Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cute. But, actually, if my co-founders had decided to move the company to another city entirely, I would have happily moved. Portland happens to be a good fit for what we're doing, particular from a customer service hiring perspective.
In fact, you made me wonder: how the hell do you determine that one city is better than another for "customer service hiring"? I don't imagine there's indexes for these sorts of things. Or education programmes for customer service people, at all. Or a single "best profile", even?
BankSimple moves to Portland
71–80 of 106 posts
Re: BankSimple moves to Portland
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
LoL, like Boston, NYC, or the Valley are any less of a joke. All of America is same sprawling hollow suburbia.
Visit Pittsburgh someday. We have some hollow suburbia but we don't have the typical endless suburban sprawl. We do have a fair amount of hipsters though, just a warning.
Re: BankSimple moves to Portland
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
What disgusted you?
The place was filthy and dilapidated. Seeing people covered in tattoos and piercings gets old and tiresome for some reason. It's just not the place for me, but awesome for those who fit in there.
"For some reason"? This sort of willful cognitive dissonance is always fascinating to see in the wild.
Here's a hint: it's either you, or it's them.
Re: BankSimple moves to Portland
#74Portland is one of my favorite American cities. But if you're freely choosing somewhere to relocate to, I would think Seattle would be a tough competitor. It's nearby, has a bigger tech community, and has Washington's zero state income tax versus Oregon with the highest state income tax in the country at 11% for the top bracket.
When I was out in California, my company closed up our Santa Cruz office very suddenly. A large contingent of people working there decided to move to just outside of Portland (Vancouver Washington) mainly because of the fact that by living in Washington you wouldn't pay any income tax, and by adjoining Portland, you could do all your shopping and avoid paying sales tax. I opted not to relocate there with everyone els…
Re: BankSimple moves to Portland
#75Is it the address they are after? The need to impress investors? It's already expensive enough to run a business, why burden yourself and your employees with a completely irrelevant location?
I do live and work here and love the city, I just don't get the appeal of working downtown. The company I currently work for left downtown before I joined and I'm glad they did. Not many people live downtown and getting to and from work every day would take longer for me (and many others) than it does now. Not to mention an added cost of parking or taking mass transit.
Re: BankSimple moves to Portland
#76Portland is one of my favorite American cities. But if you're freely choosing somewhere to relocate to, I would think Seattle would be a tough competitor. It's nearby, has a bigger tech community, and has Washington's zero state income tax versus Oregon with the highest state income tax in the country at 11% for the top bracket.
When I was out in California, my company closed up our Santa Cruz office very suddenly. A large contingent of people working there decided to move to just outside of Portland (Vancouver Washington) mainly because of the fact that by living in Washington you wouldn't pay any income tax, and by adjoining Portland, you could do all your shopping and avoid paying sales tax. I opted not to relocate there with everyone els…
However, for some reason, lots of people in general were fleeing CA at the peak of housing bubble.
Re: BankSimple moves to Portland
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
We haven't tried recruiting from PSU ourselves, but we probably should. Galois ( http://corp.galois.com/ ) recruits students from PSU's CS program. My colleagues from PSU's mathematics dept have also been a pleasure to work with.
Yup, Galois is the most obvious direct recruiter from PSU, but there are others, to be sure, but not enough. I've got a few friends in the MS and PHd programs at PSU and they certainly don't have people beating down their doors, I'm sorry to say. It would certainly be good to see more direct recruiting and internship opportunities opening up.
Re: BankSimple moves to Portland
#78Still waiting on that invite I signed up for what seems like a year ago. Can't leave Fifth Third soon enough.
Re: BankSimple moves to Portland
#79The Pearl District in Portland is nice and all but I'll never understand why you would want an office there, especially if you aren't a business that requires a trendy, hip image. A web-based business with no front door is going to pay a TON per square foot just to be downtown. Is it the address they are after? The need to impress investors? It's already expensive enough to run a business, why burden yourself and you…
I find that many people who live in downtown simply do not own a car, which seems almost impossible to function in this day and age.
Re: BankSimple moves to Portland
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably the rampant unemployment, underemployment, low paying jobs if you can actually get one, and the huge homeless population which is more a reflection on how abysmal the city and local economy is than those unfortunate enough to be homeless themselves. Don't forget the nonstop rain and suicide hotline numbers posted on every bridge or parking garage higher than 20 feet, since nearly everyone is cranked out on a…
Wow, can't believe all of the negative comments on here towards Portland. My wife and I moved here a couple months ago and can't stop thinking about how much we love the place. We were just joking last night about how if we listened to people on the internet, we would have never made such a great move out of fear we would be depressed and living in the streets. We've had a completely opposite experience from the poin…
Portland does indeed have an extremely high homeless population, and there are real structural issue with how the city deals with that problem. Depending on where and how you live, it's possible to ignore that problem, or to not fully appreciate how bad it is, but believe me: it's real. It's also gotten a lot worse in recent years due to the economy as well as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our local VAs have brought on extra social workers to try and deal specifically with homeless vets, and the various homeless services agencies have been expanding, as well.
We also have inflated unemployment, mostly because the city's such a nice place to live that lots of people move here without a job, or, when they lose their job, don't leave. If you've got technical skills, it's a great time and place to find a job- but if you don't, there are way fewer options than it might seem, and it is can be an extremely competitive job scene. It's like that everywhere, I know, but for whatever reason it's especially bad in Portland. I am (honestly, no sarcasm) thrilled for your wife that she had such an easy time finding a job; not knowing anything about her, I can say that if she's not a techie than hers is the first such story I've heard from a new arrival in Portland over the last few years. Far, far, far more common is the "well, I picked up a few hours here, and a few hours there, but I can't find anything full-time, and I've been looking for six months, etc. etc."
Regarding the weather- winters in Portland affect everybody differently. SAD is indeed endemic; my GP blames it on wide-spread vitamin D deficiency, but who knows. At least in the 1990s, Portland did have an above-normal level of teen suicide. I don't think the rain here is any worse than Seattle, and from what I've heard the SAD issue is about the same up there as it is down here. But it's a real thing... you'll know what I'm talking about when we get a freak-occurrence sunny day in Feburary (typically, it will have been raining or at least completely overcast for three or four months by that point) and suddenly everybody around you seems ten times happier.
Anyway, welcome to Portland, and like I said, I'm glad you're enjoying it. I love it, myself, and feel like the positives vastly outweigh the negatives. But it's important to have a complete and balanced view of one's city, and Portland definitely has room for improvement.