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> On the latter, I am mixed about my preference to converse with fellow well-paid, well-educated technologists. I don't know if this is resource-saving camarade

> On the latter, I am mixed about my preference to converse with fellow well-paid, well-educated technologists. I don't know if this is resource-saving camaraderie or a furthering of the mutual isolation of white and blue collar Californians. I mean, if you're not talking to your uber/lyft driver as-is... I don't know. I'm convinced Facebook's done enough of that class segregation for us already. At least in the case of peer carpools, people are actually talking.

freehunter 9y ago
>Facebook's done enough of that class segregation for us already I'm convinced the Bay Area itself has done enough of that segregation. Isn't that the entire reason people move there? Every time I ask why someone moved to SV, they say it's because that's where all of the tech talent is. Why is your startup headquartered in SV? Because that's where all the tech talent is. The only reason SV exists is because it's self-segregated into a high density of well-paid, well-educated technologists. There are many places around the country that have tech jobs and a far lower cost of living, but why do people choose SV instead of those other places? Because SV has a higher density of people who are just like me.
- encoderer 9y ago
  You mean network effects? Because that’s why having more engineers here leads to higher pay and more interesting work opportunities.
  - freehunter 9y ago
    Exactly. There are lots of great reasons to justify it. Higher wages offset the cost of living (which can't be caused by the rising wages, right?) and has the side effect of locking out anyone who can't or won't work for a tech company, driving them from the homes they can no longer afford, ensuring that the next person who moves in there will be just like me. Personally I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. Because anywhere else there are other kinds of people, doing other kinds of things and living other kinds of lives. Can't have that, it would bring down my paycheck. Gotta have that network effect, and of course by network effect, I mean people who are just like me.
    - encoderer 9y ago
      I think you’re being too cynical. I grew up in Ohio. Mostly I knew white people who also were born there and mostly knew white people themselves. This is 180* from the Bay Area. Sure, the enormous tech economy makes for a bit of an industrial monoculture. But if you start talking to people about things other than what they do for a living you’ll hear a lot of interesting stories.
      - freehunter 9y ago
        I am being too cynical, you're right. I'm pushing into the hyperbole territory to try to make my point as clear as possible. Diversity isn't how many black people you know. And it's not a perfect line of "SV is awful, everywhere else is better". Some places around the country are better for your soul than others, and the best way to experience life is by visiting places, spending time in places where people live drastically different lives than you do. Bonus points if you're a minority (a rich person living in a poor town, a poor person living in a rich town, black living in a white area, white living in a black area, conservative living in a liberal area, you get the idea). Point is, congregating everyone of a type in one area leads to a monoculture which is dangerous. Race doesn't matter nearly as much as economic class, and making well-paying tech jobs centralized in one area for really no good reason does very little to help. If people going to SV are so willing to move to somewhere new for work, does it really all have to be the exact same place? With a ton of other people just like them?
        encoderer 9y ago
        Interesting conversation. I don’t think a choice of work defines somebody as much as you are suggesting. Also, there are loads of people in sfba that are not wealthy tech workers. You blame the region and our group think but it’s maybe partly your personal bubble?
- dmix 9y ago
  I'm not sure why anyone would need to feel guilty or worry about that fact though. People do that everywhere. Toronto is famous for it's diversity and multiculturalism but the entire city is finely divided into various ethnic, cultural, and work enclaves (little korea, little ethiopia, 2x little italys, etc). And it works great for the most part, there's little ethnic or political tension, at least within the city proper. It's a natural phenomenon. The simple fact is people primarily like being near people like themselves, culturally or otherwise. Intellectuals, working class, artists etc, etc have always grouped up. Absent some type of grand social engineering I don't see how you could change that. Nor whether the people would be better of with it. But just because there are enclaves or grouping doesn't mean you need to be isolated in your social networks either. Cities are big places with plenty of people and SF is no different.
  - freehunter 9y ago
    >I'm not sure why anyone would need to worry about that fact SV is famous for solving problems that impact SV or cities like SV. Whenever I hear the question from startup/techie folks "are we in a bubble", I always think the answer is "yes, but not how you think". We're not in a bubble of too many high valuation startups, we're in a bubble where we don't understand the rest of the world around us. Because we're living paycheck to paycheck on a $250k salary in a $5k/mo studio apartment getting our food from Postmates and having drones deliver our Amazon packages. And after a while, you start to think that's just how it is. But it's not. Not for the vast majority of people who don't live in SV, Austin, or Seattle. That's the value diversity brings, that's the danger of suburbs everyone's been talking about since forever, and that's where the Bay Area is going. Quickly. The closest Whole Foods to me is over an hour and a half away. Until last year, the closest Trader Joe's was over 3 hours away. I work in tech making six figures, and my neighbor (living in a detached, single family home) is a diesel mechanic. The guy on the other side owns his own home but just works as a cashier at the local grocery store, because our cost of living isn't ridiculous and you can afford a house on $12/hr. Even myself, I recently got schooled when I said $65k/yr doesn't make you rich: the number of people popping out of the wood-work to say what making $65k would mean to them and what luxuries it could afford them was astounding. Just hitting $65k would double most of their income. We don't have Uber around here. We don't have Postmates. Amazon doesn't deliver same-day. We can't get Google to drop off our groceries for us. Our employers don't have a bus to take us to work. Some people may say "but all of those luxuries are the reason why we moved to SV!", but in response I say all of those luxuries are reasons massing together in SV is so harmful. First, it colors our worldview to think our life is normal. Secondly, it ignores everyone else in the world and the real problems they have. I'm not even talking about segregating races and ethnicities. I'm sure there's plenty of diversity of skin color and ethnic background in SV. But there's a lot more diversity that exists than the ones the law says you have to respect. And their problems aren't being solved by people in SV, because people in SV don't even know they exist.
- JKCalhoun 9y ago
  > Isn't that the entire reason people move there? By people do you mean corporations? Because "people" move there for the jobs. No one I know said, "Hey, I want to live in the Bay Area for homogenous techie-elitism." I moved to the Bay Area from the midwest and was frankly shocked at the lack of Black people in the area. That said, my trips back to my roots have left me wondering where all the Asians are.... :/
  - freehunter 9y ago
    Yep you're right, it's just as much the fault of the corporations that are there. Startups are a big part of it, moving to SV just to form a startup locks a ton of qualified people out and unnecessarily jacks up your burn rate. You'd be far better off moving to Madison and hiring from University of Wisconsin where you still have Whole Foods and Trader Joes and a bike-friendly city and great public transport but your employees can buy their own house for $100k. But people are part of the problem too. People move to SV to work for Google and Apple and Facebook but these aren't the only tech employers in the country. Sticking with Madison, Epic is huge and very high-tech. Ann Arbor MI has Duo, Arbor Networks, and Trove among many. And these places pay pretty darn well for the area, which means you're going to be taking home a lot more disposable income than you would in SV. The only downside is you won't be working for Google/Apple/Facebook, and you'd have to live in the Midwest which means dealing with other people. You might even have to shop at shudder Walmart. "People" move there for the jobs... because that's where people just like them work. But I'll bet there's somewhere closer to home where they can work with people just like them but also experience other people frequently, make more money, work on just as interesting of projects, and come out better because of the experience.
    - lotsofpulp 9y ago
      >which means you're going to be taking home a lot more disposable income than you would in SV. Rolling the dice in SV will result in much bigger winnings more often than it will in other areas. That's worth something, and obviously people are willing to pay for it (give up some things).
- djrogers 9y ago
  > Every time I ask why someone moved to SV, they say it's because that's where all of the tech talent is. That’s a pretty good sign that you’re only talking to a pretty narrow group of people..

freehunter 9y ago

>Facebook's done enough of that class segregation for us already I'm convinced the Bay Area itself has done enough of that segregation. Isn't that the entire reason people move there? Every time I ask why someone moved to SV, they say it's because that's where all of the tech talent is. Why is your startup headquartered in SV? Because that's where all the tech talent is. The only reason SV exists is because it's self-segregated into a high density of well-paid, well-educated technologists. There are many places around the country that have tech jobs and a far lower cost of living, but why do people choose SV instead of those other places? Because SV has a higher density of people who are just like me.

encoderer 9y ago
You mean network effects? Because that’s why having more engineers here leads to higher pay and more interesting work opportunities.
- freehunter 9y ago
  Exactly. There are lots of great reasons to justify it. Higher wages offset the cost of living (which can't be caused by the rising wages, right?) and has the side effect of locking out anyone who can't or won't work for a tech company, driving them from the homes they can no longer afford, ensuring that the next person who moves in there will be just like me. Personally I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. Because anywhere else there are other kinds of people, doing other kinds of things and living other kinds of lives. Can't have that, it would bring down my paycheck. Gotta have that network effect, and of course by network effect, I mean people who are just like me.
  - encoderer 9y ago
    I think you’re being too cynical. I grew up in Ohio. Mostly I knew white people who also were born there and mostly knew white people themselves. This is 180* from the Bay Area. Sure, the enormous tech economy makes for a bit of an industrial monoculture. But if you start talking to people about things other than what they do for a living you’ll hear a lot of interesting stories.
    - freehunter 9y ago
      I am being too cynical, you're right. I'm pushing into the hyperbole territory to try to make my point as clear as possible. Diversity isn't how many black people you know. And it's not a perfect line of "SV is awful, everywhere else is better". Some places around the country are better for your soul than others, and the best way to experience life is by visiting places, spending time in places where people live drastically different lives than you do. Bonus points if you're a minority (a rich person living in a poor town, a poor person living in a rich town, black living in a white area, white living in a black area, conservative living in a liberal area, you get the idea). Point is, congregating everyone of a type in one area leads to a monoculture which is dangerous. Race doesn't matter nearly as much as economic class, and making well-paying tech jobs centralized in one area for really no good reason does very little to help. If people going to SV are so willing to move to somewhere new for work, does it really all have to be the exact same place? With a ton of other people just like them?
      - encoderer 9y ago
        Interesting conversation. I don’t think a choice of work defines somebody as much as you are suggesting. Also, there are loads of people in sfba that are not wealthy tech workers. You blame the region and our group think but it’s maybe partly your personal bubble?
dmix 9y ago
I'm not sure why anyone would need to feel guilty or worry about that fact though. People do that everywhere. Toronto is famous for it's diversity and multiculturalism but the entire city is finely divided into various ethnic, cultural, and work enclaves (little korea, little ethiopia, 2x little italys, etc). And it works great for the most part, there's little ethnic or political tension, at least within the city proper. It's a natural phenomenon. The simple fact is people primarily like being near people like themselves, culturally or otherwise. Intellectuals, working class, artists etc, etc have always grouped up. Absent some type of grand social engineering I don't see how you could change that. Nor whether the people would be better of with it. But just because there are enclaves or grouping doesn't mean you need to be isolated in your social networks either. Cities are big places with plenty of people and SF is no different.
- freehunter 9y ago
  >I'm not sure why anyone would need to worry about that fact SV is famous for solving problems that impact SV or cities like SV. Whenever I hear the question from startup/techie folks "are we in a bubble", I always think the answer is "yes, but not how you think". We're not in a bubble of too many high valuation startups, we're in a bubble where we don't understand the rest of the world around us. Because we're living paycheck to paycheck on a $250k salary in a $5k/mo studio apartment getting our food from Postmates and having drones deliver our Amazon packages. And after a while, you start to think that's just how it is. But it's not. Not for the vast majority of people who don't live in SV, Austin, or Seattle. That's the value diversity brings, that's the danger of suburbs everyone's been talking about since forever, and that's where the Bay Area is going. Quickly. The closest Whole Foods to me is over an hour and a half away. Until last year, the closest Trader Joe's was over 3 hours away. I work in tech making six figures, and my neighbor (living in a detached, single family home) is a diesel mechanic. The guy on the other side owns his own home but just works as a cashier at the local grocery store, because our cost of living isn't ridiculous and you can afford a house on $12/hr. Even myself, I recently got schooled when I said $65k/yr doesn't make you rich: the number of people popping out of the wood-work to say what making $65k would mean to them and what luxuries it could afford them was astounding. Just hitting $65k would double most of their income. We don't have Uber around here. We don't have Postmates. Amazon doesn't deliver same-day. We can't get Google to drop off our groceries for us. Our employers don't have a bus to take us to work. Some people may say "but all of those luxuries are the reason why we moved to SV!", but in response I say all of those luxuries are reasons massing together in SV is so harmful. First, it colors our worldview to think our life is normal. Secondly, it ignores everyone else in the world and the real problems they have. I'm not even talking about segregating races and ethnicities. I'm sure there's plenty of diversity of skin color and ethnic background in SV. But there's a lot more diversity that exists than the ones the law says you have to respect. And their problems aren't being solved by people in SV, because people in SV don't even know they exist.
JKCalhoun 9y ago
> Isn't that the entire reason people move there? By people do you mean corporations? Because "people" move there for the jobs. No one I know said, "Hey, I want to live in the Bay Area for homogenous techie-elitism." I moved to the Bay Area from the midwest and was frankly shocked at the lack of Black people in the area. That said, my trips back to my roots have left me wondering where all the Asians are.... :/
- freehunter 9y ago
  Yep you're right, it's just as much the fault of the corporations that are there. Startups are a big part of it, moving to SV just to form a startup locks a ton of qualified people out and unnecessarily jacks up your burn rate. You'd be far better off moving to Madison and hiring from University of Wisconsin where you still have Whole Foods and Trader Joes and a bike-friendly city and great public transport but your employees can buy their own house for $100k. But people are part of the problem too. People move to SV to work for Google and Apple and Facebook but these aren't the only tech employers in the country. Sticking with Madison, Epic is huge and very high-tech. Ann Arbor MI has Duo, Arbor Networks, and Trove among many. And these places pay pretty darn well for the area, which means you're going to be taking home a lot more disposable income than you would in SV. The only downside is you won't be working for Google/Apple/Facebook, and you'd have to live in the Midwest which means dealing with other people. You might even have to shop at shudder Walmart. "People" move there for the jobs... because that's where people just like them work. But I'll bet there's somewhere closer to home where they can work with people just like them but also experience other people frequently, make more money, work on just as interesting of projects, and come out better because of the experience.
  - lotsofpulp 9y ago
    >which means you're going to be taking home a lot more disposable income than you would in SV. Rolling the dice in SV will result in much bigger winnings more often than it will in other areas. That's worth something, and obviously people are willing to pay for it (give up some things).
djrogers 9y ago
> Every time I ask why someone moved to SV, they say it's because that's where all of the tech talent is. That’s a pretty good sign that you’re only talking to a pretty narrow group of people..