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Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

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Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

#71

Post by sbilstein »

opportune wrote: post #60
auston wrote: post #44

FB group for anyone else considering leaving: https://www.facebook.com/groups/373683909882919/ I can tell you that Miami would definitely like you here, even our Mayor cosigns: https://twitter.com/FrancisSuarez/status/1100425644968738822

I would love to start a business in Miami but the COL seems pretty high. I feel like it's probably the best place in the world to start a latin america-focused tech company (social networking, streaming, fintech, etc.) and it seems like a great place to live. Does anybody happen to know what kind of companies the VC's there are focused on - could see pure tech plays being outside of their core competencies and thus u…

I grew up there, I'm a Peruvian immigrant and just don't understand why people think Miami is good for tech. Solid engineers just move to the Bay Area; who wants to keep living in Miami which has such a cultural aversion to education, a major machismo problem, and frequent flooding.

If you want to work with LATAM, hire Latinx engineers in the Bay (there are lots of us) and hire tech people in Argentina, Mexico, Chile, and Brazil. Lots of talented folks in all those places.

Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

#72

Post by stcredzero »

nrb wrote: post #51
gesman wrote: post #40

California better stop punishing entrepreneurs with it's heavy tax stick before experiencing disaster in it's tax revenues. Exodus seems to be accelerating.

This viewpoint doesn't appear to jive with the one being portrayed currently[1], that the exodus is only among the poor/middle-class and that the immigration of the rich and high-earners is actually accelerating. 1: https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-skelton-income-t...

the exodus is only among the poor/middle-class and that the immigration of the rich and high-earners is actually accelerating.

Is that supposed to make the groupthink better or worse? I suspect worse, as it's reducing the viewpoint diversity, as viewpoint is affected by socioeconomic status and livelihood.

Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

#73

Post by opportune »

sbilstein wrote: post #71
opportune wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to start a business in Miami but the COL seems pretty high. I feel like it's probably the best place in the world to start a latin america-focused tech company (social networking, streaming, fintech, etc.) and it seems like a great place to live. Does anybody happen to know what kind of companies the VC's there are focused on - could see pure tech plays being outside of their core competencies and thus u…

I grew up there, I'm a Peruvian immigrant and just don't understand why people think Miami is good for tech. Solid engineers just move to the Bay Area; who wants to keep living in Miami which has such a cultural aversion to education, a major machismo problem, and frequent flooding. If you want to work with LATAM, hire Latinx engineers in the Bay (there are lots of us) and hire tech people in Argentina, Mexico, Chile…

I guess the idea would be to recruit people to move to Miami since there isn't a big tech scene there already (I think there is an Oracle office and maybe Univision has an office?). I've only vacationed there but would gladly take my current pay and live there over west coast. The education/machismo problems at least shouldn't affect a business much since you are probably unlikely to run into those hiring tech people, that's more of an out-of-work thing. One of my best friends is from Miami and the main gripe he has is more the conspicuous consumption (often funded by lots of debt) - again, shouldn't be much of a problem.

But, the grass is always greener I suppose. When I've visited I stayed in nicer places (Brickell, Miami Beach) than I could likely afford year round + just generally engaging in more fun activities than working. I do think lots of people like me would be more than willing to take a West-coast level salary to live in Miami instead though, at least for a few years.

Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

#74

Post by johannes1234321 »

jedberg wrote: post #64

The solution to this is remote work. The main benefits of being in the valley are access to investors/capital. This advantage mostly only applies to executives. So have your executives in SV and have everyone else be wherever they want to be that is cheaper and nicer for them.

Depending on the amount of communication needed for being efficient. I work 10+ years in a Rendite First organisation and there are regular times where I think "damn, discussing this over the water cooler, while running into each other, would be more efficient" than a chat exchange or setting up a video/phone conf. Of course on the plus side I have the uninterrupted working hours, where nobody walks in to me and flexible hours to arrange my life and the tendency to not fully separate private and work which easily leads to free overtime ;)

Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

#75

Post by blizkreeg »

malvosenior wrote: post #39
blizkreeg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're proposing is out of touch with reality. Compensation is based on value added, but also based on geography. Bartenders in South Dakota don't make the same as bartenders in San Francisco for a reason, though they add the same value to an establishment. Most companies would stop hiring remote if they had to pay SF salaries - that's just the fact.

> Bartenders in South Dakota don't make the same as bartenders in San Francisco for a reason, though they add the same value to an establishment. I bet the drinks in SF cost more so they actually do add more value there. You're talking about on-premise work and I'm talking about remote work. If you have a great dev that starts working remote in NY then moves to Kentucky would you give them a pay cut? Of course not, t…

How is cost of a drink related to the value the maker provides?

I will admit you have a point with the NY>Kentucky example. In that situation, the company may pay them the same, but if the company hires two equally talented devs, one in NY and one in Mexico, there will absolutely be a difference in their pay. If the dev in mexico moves to the US, their salary also goes up accordingly.

Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

#76

Post by l9k »

opportune wrote: post #63
dkfmn wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd suggest asking what is uniquely beneficial about Tallinn that will make your business more likely to succeed. Lots of places are cheap and the two exceptions you identify, talent and capital, are absolutely critical to the success of high-growth tech companies.

Very good point. I am actually visiting Tallinn later this year to try to meet with people in the entrepeneurship scene and learn more about the city. While you're right that talent and capital are important, it's also true that no place on the planet has more capital and software talent than SV. So you're never going to beat SV measuring only those metrics. The challenge of an entrepeneur who wants to found a startu…

How did you get information about Tallinn specifically and what other cities did you consider in the same category?

Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

#77

Post by wavefunction »

KorematsuFred wrote: post #58

The only reason I am still in SV is because I am stuck on H1B. I think having a better immigration system is a Red president's best bet to finally spite the largest Blue state. You need to bring in talented engineers from world over and let them flood boise, Reno, Austin, Sarasota and Denver. See the Silicon Valley crumble.

That would be a terrible way to run a national economy. But perhaps I shouldn't use the speculative tense...

Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

#78

Post by badpun »

opportune wrote: post #59

I'm heavily considering Tallinn for a tech startup - It's easy to get residence status (IIRC basically requires a ~$60k investment in a business you are starting) and extremely easy to start a business. You get access to the EU labor/trade markets in a low COL city which already has a decent sized tech and entrepreneurship presence. The government is actively courting you and in general seems very easy to interact wi…

I’d worry about talent pool being too small (Estonia has a population of only over a million people). It might not be easy to get people from outside to relocate there, as no one else in EU (expect apparently some Finnish people) speaks Estonian, the weather is grim and wages aren’t that enticing. That’s probably why the government is trying very hard to attract foreign startup investors, as otherwise Tallin is at a disadvantage vs say Warsaw.

Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

#79

Post by l9k »

opportune wrote: post #73
sbilstein wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up there, I'm a Peruvian immigrant and just don't understand why people think Miami is good for tech. Solid engineers just move to the Bay Area; who wants to keep living in Miami which has such a cultural aversion to education, a major machismo problem, and frequent flooding. If you want to work with LATAM, hire Latinx engineers in the Bay (there are lots of us) and hire tech people in Argentina, Mexico, Chile…

I guess the idea would be to recruit people to move to Miami since there isn't a big tech scene there already (I think there is an Oracle office and maybe Univision has an office?). I've only vacationed there but would gladly take my current pay and live there over west coast. The education/machismo problems at least shouldn't affect a business much since you are probably unlikely to run into those hiring tech people…

IBM also has presence in Miami and a few other places in Florida

Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup

#80

Post by badpun »

q3k wrote: post #24
nkkollaw wrote: post #2

I wonder why entrepreneurs don't come to Poland to build their product. Warsaw or Wroclaw in particular are vibrant, tech-oriented cities where life is about 1/4 of SF. If I had to bet my future on being able to building something with 1M, I would want to get 4 months instead of 1 for the money. Of course, SF might have better investing ecosystem, but once you got the money development should be done in a more approp…

Political climate, for one thing. (recent anti-LGBT sentiment, anti-refugee/migrant sentiment, anti-EU sentiment and general right/nationalist movement uptick)

Racism is arguably strong in the US and yet founders are not leaving... I don’t think political climate is on average a strong factor in their decision making.
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