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Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

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Re: Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

#61
post #9

I'd heard this was going to be a Google office. Oh well. I wonder how much "not driving over the fucking bridge" is worth to people. Uber salaries tend to be pretty good (partially to make up for the stock being so high), and they have a great team, plus are clearly on a rocket ship trajectory, and are easy to explain as a product to anyone. Offering $150-250k cash, great overall packages, AND being able to buy or re…

Can you explain "Uber salaries tend to be pretty good (partially to make up for the stock being so high)" ? :)

Re: Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

#62
post #9

I'd heard this was going to be a Google office. Oh well. I wonder how much "not driving over the fucking bridge" is worth to people. Uber salaries tend to be pretty good (partially to make up for the stock being so high), and they have a great team, plus are clearly on a rocket ship trajectory, and are easy to explain as a product to anyone. Offering $150-250k cash, great overall packages, AND being able to buy or re…

Can you explain "Uber salaries tend to be pretty good (partially to make up for the stock being so high)" ? :)

If the stock is high, then stock options are unappealing. Basically just illiquid cash.

Re: Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

#63
post #29

This is in addition to their new giant HQ in SF? Uber has an awful lot of overhead for a taxi company. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/uber-new-hq/

Uber has low overhead for a $50bn company. They've already won vs taxis. Now they're going for courier services, buses, food delivery and even cleaning services. They aren't part of the sharing economy, they're trying to be the sharing economy.

Where have you seen the cleaning services?

Re: Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

#64
post #9

I'd heard this was going to be a Google office. Oh well. I wonder how much "not driving over the fucking bridge" is worth to people. Uber salaries tend to be pretty good (partially to make up for the stock being so high), and they have a great team, plus are clearly on a rocket ship trajectory, and are easy to explain as a product to anyone. Offering $150-250k cash, great overall packages, AND being able to buy or re…

Not sure if a $40B company that generates staggering losses and faces brutal competition globally can be considered a rocketship any more ...

*51bn company.

Re: Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

#65
post #43
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the renters (like me) will complain that the city (well, the permitting process they approve) is only promoting units for the financially relatively better off and is not subsidizing enough low rent units. So they scuttle low income housing to spite middle income housing.

Why should a city subsidize housing? That seems like something the market should drive primarily. For that same reason, I'm skeptical about whether zoning and permiting are a good thing in general.

Well, if cities control the zoning, they then have to ensure for the welfare of the housing market. If you, for example, block developers from adding more housing (cough San Francisco), you are supporting raising housing costs and pushing lower income citizens out of your city.

If the market should drive the equation and the municipality meddle with either side of it, it's not a market in the way one normally infers.

Re: Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

#66
post #17
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who used to do the "reverse commute" from SF to Oakland for a couple years, I'd add that it's pretty attractive for SF residents who like a slightly less crazy pace as well. I mean, you can actually go places for lunch and get in, and not pay $14 for a sandwich. And going the opposite direction of traffic (or taking the opposite BART) sure beats sitting on the 101. But most people I worked with were defini…

I live in Oakland (10m walk from the new Uber office, but 3m from a 580 onramp), and my office is basically at AT&T Park. The commute has gotten markedly worse over the past 15 months. :( And it's not even a particularly bad east bay to sf commute; I know people who drive from Moraga. Last year, my 95th percentile commute at 10am was 35 minutes door to door, and the median was about 25-30. This year, the 95th is more…

[deleted]

Re: Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No difference from just around the corner of the Twitter building. This isn't a homeless man crapping problem, it's an insufficient bathroom infrastructure problem, and yes most mid to large size American cities have it. Which is exacerbated by laxative type drugs. 'Hello Alcohol, Hello Heroin, I'm talking to you two.'

This might be a nice way to comfort yourself about living not only in CA but in either SF or Oakland, but it's not real life. I've worked in the downtowns of multiple major metropolitan areas, and have never seen anyone defecate in public, nor have I witnessed a robbery. I was once pressed to buy crack in the Crossroads District of KCMO, but that's pretty much it. I used to walk from Crossroads to Crown Center for lu…

Apparently you've not lived or worked in the Tenderloin or deep SOMA.

In a 2 year period I saw/experienced:

- defecation, urination, and masturbation in broad daylight on the sidewalk

- heroin injection

- a half full 26er of vodka fly out of a window and hit me at my feet

- packs of men with assless chaps and various states of undress and arousal in line at a Subway (it was the Folsom street fair week) , one holding his slave by the collar while ordering a BLT

- half naked people stumbling out of minivans with crackpipes

- two incidents of modest riots / bonfires in the middle of Market street (the Giants won)

- various gunshot murders (one being a sawed off shotgun assassination attempt at the Gas station off Harrison and ...5th?) that I thankfully missed but glimpsed the aftermath of

It's like parallel universe Disneyland. None of this really affected me - more bemusing than anything, but it can be shocking to those unaware.

Re: Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

#68
post #10

Looks like the VC's are spearheading the move to Oakland. Chamath Palihapitaya from Social + Capital is planning a developers village apartment complex in Oakland with the goal of luring more Midwest coders to the West coast. http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/17/chamath-palihapitaya-on-ins...

Seems overly optimistic to think that anyone from the midwest would be dumb enough to think that $80k was a livable salary for that area even in Oakland.

Re: Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

#69
post #29

This is in addition to their new giant HQ in SF? Uber has an awful lot of overhead for a taxi company. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/uber-new-hq/

"A taxi company" typically serves one city. Uber is more like 300+ taxi companies. Do they have over 300+ times the overhead of a normal taxi company?

Re: Uber shakes up real estate market with massive lease in Oakland

#70
post #39

If Uber really wants to earn goodwill in Oakland (which is worth thinking about because the local anarchists are probably planning their protests already), it would be worth renovating the exterior of the building too. A lot of buildings in downtown Oakland have beautiful art deco facades that were covered up with ugly concrete facings in the 1950s in a misguided attempt to look more modern. Bringing out some of Oakl…

I suspect Art Deco is already popular with Uber's leadership for other reasons :)

What are those reasons?
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