less prone to earthquakes, significantly lower costs of housing (2 Bdrm apt would be about $1k) - so presumably could save on salary.
Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent
#48Which is silly....honestly companies need to start opening offices in more affordable areas. Colorado (Blouder, Denver, The Springs), Texas (Austin, San Antonio), Missouri (Kansas City, Saint Louis)....there are so many places you can put your employees that saves them money as well as your company a lot of money not only in Salaries because you'll be able to employees less but your rent/power/etc.
They are ... for their non-engineering employees (Lyft in Nashville is the most recent example).
But for engineering talent, it doesn't work. I don't know the exact reason but it seems to be some combination of the ability to poach from each other, herd mentality, and the concentration of VC money.
Take a look at the remote engineering jobs on WWR. Most of them aren't in SF. To me that screams "We opened an office in an affordable city but we still can't get people to come here"
Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent
#49That's ok. When Airbnb, Square, and Stripe IPO in 12-36 months, all of the people currently flooding into SF to work for them will surely be able to sell their pre-IPO shares to ... Well, I don't know, honestly. I doubt that employee #1000 at Square would even be able to pay the down payment on a SF condo with their earnings. Also, just FYI: Seattle isn't that much cheaper than SF, the people are way meaner, traffic…
Visited Seattle for the first time yesterday (from Australia). I have to say that unless you start paying me off I'm going to start promoting it.
The people were super friendly. The weather was great (two days of sunny blue skies). The food was great. Even the roads were easy to deal with
I do take bitcoin.
Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent
#50Most people don't live by themselves in a 1 bedroom. They usually live 2+ people per room, so that they can afford it. For example, a 2 br apt might have 5 people living there, two couples and then one living in the living room. That's how they can afford the $5000/month rent.
By "most people" you mean mostly 20-somethings? It's hard to imagine people in their 30s and older, married and starting to have kids, living like that. I mean, great if you can pull it off, but you'd have to stagger the shower schedule not to mention maybe get a 2nd refrigerator?