7 ms·
Dorm living for professionals comes to SF
- briga 9y agoAh,the American dream. Go through four years of college and 100k of student loans so you can live in a $2400 dorm room while barely making ends meet. I'm moving to the Bay area in a few months and these sorts of stories make me question whether it's the right move.
- taytus 9y agoRead your own comment again. It seems you already have your answer.
- dokem 9y agoYou go to SF to launch your career then GTFO ASAP to a less 'enlightened' part of the US where you don't have to worry about hyper sensitivity and your dollar actually counts for something.
- Consultant32452 9y agoHow does SF compare to LA? I've only been to LA within the last few years and it was a shithole. The whole city smelled like pot 24/7. There were more homeless/destitute people there than some 3rd world countries I've visited. I don't think I'll be visiting California again any time soon, no matter what Schwarzenegger says in the commercials.
- EggsOnToast 9y agoI can't speak for LA, but from the people I've spoken with Seattle and -maybe- Austin have the strongest ratio of tech work vs. cost of living.
- tytytytytytytyt 9y agoSeattle is pretty nice, especially if you can ignore the random junkies and homeless tent and RV encampments around town.
- Consultant32452 9y agoOh no, the last time I visited Seattle was in 2010. Has it gone to shit since then?
- EggsOnToast 9y agoI might be jaded but this sort've depends on your point of view. I grew up in San Diego, would weekend with friends in LA, and I've got family across the country. Most large cities that don't have overly deadly weather seem to have a visible homeless population.
- stagbeetle 9y agoSeattle's so full, it's budding into Portland.
- Teeer 9y agoNowadays LA is much worse than SF in terms of homeless people.
- freejulian 9y agoWhat nonsense. Sure, the valley can teach you some new JavaScript frameworks and how to best invade your users privacy to sell ads, but real programming happens everywhere. There’s plenty of ways to launch your career without working for Zuckerberg or Bezos.
- stagbeetle 9y agoI ask for one (1) example, that does not include any software hubs that mimic the valley (this includes Austin, New York, Boston, and Seattle, but is not limited to), that has an equal, or close to equal, impact on your career in comparison to the Bay Area. The only thing the valley has going for it is the saturation of talent and people who hire talent. The bad, is that without it it's got nothing to really show for itself (save a few niche items). The good, is the lack of any other notable qualities is overshadowed by the overcompensation of the only ones it has.
- freejulian 9y agoCitadel, located in Chicago. You guys out west are so smug it’s unbelievable.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- stagbeetle 9y agoThe topic was tech careers. I don't believe Citadel does any algo/prop work that could fall under the umbrella of tech. Off-topic: I'm from the East and #FreeMadix
- freejulian 9y agoYou’re just in denial now, you’ve clearly had plenty of the Valley’s koolaid. It’s hilarious that you don’t think the worlds largest market maker isn’t doing “algo/prop work that could fall under the umbrella of tech.” Don’t be afraid to leave your bubble.
- stale2002 9y agoIt depends. The big X tech companies, and hot unicorns in the bay area pay crazy salaries for engineers. 3k a month doesn't seem too bad when you are making 200k+, which is close to ~triple what you'd make in some rando mid sized city. Working for the average SF startup though? Yeah, you'd be better off somewhere else.
- Apocryphon 9y agoAnd yet, the housing market still makes buying prohibitive in that same region.
- BadassFractal 9y agoAre that many SF tech workers making over 200 grand a year?
- stale2002 9y agoThe ones at the big tech companies and hot unicorns are. The ones at your rando tech startup are not.
- pmorici 9y agoI hope so. If they aren’t then they would be better off finding work in some other part of the country.
- vladimirkon 9y agoPretty sure that not too many. Some do, but again, most are capped at about 180k (that if with 7+ years of experience) For some stock options make a difference, but again, that is if you're lucky
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- solotronics 9y agoWhenever I look at cost of living comparison it doesn't seem advantageous to me to be in SV unless you get lucky on equity ( how do you even measure that? ). $150k in Dallas is something like $265k in San Francisco. And I would think in SF your housing would be pitiful compared to the midwest at $3k/month mortgage. Engineers at my company can make upwards of $300k in Dallas and that gives a standard of living thats comparable to making $1m in the valley which is probably pretty rare.
- Teeer 9y agoNot to make you question it further, but after living in the Bay for a long time, I can't wait to leave. I seriously don't think it's a place worth living.
- BrainInAJar 9y agoNo, it isn't. Join an org doing something cool, then immediately start pushing to work remote. Or make sure that you'll see a good payout and cash out & gtfo.
- tehlike 9y agoSave as much as possible, and get out. Getting paid a lot means you will save a lot regardless.
- almostApatriot1 9y agoAccumulating 100k in student loans isn't the right move, let alone the American Dream. The "American Dream" isn't follow an exploitive option just because it's possible.
- tytytytytytytyt 9y agoIt is if your future job pays well enough and you can do the basic Math to figure that out.
- IntronExon 9y agoNobody here ever seems to bring it up, but in addition to all of the objections raised, I’d add the potential for a truly devastating earthquake.
- hellofunk 9y agoI spent a couple weeks in the bay area recently, touring around, seeing what it's all about. I left feeling quite underwhelmed and pretty happy I don't live there.
- lsc 9y agoEh, compare relative costs/relative income and cultural factors. Most of the people I know here in the south bay, if they rent, get some place reasonably nice all to themselves for around that kind of money, and the south bay is better for tech jobs, and at least for me, a much better 'culture fit' - That's the thing; I feel at home here in ways I've never felt at home anywhere else, and I'll pay extra for that. Things are expensive, but wages are also really high, (I don't know a lot of people in the computer industry for whom $2400 in rent would cause pain.) and I have a great deal of freedom because there are so many nearby employers. there's got to be at least 50 places that might hire me as a programmer or sysadmin within reasonable walking distance. I have to go further than that to get a decent burger! (which is my big complaint about this place; so little nightlife, so little food. But most of the employers feed you, and for weekends there are good delivery services, so it's not that bad.) San Francisco (and California, to a lessor extent) is setup to charge newcomers way more than long time residents. The density of employers in the bay area means that you can find your place... and just stay there, through many job changes.
- volgo 9y agoThose are some extremely skewed numbers. I live in a $1.7k one bedroom. Rent is like 10% of my pay and I'm just 2 years out of college. No student debt because my family is poor. San Francisco is an amazing place for technies if you're not bad with money
- jdpigeon 9y agoYou're saying you make ~200k/year 2 years out of college? That is not normal.
- vladimirkon 9y agoDon't believe it! maybe salary + stock options + benifits - that's a possibility (even though a pretty rare one). But 200k cash, BS, no employer would pay that to someone with 2 years of experience... One exception is if that guy possesses some unique skills of some hype industry (blockchain, AI, VR), but that really a very unique situation. Most of people here make around $130k/year + some stock options/rsu's
- volgo 9y agoNo, it's $210k cash. Additional RSUs and bonuses up to $70+ depending on company and individual performance. No hype. I work harder than anyone else and complete projects at least twice as fast. I constantly push for promotion and raises and hop jobs to get the raise.
- vladimirkon 9y agoYou definitely hustling :) Can you share what kind of tech work you do? And how often you hop jobs?
- pmorici 9y agoJust because you found a good situation doesn’t mean that is typical.
- kikki 9y ago
- atomical 9y ago> “If you think about the most private things that you do, a lot of them are related to the bathroom,” said Mr. Dishotsky, 34. “So that’s probably the hardest part.” Is he referring to masturbation? I kinda doubt people masturbate in the bathroom.
- mb_72 9y ago“I feel like I’m in a relationship with everyone I live with,” Ms. Ndrepepaj said. “If their day is bad, your day is bad.” Hardly a selling point. As an introvert it's just within my capabilities living with my wife and playful cat; living in such an environment would be a nightmare for me. The article fails to address the 'bad roommate' situation, which always happens sooner or later with these shared-living environments.
- runamok 9y agoFor the first 6 years or so after I moved to California I rented a room in a house where the owner lived (once in La Habra and once in Irvine). There were usually 4 to 5 total people living there. We were all professionals and there was pretty close to no drama. We were friendly but not best friends. Everyone had their own circle of friends, interests, etc. At least once we had a guy we called the ghost because we almost never saw him. But no one minded that he was introverted and kept to himself. Once I had a girlfriend privacy became more important to me but I enjoyed having some friendly interactions with others on my terms.
- whatshisface 9y agoNobody is so extroverted that they want to have other people peering in to their lives every moment of the day (unless they are walking so closely in lockstep with culture that there's literally nothing about them that could cause friction.) There's a reason why people born in compressed, shared living conditions tend to buy houses when they can. If you don't live in a "dorm" you can control your environment, for example not seeing friends while you're sick with the flu and highly contagious (and no fun to be around). To me this looks like a slide back in to 1800s non-rich living conditions sold as a step forwards.
- Consultant32452 9y agoGlobalism is going to lead to an averaging out of the standards of living across the globe. People from wealthy nations are in for a rude awakening.
- 9y ago
- zootam 9y ago> to turn into dorm rooms for the middle class. let's be real here, the middle class in the bay area/SF makes $250k+ per household. there's nothing wrong with living in dorms, but there is something disturbing about calling this the 'middle class' in SF.
- adrianmonk 9y agoAgreed. Middle class shouldn't be defined by what sounds like a lot of money. It should be defined by what sort of spending power you have in the area where you actually live.
- tonyedgecombe 9y agoPerhaps it shouldn't be defined at all, we can see here everybody has a different definition depending on the point they are trying to make.
- adrianmonk 9y agoGreat point. I'm using it to compare the standard of living in one area against another. But there are lots of other valid questions to ask, like what constitutes the middle band of wealth in the microcosm that is the Bay Area.
- Consultant32452 9y agoMedian household income in SF is $78k.
- zootam 9y agoi'm seeing some different information. on wikipedia- it says $78k, but that data is apparently from 2010-2014. https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/community_facts.xhtml# https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/community_... newer data suggests it is at least $87k, with some sources suggesting $92k+ >California Association of Realtors also estimates that the minimum qualifying income to buy in San Francisco is $254,000 annually. i think being in the 'middle class' should mean you have some hope of escaping rent and actually own something reasonable.
- adrianmonk 9y agoThis article says it's "an unusual experiment", but how is this different from an SRO? http://www.ccsroc.net/s-r-o-hotels-in-san-francisco/ http://www.ccsroc.net/s-r-o-hotels-in-san-francisco/ Description from this article of the "experiment": "Shared bathrooms at the end of the hall and having no individual kitchen or living room". Description from the SRO web site link above: "A typical S.R.O. is a single eight (8) x ten (10) foot room with shared toilets and showers down the hallway." As the SRO web site points out, these have been around in San Francisco "throughout the city’s history".
- cozzyd 9y agoI suppose SRO's are somewhat stigmatized as being for the extremely indigent, although I think this wasn't always the case: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-sro-wilson-men-hotel-20180111-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-sro... Nothing wrong with them in principle (assuming they're well kept / safe). If you're single, it might be a better option than renting a random place with roommates.
- titanomachy 9y agoIt's not materially different from how I've always lived -- sharing a house or condo with 1 or 2 roommates. I currently share a bathroom, kitchen, and living room with one other person, and I have my own bedroom. We're both well-paid professionals in our late twenties who are friends and happen to be single right now. It's way cheaper and less lonely than living alone. I don't think there's anything unusual about this. I guess the difference is this company will pick your roommates for you, which sounds worse to me but I guess it's easier for some people.
- erdojo 9y agoPlus, back in the 40s-60s, there were boarding houses in big cities for single women. Not an unusual or experimental concept at all.
- kraig911 9y agoI sincerely hope this doesn't start a precedent for our industry or for other places in this country. Stuff is hard enough as it is...
- pcurve 9y agoWhat a depressing article. It almost reads like a satire. 10 years ago, this would be an article in the Onion instead of NYT.
- saudioger 9y agoWhy can't the vast majority of these people work remotely yet? For a group of people who often praise the concept of meritocracy, regionally locking down your employee pool seems insane.
- pmorici 9y agoThe article makes it sound like a lot of them are service and retail sector type workers not exactly remote job material
- jondishotsky 9y agoMost of the members of Starcity are local employees that work in service professions. We have nurses, teachers, flight attendants, baristas, writers, bartenders and many of these trades require proximity to work so they can't work remote. Unfortunately the cost of an average studio in San Francisco is $3,000 a month and forget about buying a house where the average price is around $1.3M. For median income earners making between $40-90k a year, the options are really bad. Many of them are forced to live with 4 people in a three bedroom, pay 50-60% of their income in rent or commute 2 hours. Those are bad options, so we set out to build something that allows more people to live comfortably.
- VectorLock 9y agoThese are SROs in the Tenderloin. Funny how this article never mentioned the word "SRO."
- djrobstep 9y agoLast time I was in SF I stayed near the Tenderloin area: I've never seen anything like that level of homelessness, neglect and dysfunction in any other first world country. The existence of such conditions in a city of billionaires is shameful shit. The US economy generates over $100k per household, and people are living on the street, or crammed into dorm rooms? It's a cruel, obscene disgrace.
- jdpigeon 9y agoSame here. I grew up in Seattle and thought that was bad, but the number of downcast and desperate characters I saw in downtown SF and how closely they were pressed up against areas of impressive wealth (like at Mission & 16th) was extremely depressing.
- solotronics 9y agojust wait and see what happens when full automation is achieved
- readhn 9y agothe expensive software engineers will be replaced by AI and will join the homeless on the streets of SF?
- readhn 9y agoI was shocked as well. All these leading tech companies, some of the richest people on Earth and can't fix the house they live in? It is such a bizarre contrast to see so much wealth and people living in card boxes on the streets. No body cares enough to actually get it fixed.
- closeparen 9y agoDoes anyone actually want to see Big Tech "disrupt" homelessness policy/services?
- Noos 9y ago
- wheresmyusern 9y agothis is absolutely fascinating. why cant these people just commute from pleasant hill or even lafayette? i had the same accommodations as these people and paid only 400 in pleasant hill.
- yellowapple 9y agoOr Sacramento, as my dad and stepmom did when I was growing up, and as many of my friends and family continue to do. Yeah, the length of the commute sucks, but taking AmTrak+BART gives you some downtime instead of sitting in traffic.
- charmander_IRL 9y agoSeems like this could be avoided if they just change the zoning laws to allow more vertical development. People talk about earthquakes but Japan has managed.
- pmoriarty 9y agoI wish there was some way to reduce the randomness of finding people to live with, and increase the odds of compatibility. Maybe something like Ok Cupid for roommates.
- fern12 9y agoI agree. Moving is a big decision, and it's hard to gauge what a person is like after only one meeting. Also, as I've learned the hard way, many people have different understandings of what it means to be "quiet."
- LearnerHerzog 9y agoI love this. I may start looking for jobs in the bay area if it has a decent jr-mid RoRails job market
- RestlessMind 9y agoWhile this somewhat smells as "submarine" for Starcity, I welcome these kind of innovations (or reinventions of wheels, if you prefer). For introverts or families or elderly, we should of course have other types of housing. But variety of options is the key for a diverse society. Not everyone needs a single family of a giant townhome straight out of college. Having this kind of housing is a great option for new grads who don't have to waste tons of money on living spaces they don't really need. It also opens up socializing avenues, which is good for normal people.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- forkLding 9y agoI do feel like this is the future trend of things for urban workers, either gradually work remote from a faraway affordable location, commute all day or live in an affordable dorm-like room with a community.
- ionised 9y agoSo...living like a student well into adulthood. Doesn't sound very appealing.
- jondishotsky 9y agoHello everyone! I am Jon Dishotsky, the CEO and co-founder of Starcity. I would be happy to answer any questions directly about what we're working on.