5 ms·

I hold what could be an unpopular opinion and what some might call irrelevant, but I think a big factor here is tech. To preface what I'm about to state, I work

by godot 9y ago

I hold what could be an unpopular opinion and what some might call irrelevant, but I think a big factor here is tech. To preface what I'm about to state, I work in tech myself and I know many of you are, and I'm not blaming tech from an outsider point of view. There is a disproportionate amount of companies starting or moving into SF over even just the past 5 years. Before, if you're starting a tech company, it could be equally common to start it in the peninsula (maybe even more so), say Palo Alto or Mountain View and the like. Nowadays, the default choice is SF and that's majority of the cases by far. I think collectively, the whole environment is pushing towards building SF into the New York of the west, except instead of banks and the financial industry filling up the town, it's tech companies. I'm not saying it's the agenda of anyone in specific (in government or otherwise) to build out SF that way, I'm saying it's what we're all collectively doing, whether intentional for some of us or simply riding the waves for others. SF is a city that used to support many industries. Tech is obviously the one industry that is almost the top earner overall (or might even be the absolute top earner by industry). It seems like an obvious factor (and a big one) that's driving anyone not in tech away. In some cases, at the lowest end of the income spectrum, they might not have anywhere to be driven away to other than to the streets. Another anecdotal point is that recent popular article about how <$105k is considered low income in SF. If this is indeed a factor, one of the things we collectively as part of the tech industry can do, is to intentionally spread ourselves away from SF, into other areas of the bay area. I get it that people want to live in the bay area for its climate and all the conveniences. There's no reason why there can't be tech companies HQ'ing in East Bay, for example. (and I'm not talking about just Oakland, but everywhere from San Leandro down to Fremont, or further east like Pleaston, Livermore, Walnut Creek, etc.)

ak4g 9y ago
I don't even think that's particularly controversial. The concentration of tech startups in SF has been devastating for the city, and has distorted every aspect of early-stage tech startups for years. And frankly, YC bears a rather large proportion of the blame for this.
- godot 9y ago
  I wouldn't be so quick to blame YC. YC actually encourages founders to be smart about their funding money and not spend a premium just to HQ in SF if at all possible. Problem is a lot of founders just feel so inclined to work in SF.
- krakensden 9y ago
  San Francisco was like this before the current tech boom, too- http://www.salon.com/1999/11/03/sf/ http://www.salon.com/1999/11/03/sf/ it dates back to the 1980s- http://projects.sfchronicle.com/sf-homeless/overview/ http://projects.sfchronicle.com/sf-homeless/overview/ Really nothing to do with YC.
duderific 9y ago
> If this is indeed a factor, one of the things we collectively as part of the tech industry can do, is to intentionally spread ourselves away from SF, into other areas of the bay area. Trouble is, the hot young talent often want to live right in SF and walk/bike to work. So it becomes hard to recruit successfully if your company does not have an office in SF, and you are not Apple, Facebook or Google. My company is in Redwood City (about 30 minutes south of SF) and we experience this problem.
- godot 9y ago
  A lot of my peers around my age (mid thirties) have been actively moving out of SF specifically. I think it might be a matter of targeting the right pool of candidates to look at.
  - mahyarm 9y ago
    People in their mid thirties don't want to work at startup lottery anymore. And not many south bay startups are offering something materially different than working at google. They have done the math and realized that %99 of the time even with an exit, they will make more at google.
- souprock 9y ago
  If you want to walk/bike to work, why would SF be your choice? About the only good thing is temperature. The hills... OMG the hills. It's also a decent-sized city, so not safe to be exposed to crime like that. One needs a car, not that there is parking. There are apartments in Redwood City. Get one, and the walk/bike experience should at least beat SF. I may be wrong, but the place seems flatter at least. I'm out in Indialantic, FL. It's hot but flat, and houses near work are affordable. I walk 0.9 miles to work, and that's only because I wanted a 4-bedroom on almost half an acre. Maybe the problem is the desire you have for "young". That ought not be a job requirement. If all the young want to live in SF, you can still hire old people.
euyyn 9y ago
Tesla's Gigafactory and Solar City are in the southern part of Fremont, for what is worth.
sgslo 9y ago
I want to voice an opinion that I've held in secret, I'm curious if you think that this is completely overboard...(downvotes are appropriate here, people). While a lot of these startups might be useless Tinder clones or Uber for X, there are also startups that quite literally change the world ~for the better~ in objective ways. Don't we have a moral imperative to cater to these companies at the expense of all else? Isn't it better for the long term to ensure they have all the resources available? Yes, some of the startups are scum money grabs, but for every cancer researching, ag developing, energy innovation startup shouldn't we extend them every benefit possible?
- opportune 9y ago
  How do you propose "picking" these world changing startups? Either you codify some rules that will inevitably be gamed, or you have some sort of discretionary body that will enact their own biases and possibly pick companies out of nepotism/corruption/etc. It's also hard to tell what startups are world changing. Theranos probably seemed like a real life saver to 100s of millions globally. An Uber for home nurses might save that many lives, or it might be yet another scummy Hospice company that does everything it can to steal money from Medicare. Other businesses could have amazing effects that are hard to quantify: Google has certainly saved thousands of lives indirectly by providing easy access to information (due to the speed increases in research this allows as well as allowing people to treat/identify acute symptoms more easily), but how do you measure and predict this? On the other hand, you have "vertical agriculture" companies that talk all about saving the world through a second agricultural revolution. But they're really only economical viable for growing marijuana.
  - sgslo 9y ago
    I don't think its a matter of picking some chosen out of a crowd, I mean to say that the Bay Area should focus all policies on being pro-business to attract startups of any type. I specifically mentioned crap startups because I'm sure its the first rebuttal to my suggestion (tax breaks for uber for party cups?!?!)
    - 9y ago
roguecoder 9y ago
You assume the East Bay wants tech companies, and that we shouldn't be building the New York of the West. Trying to resist becoming what it could become is (finally) killing San Francisco, and the gentrification of Oakland is already even more intense. New York is extremely productive, effective and has low environmental impact per person. There are enormous advantages of living in a city, which is why people want to live in one. The problem is landowners who benefit from soaring prices, don't have any pressure to move thanks to frozen property taxes, and have a disproportionate impact on zoning. The best thing tech could do is get involved in local politics, show up reliably to local meetings, and advocate for zoning and taxation policies that would support building enough housing so anyone who wants to live in these places can live there. Not just in SF either: it's even more important that Palo Alto, Mountain View and Cupertino start being willing to build housing for the people employed there. The suburbs could be significantly more dense than they are, which could support better public transit options. The solution isn't to try to convince people not to live where they want to live; it's to stop letting Boomers decide where housing should get built, which requires Millennials to start showing up for ourselves.
nitwit005 9y ago
That would presumably raise rents in surrounding counties, which might actually make things worse. A big hunk of the homeless come from other counties, and went to SF after the fact: "Ten percent (10%) of respondents reported they were living out of state at the time they lost their housing. Nineteen percent (19%) reported they were living in another county in California. Six percent (6%) reported they were living in Alameda County at the time, 3% San Mateo, 2% Marin, 2% Contra Costa and 1% Santa Clara County." https://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/default/files/2015%20San%20Francisco%20Homeless%20Count%20%20Report_0.pdf https://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/default/files/2015%20San%20Fran...

by godot 9y ago

ak4g 9y ago

I don't even think that's particularly controversial. The concentration of tech startups in SF has been devastating for the city, and has distorted every aspect of early-stage tech startups for years. And frankly, YC bears a rather large proportion of the blame for this.

godot 9y ago
I wouldn't be so quick to blame YC. YC actually encourages founders to be smart about their funding money and not spend a premium just to HQ in SF if at all possible. Problem is a lot of founders just feel so inclined to work in SF.
krakensden 9y ago
San Francisco was like this before the current tech boom, too- http://www.salon.com/1999/11/03/sf/ http://www.salon.com/1999/11/03/sf/ it dates back to the 1980s- http://projects.sfchronicle.com/sf-homeless/overview/ http://projects.sfchronicle.com/sf-homeless/overview/ Really nothing to do with YC.

duderific 9y ago

> If this is indeed a factor, one of the things we collectively as part of the tech industry can do, is to intentionally spread ourselves away from SF, into other areas of the bay area. Trouble is, the hot young talent often want to live right in SF and walk/bike to work. So it becomes hard to recruit successfully if your company does not have an office in SF, and you are not Apple, Facebook or Google. My company is in Redwood City (about 30 minutes south of SF) and we experience this problem.

godot 9y ago
A lot of my peers around my age (mid thirties) have been actively moving out of SF specifically. I think it might be a matter of targeting the right pool of candidates to look at.
- mahyarm 9y ago
  People in their mid thirties don't want to work at startup lottery anymore. And not many south bay startups are offering something materially different than working at google. They have done the math and realized that %99 of the time even with an exit, they will make more at google.
souprock 9y ago
If you want to walk/bike to work, why would SF be your choice? About the only good thing is temperature. The hills... OMG the hills. It's also a decent-sized city, so not safe to be exposed to crime like that. One needs a car, not that there is parking. There are apartments in Redwood City. Get one, and the walk/bike experience should at least beat SF. I may be wrong, but the place seems flatter at least. I'm out in Indialantic, FL. It's hot but flat, and houses near work are affordable. I walk 0.9 miles to work, and that's only because I wanted a 4-bedroom on almost half an acre. Maybe the problem is the desire you have for "young". That ought not be a job requirement. If all the young want to live in SF, you can still hire old people.

euyyn 9y ago

Tesla's Gigafactory and Solar City are in the southern part of Fremont, for what is worth.

sgslo 9y ago

I want to voice an opinion that I've held in secret, I'm curious if you think that this is completely overboard...(downvotes are appropriate here, people). While a lot of these startups might be useless Tinder clones or Uber for X, there are also startups that quite literally change the world ~for the better~ in objective ways. Don't we have a moral imperative to cater to these companies at the expense of all else? Isn't it better for the long term to ensure they have all the resources available? Yes, some of the startups are scum money grabs, but for every cancer researching, ag developing, energy innovation startup shouldn't we extend them every benefit possible?

opportune 9y ago
How do you propose "picking" these world changing startups? Either you codify some rules that will inevitably be gamed, or you have some sort of discretionary body that will enact their own biases and possibly pick companies out of nepotism/corruption/etc. It's also hard to tell what startups are world changing. Theranos probably seemed like a real life saver to 100s of millions globally. An Uber for home nurses might save that many lives, or it might be yet another scummy Hospice company that does everything it can to steal money from Medicare. Other businesses could have amazing effects that are hard to quantify: Google has certainly saved thousands of lives indirectly by providing easy access to information (due to the speed increases in research this allows as well as allowing people to treat/identify acute symptoms more easily), but how do you measure and predict this? On the other hand, you have "vertical agriculture" companies that talk all about saving the world through a second agricultural revolution. But they're really only economical viable for growing marijuana.
- sgslo 9y ago
  I don't think its a matter of picking some chosen out of a crowd, I mean to say that the Bay Area should focus all policies on being pro-business to attract startups of any type. I specifically mentioned crap startups because I'm sure its the first rebuttal to my suggestion (tax breaks for uber for party cups?!?!)
  - 9y ago

roguecoder 9y ago

You assume the East Bay wants tech companies, and that we shouldn't be building the New York of the West. Trying to resist becoming what it could become is (finally) killing San Francisco, and the gentrification of Oakland is already even more intense. New York is extremely productive, effective and has low environmental impact per person. There are enormous advantages of living in a city, which is why people want to live in one. The problem is landowners who benefit from soaring prices, don't have any pressure to move thanks to frozen property taxes, and have a disproportionate impact on zoning. The best thing tech could do is get involved in local politics, show up reliably to local meetings, and advocate for zoning and taxation policies that would support building enough housing so anyone who wants to live in these places can live there. Not just in SF either: it's even more important that Palo Alto, Mountain View and Cupertino start being willing to build housing for the people employed there. The suburbs could be significantly more dense than they are, which could support better public transit options. The solution isn't to try to convince people not to live where they want to live; it's to stop letting Boomers decide where housing should get built, which requires Millennials to start showing up for ourselves.

nitwit005 9y ago

That would presumably raise rents in surrounding counties, which might actually make things worse. A big hunk of the homeless come from other counties, and went to SF after the fact: "Ten percent (10%) of respondents reported they were living out of state at the time they lost their housing. Nineteen percent (19%) reported they were living in another county in California. Six percent (6%) reported they were living in Alameda County at the time, 3% San Mateo, 2% Marin, 2% Contra Costa and 1% Santa Clara County." https://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/default/files/2015%20San%20Francisco%20Homeless%20Count%20%20Report_0.pdf https://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/default/files/2015%20San%20Fran...