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What people seem to miss when they project about Silicon Valley's future is that how existing tech monopolies are becoming increasingly profitable. Amazon, Face

What people seem to miss when they project about Silicon Valley's future is that how existing tech monopolies are becoming increasingly profitable. Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Netflix are all literally killing it! If you want to grow your career in any of these big tech companies you have to be in the Bay Area (Seattle for Microsoft or Amazon depending on what part of the company).

somethingsimple 10y ago
You can work for Google and Facebook in Seattle too, and they keep expanding.
- drumdance 10y ago
  Google is growing their Boulder office from ~400 to 2,000 over the next few years.
  - shostack 10y ago
    Last I checked Boulder had Bay Area house prices (literally) and no where near comparable pay. Is that still the case?
    - Kephael 10y ago
      I'm currently in Boulder and only one person out of the three dozen I work with is able to afford their own home here. Everyone else seems to commute from Denver or Longmont. I don't see how the limited industry in the area is able to support the housing prices, it seems like a bubble to me.
      - shostack 10y ago
        Longmont looks like it has no downtown and seems a bit on the less affluent side--is that accurate? Hard to tell from online research. But a much better commute to Boulder than Denver. How would you describe it? How does it compare to say, Cherry Creek?
        Kephael 10y ago
        Longmont is nowhere near as nice as most of Boulder. It looks like you can get more for your money in Cherry Creek as well. Boulder is very nice if you can afford to live here and are prepared to pay Bay Area housing prices. I'm in an area heavily populated by students and I need to be careful that I don't trip over a transient when I walk to work. You can buy sixty year old homes for half a million dollars here, but I think you'd be looking at a million plus to get something nice and modern. Unfortunately I'm here without a vehicle and the public transport system is poor, I rode the bus once and almost died. I'm using ride sharing services to get everywhere. I've been very impressed with the Pearl Street area of Boulder and I don't think Denver can beat it. I would describe the Pearl Street mall as a cross between Disney Word, Las Vegas sans the gambling, and Duval Street in Key West.
        shostack 10y ago
        Very interesting. How is the tech job scene in Denver compared to Boulder? Is there a ton of opportunity there in comparison? Or is it pretty much Boulder or bust?
        drumdance 10y ago
        I moved from Boulder to Denver late last year. I'd say the tech scene in Denver is very solid. The only difference is it's a bit more spread out, so you don't have quite the same serendipity that you have in Boulder (i.e. bumping into another founder at the coffee shop). Boulder probably has more startups per capita and aside from a few whales like Google and Ball Aerospace, it leans more towards startups. This is partly because once a company grows beyond 100 people or so it's too expensive to find office space in Boulder, so they move to Longmont or somewhere like Broomfield along the Boulder-Denver corridor. Denver has lots of tech startups too, but also a lot of enterprise-y companies like Charles Schwab, Comcast etc. I personally prefer Denver because I'm a city person, but I lived in Boulder for 15 years and really liked it as well. I may even move back there at some point. I still own a townhouse there; it may end up funding my retirement.
- enra 10y ago
  I think the commenter meant that while you can work at those companies in many places, if you want to be on the major projects and advance your career, you will have to be in the Bay Area. Google even has a fairly large office in SF, but usually people can't work on major projects there. You have to be at the HQ
  - gorkemyurt 10y ago
    Yep! Even some of Amazon and Microsoft's high profile teams are based in SV..
  - boulos 10y ago
    As a happy resident in the San Francisco office, this is not quite true. To wit, there are major Cloud products in San Francisco, as well as Chrome, Android, and now a small VR presence. Also, Compute Engine started in, and mostly still remains fully based in, Seattle (the waterside Fremont office). Folks in the non-Mountain View offices may grumble about visibility, promotions, etc. but if you're just looking to work on something interesting in Google San Francisco (or Seattle, New York, etc.) they certainly exist.
- superuser2 10y ago
  >https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-seattle-rent-trends/ https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-seattle-rent-tren... Seattle doesn't appear to be markedly cheaper than the East Bay. If you want out for cultural reasons, sure, but the cost of living differential appears marginal (and the gap will only close as tech hiring there continues).
untog 10y ago
Google has offices everywhere - New York, London, Dublin... who knows where else (well, Google do). I wouldn't say you have to be in the Bay Area in order to work for companies like that. In any case, I don't see why working for a company that is becoming increasingly profitable is a positive for me, unless I see significant dividends from it.

somethingsimple 10y ago

You can work for Google and Facebook in Seattle too, and they keep expanding.

drumdance 10y ago
Google is growing their Boulder office from ~400 to 2,000 over the next few years.
- shostack 10y ago
  Last I checked Boulder had Bay Area house prices (literally) and no where near comparable pay. Is that still the case?
  - Kephael 10y ago
    I'm currently in Boulder and only one person out of the three dozen I work with is able to afford their own home here. Everyone else seems to commute from Denver or Longmont. I don't see how the limited industry in the area is able to support the housing prices, it seems like a bubble to me.
    - shostack 10y ago
      Longmont looks like it has no downtown and seems a bit on the less affluent side--is that accurate? Hard to tell from online research. But a much better commute to Boulder than Denver. How would you describe it? How does it compare to say, Cherry Creek?
      - Kephael 10y ago
        Longmont is nowhere near as nice as most of Boulder. It looks like you can get more for your money in Cherry Creek as well. Boulder is very nice if you can afford to live here and are prepared to pay Bay Area housing prices. I'm in an area heavily populated by students and I need to be careful that I don't trip over a transient when I walk to work. You can buy sixty year old homes for half a million dollars here, but I think you'd be looking at a million plus to get something nice and modern. Unfortunately I'm here without a vehicle and the public transport system is poor, I rode the bus once and almost died. I'm using ride sharing services to get everywhere. I've been very impressed with the Pearl Street area of Boulder and I don't think Denver can beat it. I would describe the Pearl Street mall as a cross between Disney Word, Las Vegas sans the gambling, and Duval Street in Key West.
        shostack 10y ago
        Very interesting. How is the tech job scene in Denver compared to Boulder? Is there a ton of opportunity there in comparison? Or is it pretty much Boulder or bust?
        drumdance 10y ago
        I moved from Boulder to Denver late last year. I'd say the tech scene in Denver is very solid. The only difference is it's a bit more spread out, so you don't have quite the same serendipity that you have in Boulder (i.e. bumping into another founder at the coffee shop). Boulder probably has more startups per capita and aside from a few whales like Google and Ball Aerospace, it leans more towards startups. This is partly because once a company grows beyond 100 people or so it's too expensive to find office space in Boulder, so they move to Longmont or somewhere like Broomfield along the Boulder-Denver corridor. Denver has lots of tech startups too, but also a lot of enterprise-y companies like Charles Schwab, Comcast etc. I personally prefer Denver because I'm a city person, but I lived in Boulder for 15 years and really liked it as well. I may even move back there at some point. I still own a townhouse there; it may end up funding my retirement.
enra 10y ago
I think the commenter meant that while you can work at those companies in many places, if you want to be on the major projects and advance your career, you will have to be in the Bay Area. Google even has a fairly large office in SF, but usually people can't work on major projects there. You have to be at the HQ
- gorkemyurt 10y ago
  Yep! Even some of Amazon and Microsoft's high profile teams are based in SV..
- boulos 10y ago
  As a happy resident in the San Francisco office, this is not quite true. To wit, there are major Cloud products in San Francisco, as well as Chrome, Android, and now a small VR presence. Also, Compute Engine started in, and mostly still remains fully based in, Seattle (the waterside Fremont office). Folks in the non-Mountain View offices may grumble about visibility, promotions, etc. but if you're just looking to work on something interesting in Google San Francisco (or Seattle, New York, etc.) they certainly exist.
superuser2 10y ago
>https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-seattle-rent-trends/ https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-seattle-rent-tren... Seattle doesn't appear to be markedly cheaper than the East Bay. If you want out for cultural reasons, sure, but the cost of living differential appears marginal (and the gap will only close as tech hiring there continues).

untog 10y ago

Google has offices everywhere - New York, London, Dublin... who knows where else (well, Google do). I wouldn't say you have to be in the Bay Area in order to work for companies like that. In any case, I don't see why working for a company that is becoming increasingly profitable is a positive for me, unless I see significant dividends from it.