8 ms·

The more I read such articles, the more I think you'd have to be nuts to choose to live in San Francisco. And yet, clearly, plenty of people do choose to live

The more I read such articles, the more I think you'd have to be nuts to choose to live in San Francisco. And yet, clearly, plenty of people do choose to live in San Francisco.

atom-morgan 11y ago
It's a weird situation. There are so many tech companies out there and I'd like to work for some of them but I don't think the sacrifice I'll take with my standard of living will be worth it.
- alkonaut 11y ago
  Why aren't SF tech companies hiring more remote workers? They could pay people who work remotely a lot less, save a lot on office space etc. Tech companies are the ones that should be able to pull that off. Even if I lived in SF I'd be reluctant to commute an hour to work if I could just as well work from home.
  - sawthat 11y ago
    Everyone keeps asking this question. The answer: they are hiring remote workers. But my question: where is the evidence that tech companies are not able to be profitable with their high payroll costs?
    - 7Figures2Commas 11y ago
      > But my question: where is the evidence that tech companies are not able to be profitable with their high payroll costs? You could look at the growing number of layoffs at post-seed stage companies[1]. Or you could look at startups that voluntarily publish financial information. Take, for example, this one[2], which, as of June, was spending $525,000/month on payroll (equating to an all-in cost of $146,000/year per employee) when it had less than $300,000 of monthly bookings revenue. A lot (perhaps the majority) of venture-backed Bay Area startups are entirely dependent on investor money to sustain their workforces at their current sizes. Even some of the tech companies in the area that have gone public aren't profitable. FireEye and Marketo are two that come to mind. Everybody has been trading profitability for growth, and that's a game most will eventually lose. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10517445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10517445 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10049808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10049808
      - charlesdm 11y ago
        He said tech companies, not startups. For tech companies, it doesn't really matter. They have unlimited money (relative to the cost of an employee). For startups, it does.
        7Figures2Commas 11y ago
        1. Since when did "tech company" come to mean "non-startup"? Lots of startups are by definition technology companies. 2. Many people in the Bay Area are employed by angel and venture-backed startups, so how does it make sense to ignore them? If and when there's a significant downturn that results in the unsustainable startup herd being culled, not all startup employees are going to find six-figure replacement jobs at companies like Google and Facebook. People who lived through the first .com bust know how fast the job market can dry up for a large subset of employees. 3. It is absolutely not true that the Bay Area's unprofitable publicly-traded tech companies have "unlimited money" relative to anything. Review their SEC filings and you can determine how much money they have down to the dollar. You should not be surprised when those that struggle to reach profitability sooner or later take cost-cutting action, which may include layoffs and adjustments to employee compensation. Twitter just did this. Even profitable tech companies, like IBM and HP, have laid off significant numbers of employees. Bottom line: when push comes to shove and the shit hits the fan, companies tend to use large knives, not scalpels.
        sawthat 11y ago
        Of course, but there is no evidence that operating in Tulsa would prevent that.
      - sawthat 11y ago
        I worked in Colorado after the .com crash, the tech industry was devastated there, Bay Area companies that had opened offices in the area reconsolidated back in the Bay Area, rather than take advantage of lower payroll costs in Denver. It sounds good on paper to move out of the area, in practice it hadn't happened yet.
  - superuser2 11y ago
    Remote work is an excellent paradigm when you get an assignment, go work on it for a while in total independence/isolation, and then turn it in, i.e. when developer-hours are perfectly commoditized. Not every software project is like this at every part of its lifecycle. The same pitfalls that apply to outsourcing to low-cost-of-living countries should apply to hiring American remote workers: communication overhead, lack of context and understanding of what the product should be, etc. If a projects works well with remote workers in developed countries, consider that it's probably irrational and a borderline violation of fiduciary duty to pay extra for them rather than equally skilled workers in India/China/Eastern Europe.
    - jonesb6 11y ago
      I wouldn't forget that communication is deeply entwined with regional culture. I would argue that it is much easier to hire a remote worker from the same country then it is from a third world country (which are frequently known for remote work). Everything from time zones, work hours (say western European countries accustomed to ~5-7 actual work hours /day), laws, religion, etc.
      - alkonaut 11y ago
        Yes, one shouldn't confuse outsourcing and remote work: with remote work I mean people working in the same tools (version control, issue tracking etc) in the same time zone (+/- 1 hour), and being always available on chat/voice/video and occasional physical meetings. Most people who work in a multi storey office communicate the same way with the people on a different storey as they would with people in a different city.
        amorphid 11y ago
        I work in an office, and everyone on my team is remote, including my boss. I might as well be working from home most of the time! But I like going into the office :)
sotojuan 11y ago
As someone who does not want to live there either, I can see why people move there. It's simply where the most opportunities are. The idea is to move there and live uncomfortably until you network your way to an awesome, high paying job. Alternatively, the tech companies there usually do more interesting stuff than in other area. Here in NYC most are related to advertising or media—stuff not easy to get exited about. San Francisco has its large share of silly ideas for companies, but it also has many that do interesting stuff.
- eropple 11y ago
  Plenty of places outside of SF are doing interesting things. Boston has plenty, as does Austin.
  - sotojuan 11y ago
    Yes, but San Franciso has the most. Plenty of other cities have theaters, ballet, and opera—but people move to New York.
  - big_youth 11y ago
    I live in Austin and have seen many of my coworkers and friends leave for the bay area. Besides interesting work I think there are more opportunities for career growth. I am in security (but it's similar in many specialties) and while there are very good companies in Austin if I want to to rise become a security architect or director of information security I have to go to the tech headquarters. Companies like Google and facebook may have regional offices but the core innovative security/ai/pl work and executive decision making is being done in the home campuses. That being said, I would never leave Austin for the SF bay unless it involved a $350k+ salary.
    - HillRat 11y ago
      For security you could also look at the DC area, especially if you're an AMCIT who wouldn't mind undergoing an SSBI. The downside is that most of those jobs are playing whack-a-mole with breaches, but for high-paying, high-profile forensics, response and research positions, federal contractors are hard to beat.
techsupporter 11y ago
"And yet, clearly, plenty of people do choose to live in San Francisco." Well, he didn't choose to live in San Francisco for long. By the end of his four years there, he decamped to Seattle, which seems to be the natural progression these days: live in SF and close a few deals in a tiny space, then move to Seattle into a slightly larger place and be amazed at all of the room you have.
xenadu02 11y ago
Eh I moved my family (stay at home wife and two kids). If you are willing to live outside of the trendy areas you can find OK places. Unfortunately single family homes (like we inhabit now) are not rent-controlled. We're currently trying to decide between moving to a multi-unit building with a 3-bedroom place or staying and putting up with the ridiculous rent. The multi-unit building would still be high rent but at least it would be locked in forever. It definitely costs my startup employer (and myself), especially factoring in preschool. It also steals a job and "juice" from the local economy - we'd have already hired a nanny if rents were merely 2x a normal city, and we'd happily spend more buying from local craftspeople. The money goes into my landlord's retirement account basically doing nothing.
- stevewilhelm 11y ago
  > The money goes into my landlord's retirement account basically doing nothing. Is your landlord's retirement account a sack under his bed? If not, that money is being invested in publicly traded companies or in bonds to fund public works. It is creating jobs, just not in your neighborhood.
stevewilhelm 11y ago
Look at the founders of the author's employer: http://s831.us/1lcWYYh http://s831.us/1lcWYYh. They can afford to live anywhere they want and start their company near their homes.
scott_karana 11y ago
The author is pretty clear. > And don’t forget about the importance of compound interest. I will remind you that $2k per month saved on rent for one year is $24k. Invested for 50 years averaging 6% interest comes to roughly $450k. Freedom. HTFU. $450K towards retirement for one year of living in cramped, expensive SF sounds like it could be a reasonable payoff for many people.

The more I read such articles, the more I think you'd have to be nuts to choose to live in San Francisco. And yet, clearly, plenty of people do choose to live in San Francisco.

atom-morgan 11y ago

It's a weird situation. There are so many tech companies out there and I'd like to work for some of them but I don't think the sacrifice I'll take with my standard of living will be worth it.

alkonaut 11y ago
Why aren't SF tech companies hiring more remote workers? They could pay people who work remotely a lot less, save a lot on office space etc. Tech companies are the ones that should be able to pull that off. Even if I lived in SF I'd be reluctant to commute an hour to work if I could just as well work from home.
- sawthat 11y ago
  Everyone keeps asking this question. The answer: they are hiring remote workers. But my question: where is the evidence that tech companies are not able to be profitable with their high payroll costs?
  - 7Figures2Commas 11y ago
    > But my question: where is the evidence that tech companies are not able to be profitable with their high payroll costs? You could look at the growing number of layoffs at post-seed stage companies[1]. Or you could look at startups that voluntarily publish financial information. Take, for example, this one[2], which, as of June, was spending $525,000/month on payroll (equating to an all-in cost of $146,000/year per employee) when it had less than $300,000 of monthly bookings revenue. A lot (perhaps the majority) of venture-backed Bay Area startups are entirely dependent on investor money to sustain their workforces at their current sizes. Even some of the tech companies in the area that have gone public aren't profitable. FireEye and Marketo are two that come to mind. Everybody has been trading profitability for growth, and that's a game most will eventually lose. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10517445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10517445 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10049808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10049808
    - charlesdm 11y ago
      He said tech companies, not startups. For tech companies, it doesn't really matter. They have unlimited money (relative to the cost of an employee). For startups, it does.
      - 7Figures2Commas 11y ago
        1. Since when did "tech company" come to mean "non-startup"? Lots of startups are by definition technology companies. 2. Many people in the Bay Area are employed by angel and venture-backed startups, so how does it make sense to ignore them? If and when there's a significant downturn that results in the unsustainable startup herd being culled, not all startup employees are going to find six-figure replacement jobs at companies like Google and Facebook. People who lived through the first .com bust know how fast the job market can dry up for a large subset of employees. 3. It is absolutely not true that the Bay Area's unprofitable publicly-traded tech companies have "unlimited money" relative to anything. Review their SEC filings and you can determine how much money they have down to the dollar. You should not be surprised when those that struggle to reach profitability sooner or later take cost-cutting action, which may include layoffs and adjustments to employee compensation. Twitter just did this. Even profitable tech companies, like IBM and HP, have laid off significant numbers of employees. Bottom line: when push comes to shove and the shit hits the fan, companies tend to use large knives, not scalpels.
        sawthat 11y ago
        Of course, but there is no evidence that operating in Tulsa would prevent that.
    - sawthat 11y ago
      I worked in Colorado after the .com crash, the tech industry was devastated there, Bay Area companies that had opened offices in the area reconsolidated back in the Bay Area, rather than take advantage of lower payroll costs in Denver. It sounds good on paper to move out of the area, in practice it hadn't happened yet.
- superuser2 11y ago
  Remote work is an excellent paradigm when you get an assignment, go work on it for a while in total independence/isolation, and then turn it in, i.e. when developer-hours are perfectly commoditized. Not every software project is like this at every part of its lifecycle. The same pitfalls that apply to outsourcing to low-cost-of-living countries should apply to hiring American remote workers: communication overhead, lack of context and understanding of what the product should be, etc. If a projects works well with remote workers in developed countries, consider that it's probably irrational and a borderline violation of fiduciary duty to pay extra for them rather than equally skilled workers in India/China/Eastern Europe.
  - jonesb6 11y ago
    I wouldn't forget that communication is deeply entwined with regional culture. I would argue that it is much easier to hire a remote worker from the same country then it is from a third world country (which are frequently known for remote work). Everything from time zones, work hours (say western European countries accustomed to ~5-7 actual work hours /day), laws, religion, etc.
    - alkonaut 11y ago
      Yes, one shouldn't confuse outsourcing and remote work: with remote work I mean people working in the same tools (version control, issue tracking etc) in the same time zone (+/- 1 hour), and being always available on chat/voice/video and occasional physical meetings. Most people who work in a multi storey office communicate the same way with the people on a different storey as they would with people in a different city.
      - amorphid 11y ago
        I work in an office, and everyone on my team is remote, including my boss. I might as well be working from home most of the time! But I like going into the office :)

sotojuan 11y ago

As someone who does not want to live there either, I can see why people move there. It's simply where the most opportunities are. The idea is to move there and live uncomfortably until you network your way to an awesome, high paying job. Alternatively, the tech companies there usually do more interesting stuff than in other area. Here in NYC most are related to advertising or media—stuff not easy to get exited about. San Francisco has its large share of silly ideas for companies, but it also has many that do interesting stuff.

eropple 11y ago
Plenty of places outside of SF are doing interesting things. Boston has plenty, as does Austin.
- sotojuan 11y ago
  Yes, but San Franciso has the most. Plenty of other cities have theaters, ballet, and opera—but people move to New York.
- big_youth 11y ago
  I live in Austin and have seen many of my coworkers and friends leave for the bay area. Besides interesting work I think there are more opportunities for career growth. I am in security (but it's similar in many specialties) and while there are very good companies in Austin if I want to to rise become a security architect or director of information security I have to go to the tech headquarters. Companies like Google and facebook may have regional offices but the core innovative security/ai/pl work and executive decision making is being done in the home campuses. That being said, I would never leave Austin for the SF bay unless it involved a $350k+ salary.
  - HillRat 11y ago
    For security you could also look at the DC area, especially if you're an AMCIT who wouldn't mind undergoing an SSBI. The downside is that most of those jobs are playing whack-a-mole with breaches, but for high-paying, high-profile forensics, response and research positions, federal contractors are hard to beat.

techsupporter 11y ago

"And yet, clearly, plenty of people do choose to live in San Francisco." Well, he didn't choose to live in San Francisco for long. By the end of his four years there, he decamped to Seattle, which seems to be the natural progression these days: live in SF and close a few deals in a tiny space, then move to Seattle into a slightly larger place and be amazed at all of the room you have.

xenadu02 11y ago

Eh I moved my family (stay at home wife and two kids). If you are willing to live outside of the trendy areas you can find OK places. Unfortunately single family homes (like we inhabit now) are not rent-controlled. We're currently trying to decide between moving to a multi-unit building with a 3-bedroom place or staying and putting up with the ridiculous rent. The multi-unit building would still be high rent but at least it would be locked in forever. It definitely costs my startup employer (and myself), especially factoring in preschool. It also steals a job and "juice" from the local economy - we'd have already hired a nanny if rents were merely 2x a normal city, and we'd happily spend more buying from local craftspeople. The money goes into my landlord's retirement account basically doing nothing.

stevewilhelm 11y ago
> The money goes into my landlord's retirement account basically doing nothing. Is your landlord's retirement account a sack under his bed? If not, that money is being invested in publicly traded companies or in bonds to fund public works. It is creating jobs, just not in your neighborhood.

stevewilhelm 11y ago

Look at the founders of the author's employer: http://s831.us/1lcWYYh http://s831.us/1lcWYYh. They can afford to live anywhere they want and start their company near their homes.

scott_karana 11y ago

The author is pretty clear. > And don’t forget about the importance of compound interest. I will remind you that $2k per month saved on rent for one year is $24k. Invested for 50 years averaging 6% interest comes to roughly $450k. Freedom. HTFU. $450K towards retirement for one year of living in cramped, expensive SF sounds like it could be a reasonable payoff for many people.