6 ms·

Honestly, at this point it's too late to start "preparing" for a pop. I'm dubious the city can come up with 6 years of money to ride out any kind of economic tu

Honestly, at this point it's too late to start "preparing" for a pop. I'm dubious the city can come up with 6 years of money to ride out any kind of economic turmoil without great pain. Individuals can simply move to a better and cheaper location. There's many more mature and cheaper tech hubs now than there were in 2007. The city is stuck with itself and its tax liabilities. And in a place where you can't cut down a tree without posting 90 days notice, good luck rolling back some of that spending.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
They could always scrape some gold off the top of City Hall.
ashwinaj 10y ago
I was in one of the so called "low cost tech hubs" of Dallas/Austin in 2008 during the recession. Anecdotal, but people in tech were doing a lot worse than in SV due to lack of jobs. If you were a reasonably good engineer in SV, you kept your job or at worse got a job at a lower salary in SV, while in Dallas/Austin people were losing jobs outright and unemployed for months since there weren't enough companies around. This may have changed 8 years on, but I'm skeptical from what I hear from friends and acquaintances in Texas. From an R&D operational point of view, you cannot just up and move all major operations from SV to <insert any tech hub> on a whim. It may work for a 10 person startup, not for a company with thousands or even hundreds of employees.
- todd8 10y ago
  My anecdotal observation about the size of companies moving to Texas is different. My neighbor just moved his company of three hundred employees to Austin. Another neighbor's company, Dimensional Fund Advisors relocated to Austin, about 1000 employees. On my small street (10 families), half work for or run companies that moved operations to Austin. Toyota just moved to a suburb of Dallas, 4000 employees. The operational cost savings are substantial.
  - ashwinaj 10y ago
    Yup, but these aren't "tech" companies. These are traditional manufacturing, finance, insurance (I've heard about State Farm moving to Richardson, TX) etc. Apart from AMD (when it was on the brink) moving it's HQ to Austin from Sunnyvale, I can't think of any other "tech" company moving major operations from SV to elsewhere.
    - netheril96 10y ago
      Shouldn't it be easier to move tech companies than manufacturing companies?
      - sbardle 10y ago
        Especially with the rise of remote working and services like Slack.
        TeMPOraL 10y ago
        The "rise of remote working" was supposed to happen 20 years ago. We should all be working from home for a good decade now. Instead, management invented excuses like "importance of teamwork", "serendipity happening at the water cooler", etc. Another messaging app won't change that by itself.
        kd0amg 10y ago
        I still haven't found a "remote" replacement for gathering around a whiteboard to work out some system design issues. Whiteboard-through-a-webcam has been mostly ok as long as everyone is almost on the same page to begin with, but it gets cumbersome as soon as anyone misunderstands anything.
        andyjdavis 10y ago
        It is worth noting that there actually are plenty of remote workers. Most people are presumably unaware of them for two reasons: 1) People who work remotely are clustered in companies that allow remote working. If you don't work for a company that will let you work remotely then you probably don't work with any remote workers. 2) Remote workers can often choose their location so they cluster in more desirable locations which, statistically speaking, you probably do not live in. I worked remotely for 2011-2015 within a company that had approximately 1/3 of its workforce working remotely. As I could go where I wanted I spent most of my time overseas. Spent a lot of time in SE Asia. Places like Chiang Mai in Thailand and Bali in Indonesia have no shortage of people working remotely either as an employee, freelancing or starting a business.
- rconti 10y ago
  Obviously also anecdotal, but I live in the Valley and I don't know a single person in tech who lost their job during the recession. Everybody just put their heads down and kept working. Nobody was recruiting, nobody was switching jobs, nobody was quitting. I know OF people who lost jobs in related fields; sales, marketing, etc, but not in technical fields. Obviously people did lose tech jobs, I'm just saying it wasn't like a techpocalypse.
- amyjess 10y ago
  I've lived my entire life in Dallas, and I can confirm as well. I was unemployed from February 2010 to March 2012 because of the recession. What I'd observed was that if you had skills that were in high demand in enterprise environments, like Java with J2EE/Spring/Hibernate or the .NET stack, then you'd land on your feet, but if you specialized in something less common, then you were out of luck. My experience was all specialized in Linux platform and Python development, and I only had a little over 2.5 years (since I graduated college in 2007, right before the recession hit), which meant I was in the worst case scenario. It was tough. I applied for job after job after job, was rejected constantly, had a few interviews that never panned out. It took a terrible toll on my mental health. Eventually, I found a very young startup that needed a Linux platform person and couldn't afford someone with a lot of experience, which was what saved me from homelessness. I spent a few years there, picked up a lot more experience with Linux platform work and Python, got some Java under my belt as well, and eventually moved on to greener pastures (because they were still a skeleton-crew startup that couldn't afford to pay much when I left in late 2014). Still, there's a lot of shortsightedness here. I'm just coming out of another, much shorter (2.5 months), unemployment spell, and I learned that I shouldn't even bother applying to Java positions anymore. My Java experience is all core Java, with no J2EE/Spring/Hibernate/other web frameworks. I spent quite a bit of time doing Java for both the above mentioned startup and the company I went to after there (hell, I was the one who put together materials educating my entire company on Java 8), but almost nobody counts it as valid experience because it doesn't involve a big web framework. It's aggravating, really. For most companies here, it's "big enterprisey web frameworks or bust", and if you didn't get into that straight out of college, you're screwed because no employer's going to bother training you later on, because now you're considered locked into some other development track. I _want_ to broaden my experience so a few years from now, I can tell employers I've got some of everything under my belt, but here, once you're considered locked into something, that's it.
vox_mollis 10y ago
Former US Comptroller General David Walker has been beating this drum for decades (in the context of US fiscal concerns), to no avail.
jobu 10y ago
> Honestly, at this point it's too late to start "preparing" for a pop. That's probably true, and if they do find a way to start squirreling away large amounts of money it could bring about the pop sooner and possiblle make it worse. A large contraction in government spending when things are already shaky can instigate more problems in the economy.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> Individuals can simply move to a better and cheaper location. [...] > And in a place where you can't cut down a tree without posting 90 days notice, good luck rolling back some of that spending. A change of the individuals in the city of the type you suggest would, quite likely, solve the later problem you point to. So the problem seems to be self-limiting.
the_watcher 10y ago
> Honestly, at this point it's too late to start "preparing" for a pop. I'm dubious the city can come up with 6 years of money to ride out any kind of economic turmoil without great pain. So cities and states should just give up? Just because they won't be able to protect against everything doesn't mean they shouldn't be working on sound budgeting plans to offset whatever amount of pain that they have. You're right that the regulatory structure of the city makes it very difficult to make the kind of infrastructure investments truly necessary to address the issues of the city, but building up cash reserves is simply sound planning.
- matt_wulfeck 10y ago
  how about a follow up: be prepared individually to ride out economic pain. Don't be afraid to move. If you have a successful business then beware the city is going to have a keen eye on you as a potential source of income that it will badly need. I predict the city will try and suck any profitable enterprises dry before they cut back on social spending, despite what the messaging suggests.
  - the_watcher 10y ago
    Sure, but that isn't mutually exclusive with the city doing its best to put together a financial emergency fund.
    - DrScump 10y ago
      Has that ever happened in SF?
      - the_watcher 10y ago
        Does that make it mutually exclusive? Does the fact that it has never happened in SF mean that the city should just punt on even attempting any fiscal responsibility?
        10y ago

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago

They could always scrape some gold off the top of City Hall.

ashwinaj 10y ago

I was in one of the so called "low cost tech hubs" of Dallas/Austin in 2008 during the recession. Anecdotal, but people in tech were doing a lot worse than in SV due to lack of jobs. If you were a reasonably good engineer in SV, you kept your job or at worse got a job at a lower salary in SV, while in Dallas/Austin people were losing jobs outright and unemployed for months since there weren't enough companies around. This may have changed 8 years on, but I'm skeptical from what I hear from friends and acquaintances in Texas. From an R&D operational point of view, you cannot just up and move all major operations from SV to <insert any tech hub> on a whim. It may work for a 10 person startup, not for a company with thousands or even hundreds of employees.

todd8 10y ago
My anecdotal observation about the size of companies moving to Texas is different. My neighbor just moved his company of three hundred employees to Austin. Another neighbor's company, Dimensional Fund Advisors relocated to Austin, about 1000 employees. On my small street (10 families), half work for or run companies that moved operations to Austin. Toyota just moved to a suburb of Dallas, 4000 employees. The operational cost savings are substantial.
- ashwinaj 10y ago
  Yup, but these aren't "tech" companies. These are traditional manufacturing, finance, insurance (I've heard about State Farm moving to Richardson, TX) etc. Apart from AMD (when it was on the brink) moving it's HQ to Austin from Sunnyvale, I can't think of any other "tech" company moving major operations from SV to elsewhere.
  - netheril96 10y ago
    Shouldn't it be easier to move tech companies than manufacturing companies?
    - sbardle 10y ago
      Especially with the rise of remote working and services like Slack.
      - TeMPOraL 10y ago
        The "rise of remote working" was supposed to happen 20 years ago. We should all be working from home for a good decade now. Instead, management invented excuses like "importance of teamwork", "serendipity happening at the water cooler", etc. Another messaging app won't change that by itself.
        kd0amg 10y ago
        I still haven't found a "remote" replacement for gathering around a whiteboard to work out some system design issues. Whiteboard-through-a-webcam has been mostly ok as long as everyone is almost on the same page to begin with, but it gets cumbersome as soon as anyone misunderstands anything.
        andyjdavis 10y ago
        It is worth noting that there actually are plenty of remote workers. Most people are presumably unaware of them for two reasons: 1) People who work remotely are clustered in companies that allow remote working. If you don't work for a company that will let you work remotely then you probably don't work with any remote workers. 2) Remote workers can often choose their location so they cluster in more desirable locations which, statistically speaking, you probably do not live in. I worked remotely for 2011-2015 within a company that had approximately 1/3 of its workforce working remotely. As I could go where I wanted I spent most of my time overseas. Spent a lot of time in SE Asia. Places like Chiang Mai in Thailand and Bali in Indonesia have no shortage of people working remotely either as an employee, freelancing or starting a business.
rconti 10y ago
Obviously also anecdotal, but I live in the Valley and I don't know a single person in tech who lost their job during the recession. Everybody just put their heads down and kept working. Nobody was recruiting, nobody was switching jobs, nobody was quitting. I know OF people who lost jobs in related fields; sales, marketing, etc, but not in technical fields. Obviously people did lose tech jobs, I'm just saying it wasn't like a techpocalypse.
amyjess 10y ago
I've lived my entire life in Dallas, and I can confirm as well. I was unemployed from February 2010 to March 2012 because of the recession. What I'd observed was that if you had skills that were in high demand in enterprise environments, like Java with J2EE/Spring/Hibernate or the .NET stack, then you'd land on your feet, but if you specialized in something less common, then you were out of luck. My experience was all specialized in Linux platform and Python development, and I only had a little over 2.5 years (since I graduated college in 2007, right before the recession hit), which meant I was in the worst case scenario. It was tough. I applied for job after job after job, was rejected constantly, had a few interviews that never panned out. It took a terrible toll on my mental health. Eventually, I found a very young startup that needed a Linux platform person and couldn't afford someone with a lot of experience, which was what saved me from homelessness. I spent a few years there, picked up a lot more experience with Linux platform work and Python, got some Java under my belt as well, and eventually moved on to greener pastures (because they were still a skeleton-crew startup that couldn't afford to pay much when I left in late 2014). Still, there's a lot of shortsightedness here. I'm just coming out of another, much shorter (2.5 months), unemployment spell, and I learned that I shouldn't even bother applying to Java positions anymore. My Java experience is all core Java, with no J2EE/Spring/Hibernate/other web frameworks. I spent quite a bit of time doing Java for both the above mentioned startup and the company I went to after there (hell, I was the one who put together materials educating my entire company on Java 8), but almost nobody counts it as valid experience because it doesn't involve a big web framework. It's aggravating, really. For most companies here, it's "big enterprisey web frameworks or bust", and if you didn't get into that straight out of college, you're screwed because no employer's going to bother training you later on, because now you're considered locked into some other development track. I _want_ to broaden my experience so a few years from now, I can tell employers I've got some of everything under my belt, but here, once you're considered locked into something, that's it.

vox_mollis 10y ago

Former US Comptroller General David Walker has been beating this drum for decades (in the context of US fiscal concerns), to no avail.

jobu 10y ago

> Honestly, at this point it's too late to start "preparing" for a pop. That's probably true, and if they do find a way to start squirreling away large amounts of money it could bring about the pop sooner and possiblle make it worse. A large contraction in government spending when things are already shaky can instigate more problems in the economy.

dragonwriter 10y ago

> Individuals can simply move to a better and cheaper location. [...] > And in a place where you can't cut down a tree without posting 90 days notice, good luck rolling back some of that spending. A change of the individuals in the city of the type you suggest would, quite likely, solve the later problem you point to. So the problem seems to be self-limiting.

the_watcher 10y ago

> Honestly, at this point it's too late to start "preparing" for a pop. I'm dubious the city can come up with 6 years of money to ride out any kind of economic turmoil without great pain. So cities and states should just give up? Just because they won't be able to protect against everything doesn't mean they shouldn't be working on sound budgeting plans to offset whatever amount of pain that they have. You're right that the regulatory structure of the city makes it very difficult to make the kind of infrastructure investments truly necessary to address the issues of the city, but building up cash reserves is simply sound planning.

matt_wulfeck 10y ago
how about a follow up: be prepared individually to ride out economic pain. Don't be afraid to move. If you have a successful business then beware the city is going to have a keen eye on you as a potential source of income that it will badly need. I predict the city will try and suck any profitable enterprises dry before they cut back on social spending, despite what the messaging suggests.
- the_watcher 10y ago
  Sure, but that isn't mutually exclusive with the city doing its best to put together a financial emergency fund.
  - DrScump 10y ago
    Has that ever happened in SF?
    - the_watcher 10y ago
      Does that make it mutually exclusive? Does the fact that it has never happened in SF mean that the city should just punt on even attempting any fiscal responsibility?
      - 10y ago