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Twitter kills its San Francisco headquarters, will relocate to South Bay

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Re: Twitter kills its San Francisco headquarters, will relocate to South Bay

#491
I have always had mixed feelings about silicon valley expanding into San Francisco -- I felt there was a strong negative impact, though to some degree SF acted as a honey pot for those just interested in money.

I wonder if this will be a harbinger of a retreat or shrinking of the size of the overall "tech" sector, or if it will remain a one-off. I guess that when the blockchain and ai bubbles really burst we'll see. They have a higher concentration up there for some reason.

Re: Twitter kills its San Francisco headquarters, will relocate to South Bay

#492

There is a famous paper about the location of company headquarters: they get as close as possible to the residence of company CEOs. If we don't consider the CEO's influence, I'm actually curious if the location of company headquarters has to do with the average age of the employees in the Bay Area. As the employees start to have families, they most likely move to the south bay for better or for worse, and I have a ha…

Just in response to your second point, I do think that's specific to you and your circles. I know multiple retired or semi-retired people who have moved towards the center of a city. Without work to keep them occupied, they want the hustle and bustle, which means something to do. And driving has become more of a hassle and a barrier to the kinds of lives they want to live. These are east coast or midwest cities, so m…

> I know multiple retired or semi-retired people who have moved towards the center of a city

Is it because their kids have grown up? I can imagine myself living in a city like Paris or NY if I don't have kids. I get to enjoy a bustling city without needing to dealing with the challenges of raising kids.

Re: Twitter kills its San Francisco headquarters, will relocate to South Bay

#493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per capita is such a stupid way to measure shooting danger. What really matters is average proximity to shootings (which does measure danger, since proximity to the bullet could lead to you getting killed, or the shooter aiming in another close direction). Obviously, this is higher in dense areas, hence the higher perceived danger. Case in point, if you have a rural area of 1000 people and there are 10 shootings (1%…

Right, but I'm saying there's a disconnect between perception and reality. The reputation cities have is based on their perception and not necessarily reality. You can only make some place so safe in a country like the US. It's trivial to obtain a firearm, so naturally gun violence will always be a problem for us. To be fair, cities do also generally have MUCH more public services available. They have shelters, food…

> You can only make some place so safe in a country like the US. It's trivial to obtain a firearm, so naturally gun violence will always be a problem for us.

Absent a few violent neighborhoods, the American homicide rate is on par with places without guns at all. Nevertheless, homicide rate is pretty inversely correlated with amount of quality of life policing. Giuliani made New York city incredibly safe, one of the safest cities in the world, despite the preponderance of guns. Policing works. Consistent prosecution works. Continued imprisonment for those who are clearly dangerous works. The net economic benefit (not to even mention the environmental ones) is more effective than any welfare program

Re: Twitter kills its San Francisco headquarters, will relocate to South Bay

#494
post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4Chan was run by like one guy using the change he found in the cushions of his couch. Getting the pixels on people's screens is the easy part. Keeping the Nazis and bots at bay is the expensive part. You have to do the latter if you want to keep the advertisers on your site, which is why X switched to a more for-pay model and still loses money hand over fist. Being able to pay to have your voice amplified has been a…

I much prefer the Twitter of today. Since I'm a grown adult, I can handle some mean words being seen by my eyes, and just ignoring what I don't like. It's nice seeing a balance of both sides of an argument now, rather than only seeing the left biased information.

Is "left biased information" a euphemism for anything that doesn't include Nazi propaganda or hate speech? Because those are pretty much the things that were (loosely, not fully) banned prior to Elon's takeover.

Re: Twitter kills its San Francisco headquarters, will relocate to South Bay

#495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just in response to your second point, I do think that's specific to you and your circles. I know multiple retired or semi-retired people who have moved towards the center of a city. Without work to keep them occupied, they want the hustle and bustle, which means something to do. And driving has become more of a hassle and a barrier to the kinds of lives they want to live. These are east coast or midwest cities, so m…

Also, a lot of older people don't want big houses, and having easy access to amenities and socialization is more important than having extra empty bedrooms.

Very true. At least to me, a modest condo will be more than enough, as I've learned long before that tidiness brings more pleasure than large space.

Re: Twitter kills its San Francisco headquarters, will relocate to South Bay

#496
post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by "everywhere" you mean "major megapolises with crime problems", then yes, everywhere. Otherwise, no, not everywhere, and yes, in a suburban location a chance of a shooting happening under your very office window is extremely low. Living/working in a megapolis has its advantages, but let's not paint over its downsides also. Criminals want the same advantages too.

Cities tend to have a lower per-capita crime rate, it's just dense and visible. This is just suburban paranoia. Crime happens.

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Re: Twitter kills its San Francisco headquarters, will relocate to South Bay

#497

There is a famous paper about the location of company headquarters: they get as close as possible to the residence of company CEOs. If we don't consider the CEO's influence, I'm actually curious if the location of company headquarters has to do with the average age of the employees in the Bay Area. As the employees start to have families, they most likely move to the south bay for better or for worse, and I have a ha…

Back in the early 90s my wife and I moved to SF because it had a thriving art and music scene and more interesting culture than the 'burbs of palo alto. But as you say, the long commute to SV was a killer and we moved back down. Back then SF was a bedroom community for SV with no tech sector. Businesses up there were banking (Wells Fargo, BofA, Crocker etc), retail, the local stock exchange, and a bunch of manufacturing.

Nowadays there's a bland sameness -- barely any music or other art much less much craziness. You can't imagine anything like the psychedelic scene appearing in SF much less Palo Alto these days, and most of what's left is in Oakland. Sigh.

Re: Twitter kills its San Francisco headquarters, will relocate to South Bay

#498

There is a famous paper about the location of company headquarters: they get as close as possible to the residence of company CEOs. If we don't consider the CEO's influence, I'm actually curious if the location of company headquarters has to do with the average age of the employees in the Bay Area. As the employees start to have families, they most likely move to the south bay for better or for worse, and I have a ha…

That seems reasonable - even if companies aren't moving based on where their employees are, employees are taking into account where the company is when they decide which jobs to take, and are probably more likely to leave a job if they find their commute too long.

Re: Twitter kills its San Francisco headquarters, will relocate to South Bay

#499
post #394
post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first week working in a finance firm in midtown Manhattan there was a significant shooting. These things happen everywhere (edit: in the US) unfortunately. I'm not convinced that a more suburban location that forces people to drive would actually be any safer.

You really need to normalize crime rates by population (including commuters) and avoid focusing on anecdotes

Why would an individual living and working around some area care about the crime per population?

I would personally care way more about the crime density like per mile or something because that is what would actually be affecting me. Like how many crimes would happen in close proximity to me that could put me in potential danger.

I couldn't care less about the crime per population.

Re: Twitter kills its San Francisco headquarters, will relocate to South Bay

#500
My understanding is that that part of Market street never quite recovered from BART construction few decades back. That building was abandoned and was beautifully restored for Twitter HQ. I vividly remember it opening and then the neighborhood improving gradually. Sad for SF - the final blow to one of the few once optimistic and truly SF-based utopian social media companies…
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