5 ms·

Who in their right mind moves out to SV anymore for less than a quarter million in compensation? If you have a family, your costs are astronomical. Mortgage, d

Who in their right mind moves out to SV anymore for less than a quarter million in compensation? If you have a family, your costs are astronomical. Mortgage, daycare, multiple cars, school-related fees. If you're single, you're dealing both with the gender-imbalanced dating market (the imbalance hurting both men and women), as well as the difficulty of saving for a SV mortgage. If you plan ahead of time, coming into SV, that you're going to leave SV eventually because of the high cost of living, then that future move is going to come at the cost of most of the professional and personal networking that you built up and will have to say goodbye to, and build all over again after you move. Sure, SV is the mecca for professional networking and VC funding, but a) you don't need to be in SV to be successful (counter-examples abound) and b) is it really worth it? The death of cheap eats in the Bay Area is just a symptom. You're either making enough money not to care, or you're wondering anyway whether it's worth it to live there.

tome 9y ago
> the gender-imbalanced dating market (the imbalance hurting both men and women) I'm curious about how an excess of men can hurt women in the dating market.
- thundergolfer 9y ago
  Me too. Maybe the imbalance makes all the guys batty?
  - JSONwebtoken 9y ago
    If anything, it makes the women batty by inflating their ego. Where else in the world can you be totally average yet have your pick of six-figure earners? Anecdotally, SV women are the most materialistic, the least attractive (relative to their self perception), and have the most myopic personalities I've been around.
    - rosser 9y ago
      > Anecdotally... This sounds to me like nothing so much as confirmation bias. I've lived in SF for six years now, and gone on dozens of first (and far fewer, but still nonzero, subsequent) dates. While I do see some slight evidence for this notion, it's the exception, not the rule, in my experience. That is to say, "the plural of anecdote is not data."
      - saiya-jin 9y ago
        I can attest from different high-earning places like Singapore and Geneva that this is generally unfortunately true. All written is valid in my (unfortunately somewhat bigger) experience and it actually makes complete sense, based on how human personalities develop & distort due to various environmental situations and pressures. I wish it wouldn't be so, many guys around me wishing the same, but simple truth is out there, day and night. It is still possible to find non-spoiled balanced good-hearted loving partner, but it is ridiculously hard even if you do proper filtering from the beginning and you really have stuff to offer (looks, personality, salary, cool adventurous life etc). Small places are like from another planet in this regard. Btw this is valid for both sexes, at least from what I can see from a straight guy perspective. After some time I generally stopped seeing any high-earning ladies, especially those in management/trading etc. Completely, utterly useless for serious relationships. Now happily engaged to a doctor, at least the part about good personality/heart is very true, but shared time can be sometimes counted in few hours/week. Hard, crushing work they have, and underpaid compared to some pathetic software dev position like mine.
    - TorKlingberg 9y ago
      Please don't drag the discussion down to this level.
      - insignificant 9y ago
        Multiple anti-nerd comments had been up for more than half an hour (example: "The odds are good but the goods are a bunch of jerks."), but you chose to comment on this one...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- velodrome 9y ago
  Agreed. If there are more men in the city, women should have more selection. However, the diversity of men may be limited (e.g. they are all software engineers...). It would be like going to Baskin-Robbins and all they had was various types of strawberry ice cream.
  - jorvi 9y ago
    The old saying women have about dating at a technical university or engineering school still rings true: 'the odds are good but the goods are odd'
  - solatic 9y ago
    Dating markets with low signal-to-noise ratios, in the ice cream analogy, is like an ice cream shop that only offers a giant ice cream cone with no fewer than 100 scoops, and you only get to choose the visible scoop on top, the other scoops are completely random. So you try one, and you like that the first scoop is raspberry, but then you discover that the second scoop is Bertie-Bott's-Every-Flavor-Beans-Earwax flavored, and you throw the whole thing out in disgust. Next week, you try again, savor the raspberry again, are pleasantly delighted to find out that the second scoop is a mild lemon-meringue, and then hit icky artificial-medicinal-cherry on the third. So you throw it out again. When you go back to the ice cream shop to demand some kind of control over what kind of ice cream flavors end up in your cone, the shop-owner apologizes and reveals that the reason why the other flavors are at random is because he doesn't actually scoop the ice cream, the giant ice cream cones actually arrive like that from the factory, and although 70% of the cones do come with some claims about which flavors are inside, 60% of those claims turn out to be false, so nobody pays attention to the label, and anyway here's another giant cone, maybe this one will turn out great and really be "your kind" of cone.
- pjc50 9y ago
  Increasingly desperate behaviour, high-pressure dating and a refusal to take no for an answer?
  - DonHopkins 9y ago
    SHUDDER. Sounds like a review of an Adam Sandler romantic comedy. https://www.salon.com/2016/02/07/the_guys_who_wont_hear_no_movies_masculinity_and_the_toxic_myth_of_the_romantic_stalker/ https://www.salon.com/2016/02/07/the_guys_who_wont_hear_no_m... http://www.theonion.com/article/romantic-comedy-behavior-gets-real-life-man-arrest-757 http://www.theonion.com/article/romantic-comedy-behavior-get... http://whenwomenrefuse.tumblr.com/ http://whenwomenrefuse.tumblr.com/
  - ubik 9y ago
    bingo
- jatsign 9y ago
  The odds are good but the goods are a bunch of jerks.
- danieltillett 9y ago
  Too many men chasing too few women does not make for happy endings for anyone. Excessive competition in any market tends to create irrational behaviour on both sides.
- solatic 9y ago
  In gender-imbalanced dating markets, the over-represented gender becomes increasingly more desperate in its dating strategies, due to lack of success. Desperation hurts honesty and worsens the signal-to-noise ratio. When men are over-represented, true, women in general will find it easier to arrange dates. But those dates will, in general, be of lesser quality when men feel increasingly pressured to actively mask their flaws, in an attempt to stand out from other men in the dating market. Women then require more time, on average, to parse a potential partner's true personality and intentions, and develop trust. Requiring more time to develop trust raises the true cost for women of giving an individual suitor a chance. (note: the prior paragraph is gendered because of context, but it also applies vice-versa in dating markets where women are over-represented compared to men, e.g. New York).
gm-conspiracy 9y ago
Any employer willing to pay my relocation and compensate me $250k + equity, I would consider it.
fennecfoxen 9y ago
As a startup founder? The Bay Area is probably still the best. As an ordinary developer? Consider New York. The pay in engineering is about the same, but instead of keeping all the people with normal amounts of money across the bridge in Oakland and beyond, you actually have a meaningfully integrated city that tries to cater to a variety of wealth levels. And even if you stay in an enclave of rich-and-fanciness, your neighbors will be in media, finance, and creative fields, not just wall-to-wall tech. My first neighbor in New York had recently left his old job at the AP as chief correspondent to the White House. The guy who lived downstairs was retired, but had run a machine shop, and collected crazy old radios.
bartedinburgh 9y ago
I suppose the idea is to work in SV for a couple years while you're still young and healthy, rack up as much cash as you can while living quite frugally, then move to a cheaper place, buy a house for cash (or at least have a solid downpayment), and have no problem finding a job since you have X years of relevant experience at top-tier companies. The result of fleeing middle class is that you have a city with a strange mix of very wealthy individuals (who can afford the high COL) and very poor people (who cannot afford to move out).
- saiya-jin 9y ago
  this is the idea I hear a lot, but few people actually realize this after years of building social & professional circles, relationship etc.
- solatic 9y ago
  > then move to a cheaper place There is a significant emotional cost to leaving behind everybody you know, moving to a new place where you know nobody, and have to build new local social and professional networks. Making a long-term plan where paying that cost is factored into your current decision is naive at best.

tome 9y ago

> the gender-imbalanced dating market (the imbalance hurting both men and women) I'm curious about how an excess of men can hurt women in the dating market.

thundergolfer 9y ago
Me too. Maybe the imbalance makes all the guys batty?
- JSONwebtoken 9y ago
  If anything, it makes the women batty by inflating their ego. Where else in the world can you be totally average yet have your pick of six-figure earners? Anecdotally, SV women are the most materialistic, the least attractive (relative to their self perception), and have the most myopic personalities I've been around.
  - rosser 9y ago
    > Anecdotally... This sounds to me like nothing so much as confirmation bias. I've lived in SF for six years now, and gone on dozens of first (and far fewer, but still nonzero, subsequent) dates. While I do see some slight evidence for this notion, it's the exception, not the rule, in my experience. That is to say, "the plural of anecdote is not data."
    - saiya-jin 9y ago
      I can attest from different high-earning places like Singapore and Geneva that this is generally unfortunately true. All written is valid in my (unfortunately somewhat bigger) experience and it actually makes complete sense, based on how human personalities develop & distort due to various environmental situations and pressures. I wish it wouldn't be so, many guys around me wishing the same, but simple truth is out there, day and night. It is still possible to find non-spoiled balanced good-hearted loving partner, but it is ridiculously hard even if you do proper filtering from the beginning and you really have stuff to offer (looks, personality, salary, cool adventurous life etc). Small places are like from another planet in this regard. Btw this is valid for both sexes, at least from what I can see from a straight guy perspective. After some time I generally stopped seeing any high-earning ladies, especially those in management/trading etc. Completely, utterly useless for serious relationships. Now happily engaged to a doctor, at least the part about good personality/heart is very true, but shared time can be sometimes counted in few hours/week. Hard, crushing work they have, and underpaid compared to some pathetic software dev position like mine.
  - TorKlingberg 9y ago
    Please don't drag the discussion down to this level.
    - insignificant 9y ago
      Multiple anti-nerd comments had been up for more than half an hour (example: "The odds are good but the goods are a bunch of jerks."), but you chose to comment on this one...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
velodrome 9y ago
Agreed. If there are more men in the city, women should have more selection. However, the diversity of men may be limited (e.g. they are all software engineers...). It would be like going to Baskin-Robbins and all they had was various types of strawberry ice cream.
- jorvi 9y ago
  The old saying women have about dating at a technical university or engineering school still rings true: 'the odds are good but the goods are odd'
- solatic 9y ago
  Dating markets with low signal-to-noise ratios, in the ice cream analogy, is like an ice cream shop that only offers a giant ice cream cone with no fewer than 100 scoops, and you only get to choose the visible scoop on top, the other scoops are completely random. So you try one, and you like that the first scoop is raspberry, but then you discover that the second scoop is Bertie-Bott's-Every-Flavor-Beans-Earwax flavored, and you throw the whole thing out in disgust. Next week, you try again, savor the raspberry again, are pleasantly delighted to find out that the second scoop is a mild lemon-meringue, and then hit icky artificial-medicinal-cherry on the third. So you throw it out again. When you go back to the ice cream shop to demand some kind of control over what kind of ice cream flavors end up in your cone, the shop-owner apologizes and reveals that the reason why the other flavors are at random is because he doesn't actually scoop the ice cream, the giant ice cream cones actually arrive like that from the factory, and although 70% of the cones do come with some claims about which flavors are inside, 60% of those claims turn out to be false, so nobody pays attention to the label, and anyway here's another giant cone, maybe this one will turn out great and really be "your kind" of cone.
pjc50 9y ago
Increasingly desperate behaviour, high-pressure dating and a refusal to take no for an answer?
- DonHopkins 9y ago
  SHUDDER. Sounds like a review of an Adam Sandler romantic comedy. https://www.salon.com/2016/02/07/the_guys_who_wont_hear_no_movies_masculinity_and_the_toxic_myth_of_the_romantic_stalker/ https://www.salon.com/2016/02/07/the_guys_who_wont_hear_no_m... http://www.theonion.com/article/romantic-comedy-behavior-gets-real-life-man-arrest-757 http://www.theonion.com/article/romantic-comedy-behavior-get... http://whenwomenrefuse.tumblr.com/ http://whenwomenrefuse.tumblr.com/
- ubik 9y ago
  bingo
jatsign 9y ago
The odds are good but the goods are a bunch of jerks.
danieltillett 9y ago
Too many men chasing too few women does not make for happy endings for anyone. Excessive competition in any market tends to create irrational behaviour on both sides.
solatic 9y ago
In gender-imbalanced dating markets, the over-represented gender becomes increasingly more desperate in its dating strategies, due to lack of success. Desperation hurts honesty and worsens the signal-to-noise ratio. When men are over-represented, true, women in general will find it easier to arrange dates. But those dates will, in general, be of lesser quality when men feel increasingly pressured to actively mask their flaws, in an attempt to stand out from other men in the dating market. Women then require more time, on average, to parse a potential partner's true personality and intentions, and develop trust. Requiring more time to develop trust raises the true cost for women of giving an individual suitor a chance. (note: the prior paragraph is gendered because of context, but it also applies vice-versa in dating markets where women are over-represented compared to men, e.g. New York).

gm-conspiracy 9y ago

Any employer willing to pay my relocation and compensate me $250k + equity, I would consider it.

fennecfoxen 9y ago

As a startup founder? The Bay Area is probably still the best. As an ordinary developer? Consider New York. The pay in engineering is about the same, but instead of keeping all the people with normal amounts of money across the bridge in Oakland and beyond, you actually have a meaningfully integrated city that tries to cater to a variety of wealth levels. And even if you stay in an enclave of rich-and-fanciness, your neighbors will be in media, finance, and creative fields, not just wall-to-wall tech. My first neighbor in New York had recently left his old job at the AP as chief correspondent to the White House. The guy who lived downstairs was retired, but had run a machine shop, and collected crazy old radios.

bartedinburgh 9y ago

I suppose the idea is to work in SV for a couple years while you're still young and healthy, rack up as much cash as you can while living quite frugally, then move to a cheaper place, buy a house for cash (or at least have a solid downpayment), and have no problem finding a job since you have X years of relevant experience at top-tier companies. The result of fleeing middle class is that you have a city with a strange mix of very wealthy individuals (who can afford the high COL) and very poor people (who cannot afford to move out).

saiya-jin 9y ago
this is the idea I hear a lot, but few people actually realize this after years of building social & professional circles, relationship etc.
solatic 9y ago
> then move to a cheaper place There is a significant emotional cost to leaving behind everybody you know, moving to a new place where you know nobody, and have to build new local social and professional networks. Making a long-term plan where paying that cost is factored into your current decision is naive at best.