Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 194 posts

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#61

Post by DiscourseFan »

light_triad wrote: post #47

The article frames the cost of living issue mainly in terms of demand (...because of OpenAI and Anthropic...), which is an important factor, but has very little to say about supply. San Francisco is a major metropolis that looks like a mining town: there's very few high-rise buildings compared to other major cities. It's due to many factors including strict zoning, growth caps, seismic risks (compared to say Tokyo?)…

I think Tokyo is not as bad as SF, since Tokyo is not directly exposed to the ocean

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#63

Post by DiscourseFan »

bombcar wrote: post #53
gruntled-worker wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's strange kinship and signaling in proximity. It's similar to college degrees. Working in SF - either in person or locally remote - puts people in a separate bin. It's not just signaling. Once people move away the kinship factor fades, even when you already know them well past the signaling stage.

This kind of boils down to "I want to live and work with people like me" which is a common feeling, but sometimes veers dangerously.

I refuse to move to SF because you guys are all dorks and I don't want to be surrounded by dorks all day

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#66

Post by floor2 »

bombcar wrote: post #44
TSiege wrote: post #2

Everyone I know is griping about the cost of living. There is no easy answer, but the only viable solution is building a lot more dense housing and public transit for said urbanism. Housing being this expensive is a choice. The economy and our society would be much healthier if we decided making sure there was ample housing in high demand areas. We've conflated having a home with a financial asset. We can't have plen…

If SF wants to be New York of the East, let them be so. Everyone else can move literally anywhere else in the country, which is big.

As soon as FAANG starts hiring people in Utah, Arkansas and Minnesota for the same roles at the same wages as they hire in the Bay, then people will move. As soon as VCs start funding founders in Boise, Kansas City and Chattanooga, then people will move.

Until then, maybe we work to improve the places where most of us are required to live by our jobs. (And yes, in parallel we can work to reduce the employer-mandated dependence on those areas).

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#69

Post by scoofy »

mycall wrote: post #4

Is that really true? https://www.craigslist.org/search/subarea/sfc?cat=apa&max_pr...

Almost all of these listings are scams... trust me, I have been looking for a new place for the last year.

You need to look for apartments on Facebook Marketplace or Zillow to have any approximation of real rent prices.

The current ask for 850 sqft and decent amenities (dishwasher, washer dryer, etc) in a quiet, central neighborhood is close to $5000/month.

Re: In San Francisco, even $180k tech salaries are no longer enough

#70

Post by rvz »

TSiege wrote: post #2

Everyone I know is griping about the cost of living. There is no easy answer, but the only viable solution is building a lot more dense housing and public transit for said urbanism. Housing being this expensive is a choice. The economy and our society would be much healthier if we decided making sure there was ample housing in high demand areas. We've conflated having a home with a financial asset. We can't have plen…

> We've conflated having a home with a financial asset.

This conflation is a coping mechanism by home owners, especially the ones in SF (which the entire city from SF to San Jose) is sitting on a fault line.

The main problem is that building is being blocked by several other homeowners who are petrified of the value of their homes falling. No wonder young people are beginning to look to this policy in China [0] - "Houses are for living, not for speculation".

> Buildings age and not productive assets and can only be a good financial investment if we deem having more of them is wrong. This will be a painful transition given most people's wealth is a single building they live in.

In 2026, it is really a bad investment in the AI age and especially in HCOL areas like SF, given the layoffs and the jobs being off-shored. If you were part of the people who leveraged their RSUs to buy, well that is also a bad idea to do in 2026.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houses_are_for_living,_not_for...

Post reply on HN