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One Year in San Francisco as a Software Engineer
- ilovecaching 8y agoSF and the Bay Area are two very distinct places. The Bay Area is literally a series of midwestern towns dotted by dot com campuses. SF is a cesspool of homelessness and vanity. I love the bay, hate SF. Also San Diego has tons of homeless too, and it has none of the tech scene. People are homeless in California because A) It has weather you can be outside in year round, especially in SoCal B) Our government is corrupt and is the cause of a serious housing crisis to keep prices inflated C) Cost of living is inflated by the housing crisis.
- chrisseaton 8y ago> The Bay Area is literally a series of midwestern towns dotted by dot com campuses. Midwestern? It's as far west as you can get. And they're not towns - they're cities, all merged into one massive continuous urban sprawl for 80 miles around the bay.
- curuinor 8y agoI suppose by American standards they're cities, but if you're at all used to like, Seoul, they're basically towns.
- myrandomcomment 8y agoThe only “real” city in the USA is Manhattan. SF does not come close to qualifying as one. Let me know when I can get dinner reservations at more the 2 places at midnight. The streets roll up at around 10pm. Just for perspective I would argue the only real city in the world is Tokyo.
- ghaff 8y agoVery few cities in the world have the sort of late night options you talk about. London sure doesn't. And you start excluding cities like London from a list of "real cities" and you have to wonder if your criteria need to be adjusted a bit.
- myrandomcomment 8y agoI can get dinner at midnight in London and Paris.
- ghaff 8y agoAs someone who frequently flies into London relatively late at night, it's not easy to get a decent meal at 11pm, Of course, I'm not sure the options for a decent meal in Manhattan at that hour are great either. The number of fast food restaurants open don't really count and London is better if you know where some of the ethnic enclaves are. NYC is definitely more of a "city that never sleeps" than most but its hours are not the norm for most major world cities.
- myrandomcomment 8y agoTry these two links. A mix of food with last orders at 1130 up until 2am for some. https://www.hot-dinners.com/Features/Hot-Dinners-recommends/late-night-dining-eating-london-restaurants-eats-after-hours https://www.hot-dinners.com/Features/Hot-Dinners-recommends/... https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/restaurants/midnight-feasting-londons-best-restaurants-for-late-night-bites-9685485.html https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/restaurants/midnight-fe...
- pc86 8y agoYes, I supposed if compared to the fifth largest city in the world, San Francisco isn't a gigantic, sprawling metropolis. Come on.
- ilovecaching 8y agoThey're like small towns dude. Definitely not cities.
- chrisseaton 8y agoThey are cities. San Mateo is a city. San Jose is a city. Hayward is a city. Redwood City is... a city. Union City is... a city. Oakland isn't just a city, it's the eighth most populated city in the whole of California!
- ilovecaching 8y agoYou're taking this way to literally. Union City isn't a city. It's a small town at best. Redwood City is like a bigger town. Fremont is also town sized. San Carlos is literally a town I've visited in Indiana. None of these places are worthy of being called cities except for Oakland and maybe San Jose.
- Varcht 8y agoIt's rhetoric, look it up.
- hammock 8y agoI can see how it feels like, maybe, Ohio. That's basically what Ohio is.
- theandrewbailey 8y agoOhio is basically a few hundred miles of corn, soybeans, and woods. It's not continuous urban sprawl. Source: I grew up in the middle of it.
- Dibes 8y agoAs someone who is living there right now, I don't think that is an accurate depiction of Ohio unless you are way outside of a city. Columbus for example is basically a 10 mile circle of sprawling suburbia centered by a relatively small downtown. Your statement is analogous to saying California is just hundreds of miles of hills and mountains and forests while discounting the major epicenters that exist.
- hammock 8y agoThis is what I meant. For example, the entire corridor from Cleveland to Canton is a sprawling series of small towns with no beginning or ending. Reminds me of driving down the 101.
- Apocryphon 8y agoI’m not sure if the Bay Area are Midwestern towns anymore than they are generic American suburbs. Their culture is not Midwestern at all.
- ghaff 8y agoYeah, my description would have been more along the lines of a long line of pretty generic suburban sprawl punctuated by a few walkable town centers, a university campus, and so forth. But mostly congested sprawl.
- ilovecaching 8y agoI'm from the midwest and feel completely at home in the Bay, and no where else in Cali. It's full of transplants, lots of small towns sort of strung together, with a totally middle class feel despite the money in the area.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoThe kind of person who moves from the mid west and then feels at home in is not representative of the average midwesterner. The cultural values are very different and that's before you even get into politics.
- yesimahuman 8y agoThere's a pretty big difference between midwesterners that grew up in rural areas and ones that grew up in cities. The cultural values might not be that different depending on where you're actually from.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dilyevsky 8y agoPortland has almost as big of an issue with homelessness as sf and almost no tech to speak of.
- bsder 8y agoD) Unlike many states, California has the equivalent of a "citizen advocate" for someone who is involuntarily placed in a mental health facility. This is good in that those without voice are not simply trampled over. This is bad in that you probably cannot hold someone long enough for effective treatment if they continuously express the desire to leave.
- zozbot123 8y agoMost people who talk about "homelessness" in SF as an issue don't really have a beef with the homeless themselves; it comes up as complaints about clear behavioral problems such as harassment, disorderly conduct and the like. It's surprising that even when mental health is an issue, that these don't lead to some sort of court-ordered treatment.
- bsder 8y ago> It's surprising that even when mental health is an issue, that these don't lead to some sort of court-ordered treatment. Involuntarily restraining someone has a very high bar--harm to self or others. Rightfully, "being a nuisance" doesn't really cross that bar. Someone with Alzheimer's and no family is a good test--when do you force them into a facility? And what kind of facility? And how do you pay for that? And is that actually an improvement to their life?
- zozbot123 8y agoDisturbing the peace is more than simply "being a nuisance" to someone else - it's a recognized infraction, that may well lead to being detained in jail or being ordered to do some community service. Isn't that a sort of "involuntary restraint", too? Potayto, potahto.
- thatfrenchguy 8y agoOn the other hand, SF is one of the most beautiful cities in the US with a vibrant culture and the rest of the bay is utterly boring ugly suburbs.
- CalRobert 8y agoBerkeley is pretty great. I actually preferred it to SF when I lived there. Lots of Oakland is fantastic too. But I agree with you for the most part. Basically all of the bay built in the last 70 years is garbage. As the writer of "Ghostride the Volvo" put it, Fremont's just a parking lot with a mayor.
- masonic 8y agowith a vibrant culture ... like a Petri dish
- tdb7893 8y agoCalling them "Midwestern towns" is really weird as they are more dense than many Midwestern cities. If you go to Des Moines (which is the most populous city in Iowa) you'll find the population significantly less dense than somewhere like Sunnyvale.
- himynameisdom 8y agoI really enjoy reading content that elicits more questions than answers provided. This is one of those pieces and mirrors my experience as well. I lived/grew up in Columbus, Ohio, before moving to the Bay. Columbus has a very nice tech scene, but also boasts industry diversification. I can code, but my neighbors/friends might be in insurance, healthcare, logistics, retail (L Brands) and have a shared standard of living. I ended up moving back and enjoy my $1.4k apartment in a great, quiet neighborhood and 5-7 minute commute to work downtown. I think the Bay Area could benefit from such diversity.
- sleavey 8y agoThis is in the back of my mind when I think about one day working in the Bay Area. Given that the cost of living has increased to match the high salaries, there is little to draw me there other than cool problems to work on, which Silicon Valley does not have a monopoly on.
- falsedan 8y agoCareer growth and networking opportunities is unprecedented there. Plus, if the salaries are higher in proportion to the costs of living, then your 10% (or whatever) savings you put aside will be much bigger. I crunched the numbers before we moved to SF and even paying 10x more rent for 3x more salary worked out ok.
- soared 8y agoPeople tend to forget that if you contribute 10% of your salary to a retirement account, that 10% in CA is massively bigger than the same 10% anywhere else. Even if you technically lose on cost of living, you can win with proper savings strategies.
- madengr 8y ago“if” is the issue. Most people won’t contribute 10%, and that too has a tax ceiling. I contribute 15%, and I still hit the 18k limit, moving into after tax. Make too much to contribute to a Roth also. I’m in a flyover state, and tech salaries in SF are going to be even more limited. I just save it as cash for my kids college.
- thatfrenchguy 8y agoWorking in tech, if you don't max out your 401k, what are you doing ?
- madengr 8y agoAgreed. Just iterating that 10% easily hits the limit of traditional retirement savings, and one has to use different avenues to have equivalent retirement income of a tech salary.
- imbusy111 8y ago"be prepared to see the dystopia that your industry has created as a by-product." - that's an assumption that is not based on fact. The software industry is not the only factor.
- munchbunny 8y agoMaybe not the only factor, but it's definitely a very large factor.
- rightbyte 8y agoIt's more or less the only factor. I don't blame city council for not foreseeing this after the Dotcom bubble. They would have to have built a city wall to keep low skill labor out to protect the low wage workers in the city from a never ending stream of dreamers who don't understand they will not make it in the long run working in restaurants, stores, car maintenance or what ever. Internet money is displacing ordinary people, i.e. children of house owning residents who can't land a well paid job, and people in rental units. If you have a family you can't expect all children to get well paid jobs, you can't expect your parents to be around being good grandparents after they retire and if you are born in the area you can't expect your childhood/teen/20s friends to stay around for the same reason - not everyone can get high paying jobs. I mean, it's not a nice community if the people you grow up with have to move because they can't stay competitive enough. When I worked in Palo Alto (as a high paid tech worker displacing old folks ...), I didn't think about this at all. It was first afterwards I realized that ordinary people were missing and there were very few children over all.
- elif 8y agoWhen I make a sandwich, I do not become a bread baker first... It is perfectly reasonable to state as fact that the predominant economic paradigm of the city has caused dystopia, despite there being other causal factors or caveats baked in.
- leetcrew 8y agoif I roll through NYC with a tank column and blow a bunch of stuff up, is the ensuing chaos caused by wall street? edit: or do I become the predominant economic paradigm?
- neurobashing 8y agoevery time I read stuff like this I get that ol' rise of anger: that the Internet, the great leveler, it will bring us all together regardless of where we happen to be on earth ... at least, unless you want to build it, in which case you need to be in the same small area for 40+ hours a week. Aren't we tech types obsessed with removing single points of failure? Aren't we moving past "you must sit in a specific chair so your manager can have specific interactions with you, in person"? I know there's remote work out there; believe me, I know. But read stuff like this and browse the "who's hiring" threads, laden with ONSITE, and wonder when I'll finally be able to sever the link between the skill in my brain and sitting in that one specific chair in that one specific building in that one specific town.
- 12elephant 8y agoWorking in the same place, in my anecdotal experience, leads to better communication. A couple orders of magnitude better. Face-to-face communication provides much higher "bandwidth" than text-based.
- bdamm 8y agoThis is really it. Personally I don't think VC's care, and I don't think most managers really care either. If they could have such a high quality experience remotely, they'd be happy to hire remote talent. This takes dedication, self motivation and creativity on both the manager and the employee. In person is much easier. There are shared experiences we can have. We can randomly bump into each other and have small reminder-type experiences. It's easier to get a sense of what kind of person we're working with, and that becomes an elevated sense of trust. This all matters and it's difficult to do remotely. I've done both. I prefer onsite. Currently I'm remote and honestly it's a struggle, and regular onsite visits are a must to maintain those trust bonds.
- JTon 8y agoWell said. I haven't found a better way to transfer complex ideas than huddling around a whiteboard with a small group. A good slide deck will work too, but it takes time/effort to compile, and doesn't allow seamless Q&A.
- lordnacho 8y agoAs a European visitor, I had similar feelings about SF. One moment I'm in Twitter HQ, enjoying free food from around the world, place is buzzing with techies. Next moment we wander around a bit and there's a whole park where the homeless are living in the bushes. I was literally in a place where one guy I met was designing self driving cars, and another guy was wandering the street with no shoes on, fighting with his invisible friend. I also thought the natural surroundings were a contrast with what people have built. Minus the bridge and a few landmarks, the city looks kinda bland. Too low-rise for such a popular place. But there's hills and natural features that are quite spectacular.
- dmead 8y agoThat is the goal, to not encroach on the nature that runs right up against the city. See the save the bay campaigns of the 70s and 80s.
- BurningFrog 8y agoThe goal is to keep housing prices high and rising. The pretext is to not encroach on the nature.
- longerthoughts 8y agoDepends on who you're talking about. This is not universally true.
- davidw 8y agoHere's the Sierra Club fighting to preserve... a historic garage. https://www.thebaycitybeacon.com/politics/the-sierra-club-fights-to-save-a-parking-garage/article_93ff9084-3be7-11e7-a3a8-17f11f24db6e.html https://www.thebaycitybeacon.com/politics/the-sierra-club-fi... Not wanting to pave over some of the green spaces sounds laudable, but the same people fight against growing 'in' and 'up', which is the only thing you can do to add to supply if you won't go out.
- aswanson 8y agowe wanted a 2-bedroom apartment and a reasonable commute. Ultimately this meant that our rent was $4250 USD per month... Whaaa....
- munchbunny 8y agoThat sounds in the ballpark these days. It's in the range on the nicer end but not a luxury apartment.
- tokyodude 8y agoI actually find the majority of the apartments in SF to be quite bad. I love the looks of some of the old buildings but,.. they were often built for single families. They'll have 3-4 bedrooms and one bathroom. For apartments so many are really old with zero sound insulation. Many apartments you have zero privacy and can here everything going at your neighbor's. My SF apartment just walking from one room to another after 11pm would piss off the neighbors. I basically had to tiptoe to bed for 6 years and otherwise stay out of the bedroom as the floors were really thin and the people downstairs would complain. Lots of apartments were single family homes and then split. They'll advertise 2 bedrooms but it will really be just a re-purposed living room or dining room with double doors or a temporary wall. I get the impression 30% to 50% of the city is that way (way old) and most of the rest is like 70s-80s stuff that really needs to be torn down and rebuilt. Some of the more modern buildings say down in China Basin might be more sound proof and energy efficient? No idea.
- mmmmmmmmm 8y agoThat's low-end these days. I have friends paying $4800 for a two bedroom in SF.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y agoYeah, but it's also about 3 times my entire house payment here in the midwest.
- LyndsySimon 8y ago
- baron816 8y agoThe Bay Area isn’t the only place that has experienced an economic boom, but it is definitely the one that has managed it the worst.
- gnopgnip 8y agoDetroit is quintessentially the city that has the worst outcome from an economic boom. From 1940 through to about the mid 1960s the city the top, or near the top for household income, similar to SF now.
- hirundo 8y ago> “it takes about 1-2 months to no longer really see the homeless”. I used to live a couple hours south of SF. Once I went to a conference at Mosconi Center that started early, and got a big shock just driving there a bit after dawn. Right off of the freeway there was a tent city on concrete sidewalks. The filth and poverty were overwhelming to me. I felt like a slack jawed hick, not realizing that this kind of mass naked misery was so nearby. I saw the oft mentioned shit and needles and condoms strewn everywhere. On foot I made the mistake of meeting a homeless guy's eyes, who then chased me while screaming threats for two blocks. And this was around '95, and the consensus is that it's gotten a lot worse. That people can ignore that after a couple of months of exposure is a testament to human plasticity. I imagine that if it were fresh to everyone every day people would have to either flee or actually do something about it. It's hard to imagine what an individual could do that would be effective. If only there were a tech solution for reversing the invisibility. Articles like this can help a little but they're probably easier to ignore than the homeless themselves.
- 40acres 8y agoSoftware development is a relatively new job compared to others, but thinking about the politics of the bay area highlights to me how weak politically the "institution" of software / information technology is as a special interest group. You can definitely think of a senator or congressmen who is "for the banks" or "for pharmaceuticals" even those who are "pro steel union" or "pro teachers union" but you really can't find any of note who promote an interest that can be specifically tied to what developers want. This is taking to account that developers are not a monolith and probably span a wide variety of political ideology, but I can't think of a single issue, whether or not it's in the majority opinion that is being advocated for in government. San Francisco in general is an interesting beacon, the city itself is not that large, and I would expect that there are enough full time developers in the city who live there who can at least get someone on the city council, and yet.. it really does not seem to be the case that there is someone who you can readily point to as an advocate. Am I drastically mistaken? Would love to hear further perspectives from folks in the bay. The most effective form of government is the one that is most local to you, when will developers put their weight on the scale?
- danharaj 8y ago> when will developers put their weight on the scale? In my experience, amongst software developers, contempt for politics is common and the politics that is most popular tends to be hyper-individualistic and unacquainted with the idea of common interest. It's almost as if it were optimized to make developers happy well-paid cogs in a machine that is transforming society without their direction.
- sbov 8y ago> but you really can't find any of note who promote an interest that can be specifically tied to what developers want. Well, everything you mention are organizations with figureheads you can call up and ask what they think. They can also give you money so you can pursue their ideas. I'm not sure who a politician would talk to if they wanted to be pro developer. I'm not sure who would give you money for being pro developer.
- 40acres 8y ago
- vumgl 8y agoThe housing crisis, high prices, and even homelessness is inevitable in such a great place (climate, nature, jobs). The corrupt political system and some people's attitude is just another indirect consequence. You can't fight the laws of supply and demand.
- kensai 8y ago"...the only reason Silicon Valley and the Bay Area has been so prosperous is because it’s in a country where generally people are comfortable with having so much wealth, while having so many people live under the poverty line." This. So horrible. :(
- bigdatadevdog 8y agoObjectively not true, it is run by the same people who complained about it and who's solution is to increase taxes and regulations which only worsens the problem. The Working Class is moving into states like Texas for a reason despite California being progressive
- sampo 8y ago> "Queers hate techies" (from the photo) The housing scarcity and high rents are caused by politics, by zoning, by not allowing to build enough new homes. It's sad that techies are blamed for the problem created by the politicians and, ultimately, by the voters. Especially foreign tech workers, such as the author, bear no blame, as they cannot even vote in any US elections.
- jseliger 8y agoYes. I was just going to post this: Personally I can emphasize with the sentiment. Even though I don’t think that 20-something programmers in Google buses are personally responsible for the disparity, but the brandless tinted Google buses are a powerful symbol for new class system. I’ve never seen so much poverty and homelessness before. There’s many major streets where wearing open shoes would be a big no-no, because of used needles lying around in plain sight. Seeing people shooting up on Market Street is pretty normal. This is a political decision, or set of decisions: https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/. Anytime we want to, we can build as much housing as people want to live in; we just make doing so illegal right now.
- treis 8y agoYou can't build housing cheap enough for chronic drug users to afford.
- adventured 8y ago> You can't build housing cheap enough for chronic drug users to afford. You certainly easily can: effectively free (subsidized by tax payers). The house-the-homeless programs run during the Bush and Obama administrations dramatically reduced chronic homelessness in most of the US, pushing it to a record low per capita. San Francisco is one of the wealthiest places on earth. They intentionally choose to allow the human rights violation of mass, particularly chaotic homelessness to continue in the city. Morally they own it, period. There are obvious, highly effective solutions that have been used elsewhere.
- lhorie 8y agoI'm also from Toronto living in SF. This is pretty spot on. Some other things that struck me about living here. - SF is cold! (yes, this coming from a canadian) In Toronto you get "real" seasons and snow during winter, but SF (especially in the areas closer to the ocean) is blasted with cold wind and fog year-round so there's really never a hot season. In addition to that, SF has its infamous micro-weathers: it might be foggy on one patch of the city, rain on another and be sunny (but still windy) on yet another part of town, all at the same time. - Food scene: SF does a lot of spins on food. If I were to describe food here, I'd have to say it's generally "gimmicky". It's very common to see people lining up for unique eye-catching things like asian+mexican fusion, dashi-broth ramen and taiyaki ice cream, but finding good traditional chinese or greek or korean food or even a half-decent shawarma is tough. Also, having to wait in line for 30+ mins almost everywhere detracts a lot from dining experiences. Many places are also ridiculously cramped. I've never had to walk _through the kitchen_ to get to a restroom anywhere else before. - LGBT community: Toronto has a large LGBT community and one of the largest parades in North America, but people generally don't try to be too outrageous. In the one year I've been to SF, I've ran into butt-naked people numerous times (in contexts ranging from them just walking down the street to them running the Bay-to-Breakers marathon). Also ran into a leather fetish gear festival around costco a while back. Nothing really against that sort of stuff, but can be awkward to inadvertently run into it when you're just out and about with the kids on a random weekend. - Geography and nature: Within SF, there are gorgeous places scattered throughout the city (e.g. views from Russian Hill, around Randall museum, presidio area). If you have a car, there are also a ton of amazing state parks in the surrounding areas, from redwood forests to beaches. You can see wild sea life up close at fitzgerald marine reserve and even spot whales at pigeon point.
- cirgue 8y ago> SF does a lot of spins on food. If I were to describe food here, I'd have to say it's generally "gimmicky". We need a word for the disappointment experienced upon realizing that the food in front of you has been optimized for Instagram and not for you.
- dustinmoris 8y ago
- MrZongle2 8y agoFTA: "When I first moved to San Francisco, one of my friends told me on the phone “it takes about 1-2 months to no longer really see the homeless”." That's.... pretty horrible, really.
- tick_tock_tick 8y agoIt worries me some days that I've become so desensitized I barely notice it.
- blobbers 8y agoI came from a similar place to yourself and agree with your comments. When I came to SF, I couldn't help but stare at stark poverty. I came from a much smaller place that lacked all of these problems. But what you described is true; after a few months your brain normalizes to the dystopia, and that in itself is scary. I've been in the bay area 12 years now, and can't imagine moving out of California, but at the same time feel that things here are out of balance and somehow 'wrong'. But I also feel like I don't know where I'd go. We talk about Vancouver, or San Diego, but realistically I don't even know what I'd do in those cities.
- komali2 8y ago>But when you go home after work, also be prepared to see the dystopia that your industry has created as a by-product. Has this actually been concluded? That it is the "tech industry's fault?" Because I feel like I could fence off any claims as such by asking, "well, why didn't the government do anything about it?" Based on my experience in multiple major metropolitan areas, the "tech industry" here in SF seems to be the most engaged in "doing something about it" than anywhere else. Is it because the problem is bigger? Maybe they're just better at marketing than the companies in other cities? Fair questions. Maybe. I remember reading in the local papers when I lived in Mountain View that Google was going to assign some # of a new housing project they wanted to be low income housing - at my understanding, to be a total loss to them. They were going to build bridges, footpaths, and parks to "offset" the burden of the increased number of residents in Mountain View. I have seen similar from other companies. In Houston, BP nuked the gulf of mexico and then fought everyone over how "responsible" they are for it. Chevron donated some fossils to the Museum of Natural Science. I dunno, I just feel like people are being unduly critical of the tech industry in SF, as if some homeless people poop on the streets because rich engineers ride buses paid for by google. Why isn't there better public transit, so the buses aren't necessary? Why block the proliferation of scooters and bicycles, so people are far more motivated to take Lyft or Uber? Why aren't there more public, 24/7 restrooms? And why isn't the Oil industry taking more flack for turning Houston into a 75x75 mile square of choking freeways? Because poop is grosser? Grosser than runaway climate change? Poop happens in Houston, too. I just feel like SF is a big giant target, the go-to punching bag, because Big Tech, and yet meanwhile Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Finance, Big Ag gets away with dramatically worse in cost and human suffering.
- udev 8y agoIs it just me or the writer has a really nice "voice" in this post? Was pleasant to read, but also informative, and balanced. Well done!
- econner 8y agoI thought this video about one developer's saga trying to build housing where his laundromat currently is explains a lot of the problems SF has with creating new housing: "This Insane Battle To Block a New Apartment Building Explains Why San Francisco and Other Cities Are So Expensive" https://reason.com/reasontv/2018/12/27/san-francisco-mission-housing-crisis https://reason.com/reasontv/2018/12/27/san-francisco-mission...
- w0mbat 8y agoThe real experience is living in the south bay in a giant apartment complex with a pool, driving everywhere, working on a tech campus, shopping at Fry's and Valley Fair. I may move back.
- mgraczyk 8y ago> But when you go home after work, also be prepared to see the dystopia that your industry has created as a by-product. I think it's a bit narcissistic to believe that tech has somehow caused all of SF's problems and unique qualities. Healthcare is a bigger and faster growing industry, and the homeless situation is caused by lots of factors both supply (zoning/regulation) and demand (tech/finance/healthcare workers). There is a veneer of tech-induced culture in SF, but the true character and complexity of the city is caused by much, much more.
- chooseaname 8y ago> I can’t help wondering though that the only reason Silicon Valley and the Bay Area has been so prosperous is because it’s in a country where generally people are comfortable with having so much wealth, while having so many people live under the poverty line.
- chrisper 8y agoI lived in the South Bay for ~5 years while I was going to university there. I liked it, but also hated it. People everywhere, bad drivers, lots of arrogance etc, but now looking back there many great moments that I kind of miss. One of them is that I loved travelling and exploring in the US. There is just always something to do. Also you meet nice people almost everywhere. So it was quite easy to make friends instantly. If the visa situation wasn't so bad, I think I'd go back now that I took a break from the Bay Area Craziness. To me living in Europe makes more sense (more stable and secure), but life in the US is somehow more fun. That is until you run out of money (be it because of medical bills or because you got sued...)
- leetcrew 8y ago> To me living in Europe makes more sense (more stable and secure), but life in the US is somehow more fun. That is until you run out of money (be it because of medical bills or because you got sued...) yes, European countries tend to have much better safety nets, but they also come with significantly higher taxes. as a software engineer in the states, you can also expect to get paid about twice as much for the same work. there may be some good reasons to prefer Europe, but they probably aren't economic.
- ryandrake 8y ago> “On the way I noticed that the billboards next to the highways were directly targetting developers.” Funny, this was the first thing I also noticed about the Bay Area when I moved out here years ago: the billboards. Where I came from (Deep South, Florida panhandle), all the billboards said things like “Homeschoolers for Jesus” and “Remember not to shake your baby,” and when I landed in SFO I was greeted by billboards for Portal 2, some Java framework, and the unbiquitous iPhone billboards. Definitely felt more in my element here!
- JohnFen 8y agoHonestly, I can't imagine a job that is interesting or well-paying enough to be worth having to live in the bay area or SV.
- TomVDB 8y agoImagine this: Fantastic weather. Ski on Saturday, bike on Sunday, go to the beach on Monday, if you feel like it. Regional parks, state park, national park all within 15min to a few hours distance. Lots of cultural events due to closeness of San Francisco. Huge variety of restaurants. 2 nearby international airports that will get me anywhere quickly. The high chance of finding a new, interesting job if the need ever arises. And, yes, incredibly interesting and well paying job that has set me up for retirement long before I hit 65 now matter where I'll end up (not that I'd want to retire soon because... interesting job.) When you're part of the group who got lucky, living in the Bay Area is really not so bad.
- JohnFen 8y agoI don't have to imagine it -- I'm very, very familiar with the area.
- pnw_hazor 8y agoPractically every open space in Seattle hosts an unauthorized homeless encampment. Many downtown workers (including me) have to step over or around garbage, feces, used needles, tents, sleeping bags, passed out junkies/drunks, and so on, every time they come to work or leave their office. Not to mention the odors.
- justizin 8y agoI found this a really thoughtful read, I've lived here for almost 15 years and have been below the federal poverty line as well as in the 90-something percentile of US wage earners. It's heartbreaking to be surrounded by people struggling and also to know that if you slow down too much, you could pretty easily find yourself on the streets. I think the author hits an important point that, if nothing else, it's important to be aware of ourselves. It may not be my or your personal fault that things are the way they are, but we're living in a system that substantially rewards what we do over everyone else around us. I would posit that this also harms us, as the author notes - a person making six figures with a busy job can easily feel like money is just going through their fingers like water. This is part of why I'm going back to school to study economics. I want to live a rich life, which to me doesn't mean having substantially more than other people. I want to live in an enriched community where everyone who plays an important part can live comfortably, raise a family if they want to, have savings, pay a reasonable amount for housing, etc.. There's more to life than computers. <3
- ggurgone 8y agoFunny enough I worked at Yelp too and one of the reasons why I decided to move back to Europe was what you wrote :) "There is a lot of money, but not a lot of wealth."
- kabes 8y agoI'm a Belgian guy who lived one year (2016-2017) in SF. It took me a while to admit to myself it really wasn't as awesome as I had envisioned it. In fact I hated it after a year. Besides what's already in the article (which was definitely the biggest shock) I also felt like: - Nightlife is boring, not much to do for a city of about a million people and the 2am alcohol limit. - Uninteresting architecture-wise - Dating life sucks for a heterosexual male who's used to 50/50 men/women ratio in bars & clubs. - Being a hipster is the norm. Admittedly, I did very little research before moving. And it wasn't all bad, I loved driving my bike in the nearby hills and the work was interesting and well paid.
- rb808 8y agoNice to hear I'm not the only one. I like tech and other developers but its boring when virtually everyone you meet is in the same industry.
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- donaldknuth123 8y agoITT: "The massive homelessness and income inequality in SF is totally not Tech's fault, this is normal in big cities!!" The cognitive dissonance is mind boggling.
- jeklj 8y agoThis post is refreshingly sane. I visit often but don’t live in SF, and I’ve had a lot of the same observations.
- goldcd 8y agoWhat's tech's obsession with the bay area? It's lovely, I've visited - and then left. I can see why companies would thrive in an area with this excellent skill-pool - but I'd have thought they'd all want to get their employees out of there as soon as possible, once they'd got them. Chuck them into a new office in the mid-west, let them buy a 5 bedroom mansion for a fraction of their salary, and make potential poaching as painful as possible. Only possible reasons I can think of for what's happening are: 1) Insanely rich bosses are delusional, want all their staff around them, and the 'prestige' is over-riding sanity. 2) Staff consider Bay Area is "making it" and are happy to flit between local employers, ranking up their salary as they go.
- bigdatadevdog 8y agoJust tired of hearing about SF (and NY or Seattle for that matter), It is run by the same people who complain about the conditions there. You can make a good living as a SE in other cities like Austin, Houston, or even Denver which are a lot more affordable and doesn't have the sheer concentration of homelessness and poverty.
- president 8y agoAnd yet nothing will change as there is too much insecurity in this climate. Everyone is serving themselves for the sake of security down the line.
- EMRZ 8y agoThis is not the first article about SF where i read about used needles and people defecating everywhere. Being from a third world country i have never seen human waste on the street. I think something is very wrong in SF. Also, earlier this week i read this [1] twitter thread from Casey Muratori on the topic, looks relevant. [1] https://twitter.com/cmuratori/status/1080580967268376577 https://twitter.com/cmuratori/status/1080580967268376577