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Stripe to move to South San Francisco

sfchronicle.com

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Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#421

Post by randycupertino »

wgerard wrote: post #157
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…

> 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? To be totally blunt, I also suspect a large part of it is that the founders would like to be in the bay area. I don't mean that as a slight either - I think if you're spending a good portion of your life on something, you might as well do it in a place you enjoy spending time in!

> To be totally blunt, I also suspect a large part of it is that the founders would like to be in the bay area.

At my firm, the founders wish they could go back to NYC or east coast in a heartbeat, but tied to Bay Area due to funding connections and employee pool. I work a lot with Europe so I'd love to be on the east coast as well.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#422

Post by abalone »

ergocoder wrote: post #400
NetToolKit wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't researched this issue much, but I think it's fair to expect that the CEO of Square could have anticipated this becoming an issue if Square succeeded. abalone's comment that "they've changed their tune. ... and they still shouldn't pay taxes" could simply be hyperbolic, depending on how charitable people are in their interpretation (e.g. "shouldn't pay [the full amount of] taxes"). I think the main thrust of…

I don't really see any problem with how Jack behaved. Jack wanted companies to pay more tax to the city. He helped lobby it. But this part where Saleforce pays less tax than Square is absurd. So, he's against it. I don't really see any problem with this line of thinking. To give the exact number, Square pays 20m, and Saleforce pays 10m. But Saleforce is 2-10x bigger than Square. No matter how you cut it. It's not fai…

> Jack wanted companies to pay more tax to the city.

Uh, no. Jack has specifically and consistently lobbied against paying taxes (see: previous link). In 2011 he threatened to threatened to move Twitter to neighboring Brisbane unless he got the now infamous mid market tax break.[1] Exactly what Stripe just did. He greatly exaggerates the impact of a hypothetical $10M extra towards fighting homelessness on a $26B company with $3B in revenues.

The best response to this “fairness” line was from Marc Benioff himself, who said to Jack, ok, tell us how much you or Square or Twitter has given towards addressing homelessness in any other form. Crickets from Jack. He really doesn’t like paying taxes or giving.

[1] https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/square-ceo-jack-dorseys-tax-...

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#423

Post by daseiner1 »

daseiner1 wrote: post #351
PopeDotNinja wrote: post #23

I can tell you recruiting for South San Francisco was way harder than recruiting for SF. If I lived in SF without a car, that'd be a deal breaker for me. They're going to start losing people, or see a huge spike in chronic working from home. I guess they have to move somewhere at some point, and no move is without trade-offs. Regarding the gross receipts tax, couldn't they just move their HQ-on-paper to any place tha…

It's a fairly easy commute from the city in my experience. BART -> Millbrae or Balboa Park + 15 minute shuttle to the office. Just about every company in SSF that I saw offers some sort of shuttle, and I was at a startup with a much lower cap.

even better: it was mostly against traffic == half empty train (as of 2 years ago). makes the commute sooo much nicer, both ways. felt comfortable enough to get work done on the way in, and read a book on the way back.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#424

Post by m463 »

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…

it's simple.

The employees are a self-selected population for the area.

The employees that work for a company have already decided that is where they want to live and work.

They could just open an additional office in a more "reasonable" place, say somewhere with lower taxes, lower cost of living, shitty weather and fewer qualified employees...

Also, I've often wondered if locating a company in somewhere with a nosebleed cost of living like SF is a way to exclude employees that are not young, single and/or without families to distract them. SF is great for single people.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#425

Post by tlavoie »

You know, the more I read about this sort of thing, the more I appreciate working for a company with a strong remote-friendly culture.

It's not universal within the organization, but _very_ common in the tech groups I interact with. All this talk about whether one can have pleasing weather vs cost of living highlights that for some, having both is quite possible.

I'm on Canada's west coast, so Vancouver (with crowding, culture and cost) is my nearest approximation to the Bay area. Being at or near HQ is irrelevant when remote work is common-place, and very occasional travel ceases to be a big deal.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#426

Post by lsc »

vikiomega9 wrote: post #416
lsc wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a big social component, too. I personally would pay rather extra to live here in silicon valley - extra even net additional earnings, just because I fit in ways I don't fit anywhere else I've been. (I mean, I'm not claiming that silicon valley is more inclusive than other places; a lot of people say the opposite and I have seen some evidence corroborating that view. I'm just saying, for me, for who I…

Side topic, I've been in the bay area for a while but struggled to meet people, did you just go to random meetups? ie. how do I build a network here, I'm a transplant for context.

I think you can do a lot worse than random meetups. I have enjoyed the toastmasters debate club[1] though I haven't been going lately. I think work friends are good sources of friends, too. I mean, work friends are work friends, and that's a different thing, but once you leave that job, there's nothing wrong with sending a few texts, and heck, work friends can be a lot of fun even when they are still work friends.

Back in the day, the Hacker Dojo was really great for meeting people. I personally think it's not nearly as good as it was (social stuff, I think, isn't going to be as good during boom times. a lot of the interesting people are just too busy and/or schmoozing less randomly, and we're in a boom time, so the hacker dojo looks like a regular co-working space rather than the coolness it was in the late aughts.) - I mean, I think it's still pretty neat, and still a good place to meet people, just not as good as it was.

A lot of it takes time; I mean, I've been here, more or less, since the late '90s. And a lot of it is just asking. After you leave a job, pick one of your work friends, send them an email and see if they wanna get drinks or something. Like, my experience is that it's okay to be a little weird. just make sure you go away when people tell you to go away. I mean, I know one guy who was my roommate and business partner like fifteen years ago, who is a super introvert. Maybe once a month I send him a text and see if he wants to get pizza. Maybe twice a year he responds in the affirmative.

doing projects with people is... super expensive, but in my life, doing a project/business with someone has been a little like how combat is in the stories, like you have gone through heck with that person and so you will forever have a connection.

[1]https://www.meetup.com/Agile-Articulators-Toastmasters-Club/

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#427

Post by randomsearch »

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…

I really like what Stripe have done, and I think they're one of the few great startups from the last decade.

I'm surprised to hear that you didn't support Prop C. I've visited SF and was horrified by the homeless problem there, particularly in the face of huge inequality. Didn't you want to do something about that?

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#428

Post by Tade0 »

randycupertino wrote: post #417
Tade0 wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mulled over this for a while and figured that I should be grateful. This whole situation appears to be lifting IT salaries all over the world. I'm currently in the middle of switching jobs and found that I sneer at positions that pay less than ~$50k (in Poland at that) or don't offer fully remote work. So, I guess, thank you?

Polska! I am Polish (3rd gen removed) and was recently in Krakow for a work/fun trip and fantasized about moving there for a year or so and working remote for a while to learn the language and explore the country. Could keep my Bay Area salary as long as kept US hours for conference calls etc. We hire remote IT as well- lmk if you're interested in connecting!

Sure - how can I reach you?

If you want to reach me try:

hand at wringing.it

My GitHub handle is the same as my HN handle.

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#429

Post by chrisan »

deathanatos wrote: post #205
nickv wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except its going to be 84 and sunny today. Summers are brutal but the rest of the year is pretty nice.

I grew up in the South, and worked in the Bay Area for 9 years, 7 in SF. Summers is SF are most assuredly not brutal. Most of the microclimates in the Bay Area are disgustingly peaceful, but as the parent notes, there is a distinct lack of seasons (there's approximately two: dry summers, wet "winters") and real weather (I greatly missed thunderstorms when I was there).

Bay Area is big and micro climates can vary!

We lived in the Sunset district which was manageable but later moved to Mill Valley and the summers were _very_ brutal, to me. A couple other office mates lived in San Rafael and I distinctly remember everyone complaining about the heat and sweating.

We all eventually bought air conditioners for our bedrooms just so we could sleep comfortably at night.

But brutal is all a relative term. Someone growing up in the south with no access to AC would not call it brutal while I and my other office mates who were used to AC were "dying" without it

Re: Stripe to move to South San Francisco

#430

Post by bernierocks »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #290
bernierocks wrote: post #282

“Taxes don’t have a lot of impact on business decisions. It’s something that has been exaggerated for years” If I'm paying 50% in taxes as opposed to 10%, I will be making different business decisions. Most SF startups incorporate in Delaware because of the low corporate taxes.

> Most SF startups incorporate in Delaware because of the low corporate taxes. That is not true. Most startups everywhere incorporate in Delaware because Delaware has the most robust legal system (e.g. the Court of Chancery) dedicated to handling corporate disputes. More info: https://whyy.org/articles/why-do-so-many-corporations-choose...

This sounds like something a VC would tell the press as an excuse.

It's no coincidence that Delaware has very low corporate taxes:

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/09251...

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