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

Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 125 posts

Re: Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

#91

Post by awucs »

awucs wrote: post #38
l8again wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, paying competitive is now being "entitled". Engineers have been played for far too long, and this post shows that it isn't over yet. I, for one, am glad that silicon valley is going the right direction in terms of the total comp for engineers, which has been kept artificially low until facebook came to the scene.

I don't like words like "entitled". But at least as an outsider the "compensation environment" in Silicon Valley doesn't seem ideal at all. Realistically pay isn't just about appreciation, but being driven up by things like living costs. Which means that your de facto compensation is largely determined by your position in the housing market. Which is post tax no less.

If Hacker News wants to have any sort of intellectual discussions left it is going to have to discourage downvoting. I am not making myself hard to argue with here. It is perfectly fine to write a few lines if you disagree. In fact that is the whole point.

Say you make $150k. As far as I know that is around $100k after taxes i.e. $8350 a month. Say your rent is $4k and another ~$1k in miscellaneous expenses. That leaves you ~$3k in discretionary income and probably a bit less for saving if you want to have some "luxuries".

If you have been in the housing market for a long time or otherwise have a better situation your living expenses might be a lot lower. If you are paying $1.5k (upfront or de facto) in housing costs that might effectively double your savings i.e. what you get to actually control from your salary.

But it is sort of worse than that. Because every additional dollar you want to make gets taxed with your marginal tax rate. Meaning if you want to have the same savings as someone with lesser living costs you have to increase you salary quite a bit. In this case you have to go to somewhere close to $200k. Which is a pretty huge gap for something that doesn't have anything to do with your actual work performance.

Of course this can all get better or worse depending on circumstances. Still, it is a big deal.

Re: Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

#92

Post by sidr »

repolfx wrote: post #32
l8again wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, paying competitive is now being "entitled". Engineers have been played for far too long, and this post shows that it isn't over yet. I, for one, am glad that silicon valley is going the right direction in terms of the total comp for engineers, which has been kept artificially low until facebook came to the scene.

He didn't actually say that he was thinking of high pay in respect to being 'entitled'. There are lots of other ways SV based workforces show this characteristic, e.g. the constant complaints about the exact nature of the free food I saw when I was at Google. Whilst the no-poach agreements were wrong, I don't think comp was kept artificially low in the way you mean. What drives up comp in the valley at the moment is…

So they're hiring people they don't need and at the same time paying them too much/giving them too many perks?

Re: Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

#93

Post by repolfx »

0xB31B1B wrote: post #73
repolfx wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't actually say that he was thinking of high pay in respect to being 'entitled'. There are lots of other ways SV based workforces show this characteristic, e.g. the constant complaints about the exact nature of the free food I saw when I was at Google. Whilst the no-poach agreements were wrong, I don't think comp was kept artificially low in the way you mean. What drives up comp in the valley at the moment is…

You think it’s better that they return money to the fat cat investors then to invest in their own products?

The "fat cat investors" are to a large extent these days things like pension funds, or VC firms that will just immediately turn around and re-invest the money into new startups.

And yes, I think that'd be the right thing to do. The sums of money we're talking about here are vast. They're not going to go into the pockets of some stereotyped "fat cat" capitalist. Outside of pension payouts they'll be reallocated to other companies that may be doing important things of the sort that big internet firms just won't tackle, like biotech/drugs research.

Look at it like this. Does Google really need to create yet another instant messaging product for the seventh time? Or would the capital used to do that be better re-allocated to some other part of the economy?

Re: Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

#94

Post by Uberphallus »

raverbashing wrote: post #19
shams93 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's inevitable, think of when Google was founded, people were still on dialup and working remote was something only something for outside phone call sales people.

With good planning, maybe not dialup, but it is doable to work remotely with a not always on connection.

Yeah, I've done remote work on dialup and my breaks heavily correlated with cvs commands.

Re: Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

#95

Post by fnbr »

philipodonnell wrote: post #76
SQL2219 wrote: post #28

good quote: ...it costs at least four times as much to base a startup in the Bay Area as it would in most other cities in America.

I expect it is also at least four times easier to raise capital in the Bay Area as it would in most other cities in America. These things have a way of evening out.

I would honestly expect it to be more than 10x easier. In Canada, the idea of raising a 2-3 million round is completely foreign, and in my city (Edmonton) the idea is absurd. I strongly suspect you could raise 10x more much easier in the Bay compared to Edmonton, making it worth it to have an office down there, even though the cost of SWEs is ~4x cheaper here.

Re: Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

#96

Post by yayana »

philipodonnell wrote: post #76
SQL2219 wrote: post #28

good quote: ...it costs at least four times as much to base a startup in the Bay Area as it would in most other cities in America.

I expect it is also at least four times easier to raise capital in the Bay Area as it would in most other cities in America. These things have a way of evening out.

Excessive capital raised to go with excessive expenses per widget and a higher density of other startups.. The Bay Area and anyone who bought this recent 4 times overpriced equity in it won't be pleased if these things have a way of evening out.

Most of the interesting startups I've seen recently have a small office in the Bay Area to go with a preference for real operations in other cities. Probably an efficient way to raise money from VCs who apparently think Google maps is the tool for investments and yet not have to excrete rainbows to reach profitability.

Re: Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

#97

Post by moultano »

repolfx wrote: post #33
electic wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're kidding? There is more and more rhetoric being spewed relating to the legal kind as well. There is even policy being enacted to drastically cut down or make it very hard to gain legal status by burying you with paperwork. Beyond immigration talk, the constant spewing of racism coming from the administrations is a clear signal that immigrants of different backgrounds are not wanted. To that end, they simply pac…

There has always been pressure against H1Bs in the US tech industry. The one time I tried to immigrate to the valley there the visa cap was hit and I couldn't go (no regrets though). For my whole life I've seen American talk about immigration = outsourcing = lower wages. It's not new and it's not based in racism but rather money. As for Trump, he is only talking about illegal immigration. Nobody with an engineering d…

>Trump apparently (I did not know this until reading the sibling links) wants to move to merit based immigration

He also wants to cut the quota to a third of its current value.

Re: Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

#98

Post by deadmetheny »

TheArcane wrote: post #79
madengr wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about someplace in the USA that isn’t SV or NYC?

It's easy for talented people in the US to move to SV and NYC. It's a lot harder for the same kind of people abroad to move to SV and NYC.

Not all talented people want to move away from their friends and families to live in 4x price of living shitholes.

Re: Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

#99

Post by moultano »

devmunchies wrote: post #88
arcticbull wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/04/06/poli... https://www.aclu-wa.org/pages/timeline-muslim-ban https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/01/11/politics/immigrants-shith... https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/537012/ What more evidence do you need?

> What more evidence do you need? You act as if CNN and ACLU are convincing sources,even though they have obvious agendas against the current administration.

The guy said "there are good people on both sides" after a group of neo Nazis chanted "Jews will not replace us," murdered a woman by driving a car into a crowd, and attempted to lynch a black man.

Re: Silicon Valley is changing, and its lead over other tech hubs narrowing

#100

Post by jogjayr »

scarface74 wrote: post #44
NTDF9 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Well, big companies abusing the system certainly doesn't help. They already have a legal requirement to pay prevailing wage before they can get a visa. That means at least six figures in the bay area. There are a few reasons Americans don't take these six figure jobs: 1. Don't want to live in California/too expensive 2. This is the more common reason: Americans don't do STEM much, cannot compete with international…

As an anecdote, my manager has had 2 open positions for 7 months now, paying $125k base + sign on + relocation + bonus + stock for a new grad. Guess how many we've filled after 7 months? A big fat zero. Why would anyone move to California for $125K when they could live in one of 20 other major cities, make the same amount with a lower cost of living?

GP didn't say $125k total comp. Counting sign-on, bonus, and stock, it could be as much as $200k total comp - for a new grad. Which other cities/industries pay that much? (outside of finance or law, at the top end)
Post reply on HN