The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people
newsletter.goodtechthings.com
The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people
1–10 of 59 posts
Re: The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people
#2This article conflates the notion of being "in tech" with being a CEO for some reason. The vast majority of people "in tech" will be workers, not CEOs. For those people, a statement like "There’s no surplus value in hiring in the Bay Area" should sound like a good thing.
Re: The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people
#3There are obvious exceptions to everything. But I’ve lived in Atlanta, Orlando, SF and Seattle.
Moving to SF was a career multiplier. I instantly doubled my salary.
Now, I’m earning 2-5x more than my peers (that were more senior than me) that chose to live in those cities.
Walmart was started in Arkansas. Warren Buffet famously lives in Nebraska.
But the Tier 1 cities create more wealth for more people than Tier 2 or 3 cities.
Re: The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people
#4There are obvious exceptions to everything. But I’ve lived in Atlanta, Orlando, SF and Seattle. Moving to SF was a career multiplier. I instantly doubled my salary. Now, I’m earning 2-5x more than my peers (that were more senior than me) that chose to live in those cities. Walmart was started in Arkansas. Warren Buffet famously lives in Nebraska. But the Tier 1 cities create more wealth for more people than Tier 2 or…
>Now, I’m earning 2-5x more than my peers (that were more senior than me) that chose to live in those cities.
Salary or takehome? Sure, your net in SF will be higher than Orlando or London, but looking at resources such as levels.fyi, internal salary sharing sites at large companies, etc. the math for Seattle comp with no state income tax is pretty close to bay area minus tax.
Re: The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people
#5At Google, HR has dictated to our team "no Bay-area hiring" for over a year now. It seems at least one company agrees with "There’s no surplus value in hiring in the Bay Area".
Re: The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people
#6The TV show Silicon Valley lampooned all these ideas a decade ago. The weird thing I’ve noticed is that when Bay Area tech people watch that show, they don’t seem to understand that they’re being made fun of. They think they’re being celebrated. That’s how thick the bubble is.
I've never met a person who didn't understand that this show is satire. Every single tech person I've talked to about Silicon Valley thinks it's funny because of how plausible and yet ridiculous it all is, and because of all the totally accurate details scattered throughout—from golden handcuffs / resting & vesting, down to minor things like which drinks were stocked in the show's office fridges. And I lived in the Bay Area during its entire run, so most of my network is current/former Bay Area tech people.
Re: The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people
#7There are obvious exceptions to everything. But I’ve lived in Atlanta, Orlando, SF and Seattle. Moving to SF was a career multiplier. I instantly doubled my salary. Now, I’m earning 2-5x more than my peers (that were more senior than me) that chose to live in those cities. Walmart was started in Arkansas. Warren Buffet famously lives in Nebraska. But the Tier 1 cities create more wealth for more people than Tier 2 or…
How much more are you spending (on non-avoidable cost of living stuff) now that you live in SF, though?
If I hypothetically doubled my salary _and_ my expenses, that hardly seems worth it. Although NorCal is gorgeous.
Re: The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people
#8About the "tautological" part: Economic feedback loops are natural and don't diminish from the value of being in the area. At one point I went there to open doors that probably wouldn't have been reachable otherwise. Silicon Valley isn't a perfect circle either, because it wasn't just created from nowhere decades ago.
The only reason I don't live there anymore is because I already got the "in" I needed, I think remoteness actually works best if you're ambitious (provided you visit occasionally), and because I really didn't like living there. Idc if someone takes the last part as an excuse, my work speaks for itself.
Re: The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people
#9At Google, HR has dictated to our team "no Bay-area hiring" for over a year now. It seems at least one company agrees with "There’s no surplus value in hiring in the Bay Area".
But are they hiring in other parts of the US instead, or other countries?
Re: The case against living in the Bay Area, for ambitious tech people
#10The TV show Silicon Valley lampooned all these ideas a decade ago. The weird thing I’ve noticed is that when Bay Area tech people watch that show, they don’t seem to understand that they’re being made fun of. They think they’re being celebrated. That’s how thick the bubble is. I've never met a person who didn't understand that this show is satire. Every single tech person I've talked to about Silicon Valley thinks it…
I heard one word of that show through my roommate's door and knew it was satire