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The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people

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Re: The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people

#41

Post by Arainach »

dilyevsky wrote: post #39
Arainach wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice, no, the non competes are never enforced, and if the goal is to brag about high compensation startups don't matter.

Amazon has filed numerous lawsuits for this - it’s well documented. I think there’s some some sort of ban for non-competes on w2s under $120k now (which doesn’t really help tech workers), but otherwise you’re wrong. To your second point - there are always a bunch of well capitalized startups in the valley. Today it’s AI, before it was crypto, etc. These startups pay really really well when compared nationally. You do…

Startup equity should be assumed to have a value of 0, which statistically it does. I've never seen one be competitive on actual hard currency compensation - even the hot ones. And that's before valuing your time per hour worked.

I'd love to see examples of Amazon trying to enforce noncompetes at levels lower than VP, because I've never seen it. Folks move to direct competitors all the time - AWS to Azure or Oracle, etc.

Re: The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people

#42

Post by AtlasBarfed »

pyb wrote: post #18
jnwatson wrote: post #5

At Google, HR has dictated to our team "no Bay-area hiring" for over a year now. It seems at least one company agrees with "There’s no surplus value in hiring in the Bay Area".

What's HR'a rationale?

Google doesn't do anything interesting anymore.

Re: The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people

#43

Post by dilyevsky »

Arainach wrote: post #41
dilyevsky wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon has filed numerous lawsuits for this - it’s well documented. I think there’s some some sort of ban for non-competes on w2s under $120k now (which doesn’t really help tech workers), but otherwise you’re wrong. To your second point - there are always a bunch of well capitalized startups in the valley. Today it’s AI, before it was crypto, etc. These startups pay really really well when compared nationally. You do…

Startup equity should be assumed to have a value of 0, which statistically it does. I've never seen one be competitive on actual hard currency compensation - even the hot ones. And that's before valuing your time per hour worked. I'd love to see examples of Amazon trying to enforce noncompetes at levels lower than VP, because I've never seen it. Folks move to direct competitors all the time - AWS to Azure or Oracle,…

> I'd love to see examples of Amazon trying to enforce noncompetes at levels lower than VP, because I've never seen it.

Easy[0]. I also know a few cases where a 3rd company refused to extend an offer due to legal flagging it

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7975428

> I've never seen one be competitive on actual hard currency compensation - even the hot ones

OpenAI famously was pretty generous. It’s all public data now due to lawsuits

Re: The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people

#44

Post by hot_gril »

SoftTalker wrote: post #19
hot_gril wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like an exaggeration, cause there must be plenty of worse places. But yeah Silicon Valley rubbed me the wrong way.

Why is that? Monoculture I assume? Everyone works in tech so you never meet interesting people who work in completely different fields?

It's something else that I can't easily explain. I'm a remote SWE now, and I go to a local office I'm not assigned to. Just in that tech circle, I have way more friends at work here than I did in Silicon Valley, where I saw my team and department each day in-office. I was just as friendly and outgoing in both places, and similar place in my life (married).

There are a lot of good things about living in Silicon Valley, so it's a bit annoying when people take all that for granted. I do miss being able to bike everywhere I needed in Mountain View. But I was happier after we left.

Re: The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people

#45

Post by ilrwbwrkhv »

jnwatson wrote: post #5

At Google, HR has dictated to our team "no Bay-area hiring" for over a year now. It seems at least one company agrees with "There’s no surplus value in hiring in the Bay Area".

Google is also a failing company though. Not sure they are a good role model when it comes to hiring.

Re: The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people

#46

Post by klipklop »

tayo42 wrote: post #27
jnwatson wrote: post #5

At Google, HR has dictated to our team "no Bay-area hiring" for over a year now. It seems at least one company agrees with "There’s no surplus value in hiring in the Bay Area".

Doesn't Google want everyone in an office? How does that work?

From a local office taking matching orders from MTV.

Re: The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people

#47

Post by ilrwbwrkhv »

J_Shelby_J wrote: post #33

Continental allergies destroy talent. This applies to much of the east coast as well as they’re downstream of the continent. I agree with much of this post, but there is a reason the areas with the highest intellectual output are on the coast. I just moved from Dallas to the bay. Going from multiple allergy medicines a day and a persistent brain fog from ragweed and mountain cedar to none. Going from keeping windows…

That's an interesting view. I always thought the coast cities had naval business and trade and they are simply still running off those initial successes. But your point is also very interesting. Do you have any data around it?

Re: The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people

#48

Post by vernon99 »

Eumenes wrote: post #37

Outside of wanting to work at some tier 1 startup like OpenAI or being a CTO/CISO, I see no financial incentive to live/work in a metro area like the Bay area. I'd like to see some comparison between a remote worker getting a "Good" tech salary (mid 200s-low 300s) in low CoL area and some Netflix engineer in Los Gatos making $750k year but paying the high taxes/housing/food/etc.

In no way your cost of living in Los Gatos would be higher than the delta of 450k, even post tax. Are you serious? Bay Area is still an absolute best place to create savings equivalent to generational wealth in many other places. Also, Los Gatos is no SF, a lovely place.

Re: The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people

#49

Post by edanm »

hot_gril wrote: post #10
bgentry wrote: post #6

The TV show Silicon Valley lampooned all these ideas a decade ago. The weird thing I’ve noticed is that when Bay Area tech people watch that show, they don’t seem to understand that they’re being made fun of. They think they’re being celebrated. That’s how thick the bubble is. I've never met a person who didn't understand that this show is satire. Every single tech person I've talked to about Silicon Valley thinks it…

I heard one word of that show through my roommate's door and knew it was satire

Oh c'mon, I gotta ask - what word? :)
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