Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#41

Post by umeshunni » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 6:16 PM UTC

nendroid wrote: post #21

andreilys wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Diego and LA have SFBA easily beat in terms of weather.

Of course but bay is still one of the best in the world. Also the bay encompasses more than SF, while SF and daly city have notoriously foggy weather, the rest of the bay area is quite good.

There's a narrow slice between San Mateo and Santa Clara that has great weather.

Anything North or West is cold and foggy.

South Bay and East Bay pushes 100F for 3 months a year.

And this is before you consider that we now have 1-2 months of smoke season.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#42

Post by CinchWrench » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 6:17 PM UTC

So in spite of what Friedman and his Chicago goons would have had us believe, it turns out the world is in fact not, flat.

Huh.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#43

Post by Mountain_Skies » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 6:17 PM UTC

It's a two way street. If SV companies drop salaries, other companies will have an easier time attracting away talent. SV will have to increase salaries again to compete.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#44

Post by minhazm » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 6:17 PM UTC

Droobfest wrote: post #15

lotsofpulp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>(this makes zero sense to me, the value you add most likely doesn’t change because of where you live)? Price is the intersection of supply and demand. A buyer will ask a seller to accept a lower price if they think the seller is willing to accept a lower price. A seller might accept a lower price if they don't think they can get a higher price. You are paid $X because the buyer couldn't find someone willing to accep…

Then the question becomes if Sillicon Valley will now also try to hire remotely from a larger talent pool all across the U.S. (or even world).

Silicon Valley, at least the bigger companies, already do that. Most people are not native to the area. Almost everyone I know in the bay area moved there for work.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#45

Post by NDizzle » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 6:17 PM UTC

stanrivers wrote: post #3

Are companies going to start adjusting salaries for people who move (this makes zero sense to me, the value you add most likely doesn’t change because of where you live)? That’s where this gets weird... people move to these better-to-live places and then all the employers decides to pay them less because of location. Then you just push up housing prices with salaries that slowly reset over time to be cost of living a…

Don't let the employers do that to you. If they try, go elsewhere. I kept my bay area salary while moving to Arkansas.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#46

Post by sna1l » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 6:17 PM UTC

I think the burst of tech workers moving out of Silicon Valley/SF into surrounding suburbs + other areas is driven mostly by people who were already on the cusp of leaving the city.

I've been thinking about leaving SF to move to the East Bay for the last couple years, and COVID-19 has provided a very strong impetus to expedite that move.

Obviously this is anecdotal, and everyone has their own motives, but I haven't heard of many 20-27 years BUYING property outside of their home cities (SF, NYC, etc).

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#47

Post by scarmig » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 6:19 PM UTC

stanrivers wrote: post #3

Are companies going to start adjusting salaries for people who move (this makes zero sense to me, the value you add most likely doesn’t change because of where you live)? That’s where this gets weird... people move to these better-to-live places and then all the employers decides to pay them less because of location. Then you just push up housing prices with salaries that slowly reset over time to be cost of living a…

Supply and demand.

But, if it ultimately turns out on-site employees provide no real advantages over remote employees, the end result is going to be a grand leveling more weighted toward a downward adjustment in Bay Area wages than an upward adjustment in within-the-US wages.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#48

Post by d1zzy » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 6:19 PM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #16

lotsofpulp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>(this makes zero sense to me, the value you add most likely doesn’t change because of where you live)? Price is the intersection of supply and demand. A buyer will ask a seller to accept a lower price if they think the seller is willing to accept a lower price. A seller might accept a lower price if they don't think they can get a higher price. You are paid $X because the buyer couldn't find someone willing to accep…

Yes, that's correct. But the question being asked is why the location changes the $X's there. I don't know that restatement of economic generalities helps unless you're going to apply them to the dynamic being asked about.

That seems obvious to me: lowering your cost of living means you are willing to accept $X-1, or if you personally don't want to another person that also moved out of high priced living area may accept a lower salary (so they get your job). Otherwise why did companies even have different compensation tiers for same type of work across US regions?

Just because it takes some time for the market to price the changes it doesn't mean it won't do that. Enjoy the initial boost in discretionary income but prepare for having to negotiate lower compensation down the line (or, more likely, not getting any increase in compensation for a long time).

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#49

Post by silicon2401 » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 6:19 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #39

People have been talking about this on HN for a few months now, and I never took it seriously since these threads are always filled with people quoting numbers saying it's not happening. That was until last month, when two tech workers from San Francisco moved into the neighborhood. Both have the same story: Their company went work-from-home when the pandemic started, then made it permanent, so the company employees…

That's what makes it appealing to a lot of people who have been living around millions of other people. Soon many of these places will no longer be cheap and far away from other people. It'll be interesting to see how today's cultural conflicts play out when the more left-leaning, urban remote workers move en masse to smaller, more right-leaning, less urban places.

Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them

#50

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 6:20 PM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #16

lotsofpulp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>(this makes zero sense to me, the value you add most likely doesn’t change because of where you live)? Price is the intersection of supply and demand. A buyer will ask a seller to accept a lower price if they think the seller is willing to accept a lower price. A seller might accept a lower price if they don't think they can get a higher price. You are paid $X because the buyer couldn't find someone willing to accep…

Yes, that's correct. But the question being asked is why the location changes the $X's there. I don't know that restatement of economic generalities helps unless you're going to apply them to the dynamic being asked about.

I think that's just a question that people look at backwards. From a company's perspective, salaries outside the SF Bay Area are the "right" ones - they think they're moving closer to the world where location doesn't matter, not further away.