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I couldn't agree more and I'm glad someone is talking about this. I also read SEC reports (Ks and Qs) and I'm appalled at what I'm seeing. I actually think it'

I couldn't agree more and I'm glad someone is talking about this. I also read SEC reports (Ks and Qs) and I'm appalled at what I'm seeing. I actually think it's bigger, though. Look at the original ethos of Silicon Valley: two mid-career guys in a garage working off-hours to get something going. There was a culture of cost-consciousness, a scrappy resourcefulness, built into these companies from day 1. Hell, they could've set up shop in San Francisco, but they opted for the suburbs instead, because they wanted to make it work. Quoting Paul Graham, in 2005: "For most startups the model should be grad student, not law firm. Aim for cool and cheap, not expensive and impressive." [2] Fast forward 10-20 years. Have you been to the Twitter office? It's next to NEMA [1], an apartment complex where a cool $4000/month will get you 1-2 bedrooms. A juice from "The Market" underneath their office will run you $8, to go with your $15 sandwich. Everyone there seems to be OK wearing $100 shirts and expensive shoes. The office itself is impeccably painted and they have art all over the walls. I don't care about the money per se; the issue is focus. If all the energy dedicated to all this flashiness was dedicated into getting actual business results, Twitter might be in a different place today. Now, the standard argument against this is, we need to be in SF, and spend all this money, in the name of attracting the best talent. Perhaps, but, you have to wonder, when companies are climbing all over each other to get developers at $150-180K base plus cash bonuses, stock, etc., the case for being in SF gets more difficult. What I'm really saying is two things: (1) Tech has changed...a lot. Gone are the founding myths of Amazon's door-desks and Bill Gates, whose famous restaurant was a burger place. Now we all eat at two-star Michelin restaurants at $150/plate. (2) I wonder what this says about SF long-term. Sure, the good people are here, and sure, maybe it'll just be a slight correction. But I really think the case for locating a company elsewhere grows stronger each day given how expensive and difficult it is to run a company from here. [1] http://www.rentnema.com/floorplans.php http://www.rentnema.com/floorplans.php [2] http://paulgraham.com/start.html http://paulgraham.com/start.html

Balgair 10y ago
On your points about grad-student vs. law-firm: Yeah, all the 'real' hackers are out now. Just look at Google Maps, that thing was better 10 years ago than it is today. Complain all you want about the proliferation in devices, but the fact remains that it was better a decade ago. I say that to mean that the actual hackers and the neck-beards that care about the product are gone and have been replaced by bullshit artists. Reasonable people, people that have mortgages and get other people to change their oil. Let me repeat that: Google is full of BSAs now. Just look at the Burn, it's all cigarettes and blow now, not pot and LSD. It's a networking event! How in the heck did nepotism, sorry, I mean networking, get out to Gerlach? Where have the real hackers gone off to? Somewhere cheap, aka not the Bay Area. Look at Knoxville or Tallahassee, other Southern cities, Albuquerque and Reno, or Albany. Places with some sort of grad school (not just comp-sci, look at all that CRISPR-CAS9 stuff, oh man!) that does not have crazy rents nearby. A place where you can't tell if they are a grad student or a homeless dude. The 'real' hackers are out there being busy building things, thankyouverymuch, and not giving a damn about juices that someone else makes for them. It's not that Tech has changed, those toothy basement dwellers are a part of the human genetic code, it's that SF has changed. It's mature now, there are firms and suits and spouses that need to be kept. SF will continue along this path, it is not what it once was and really, all things evolve.
deleted 10y ago
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Balgair 10y ago

On your points about grad-student vs. law-firm: Yeah, all the 'real' hackers are out now. Just look at Google Maps, that thing was better 10 years ago than it is today. Complain all you want about the proliferation in devices, but the fact remains that it was better a decade ago. I say that to mean that the actual hackers and the neck-beards that care about the product are gone and have been replaced by bullshit artists. Reasonable people, people that have mortgages and get other people to change their oil. Let me repeat that: Google is full of BSAs now. Just look at the Burn, it's all cigarettes and blow now, not pot and LSD. It's a networking event! How in the heck did nepotism, sorry, I mean networking, get out to Gerlach? Where have the real hackers gone off to? Somewhere cheap, aka not the Bay Area. Look at Knoxville or Tallahassee, other Southern cities, Albuquerque and Reno, or Albany. Places with some sort of grad school (not just comp-sci, look at all that CRISPR-CAS9 stuff, oh man!) that does not have crazy rents nearby. A place where you can't tell if they are a grad student or a homeless dude. The 'real' hackers are out there being busy building things, thankyouverymuch, and not giving a damn about juices that someone else makes for them. It's not that Tech has changed, those toothy basement dwellers are a part of the human genetic code, it's that SF has changed. It's mature now, there are firms and suits and spouses that need to be kept. SF will continue along this path, it is not what it once was and really, all things evolve.

deleted 10y ago

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