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Andreessen Horowitz is opening an office in SF
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- lhnz 8y agoI am hearing that startups are moving out of SF because it is too expensive. Can anybody explain the strategy here? I realise that funding is mostly centralised in SF, but this still feels weird to me.
- michaeldorian 8y agoWhat feels weird? Being in SF or startups moving out of SF?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- peapod91 8y agoMy guess: brand/name recognition is HUGE for vc as they can get first-look to the top founders/start-ups. A16Z is one of the best VC brands and they want to perpetuate that (and being in SF paints that image). Relatedly, the start-ups A16Z funds can afford to be in SF. It's the less well-funded companies that are moving out...and are probably companies that A16Z passed on.
- forgotmysn 8y agodon't believe the hype. the numbers coming into silicon valley still dwarf the numbers going out, even if the number of those going out is starting to increase slightly
- mateo411 8y agoOffice rents are lower in SF than in Palo Alto.
- awad 8y agoThey do a good amount of briefing events wherein (usually larger/well known/older) companies can meet with A16Z portfolio companies for show and tell style pitch sessions. If they can host some in SF, it would certainly make things easier for a good chunk of companies logistically. Also many of their team live in SF as the article mentions and this would certainly help their commutes. Disclaimer: A16Z are an investor in my company
- seizethecheese 8y agoThe more expensive, the better it works as a signaling mechanism.
- MagicPropmaker 8y agoI work for a start-up with offices in Sunnyvale, California. Our staff is mature people who have done this before and want the best place to establish an office and work. None of us would dream of living or working in San Francisco. We all live and work in and around Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Santa Clara, etc. For a mostly-hype startup staffed by kids fresh from Stanford, Harvard, and MIT, I suppose the flashier the offices the better and that may mean the "excitement" of San Francisco. We're in a concrete tilt-up close to everything we need.
- benatkin 8y agoI think they were talking about the whole bay area. If they were talking about moving out of SF to another part of the Bay Area, SF is way more central than Silicon Valley. Edit: I realize you would be near their old offices. Still, if they're looking to find the most entrepreneurs that they can who aren't motivated by hype, the more central from a transportation perspective, the better. And there is no place in the bay area that you can expect people from all parts of the bay area to come to other than SF.
- rconti 8y agoMaybe central by geography but not by population.
- nemothekid 8y agoI think its only recently that SF office space surpassed Mountain View. Startups originally moved to SF because it was cheaper.
- chocolatebunny 8y agoI would have thought Sunnyvale would be pretty pricey too. It's like right between Google and Apple.
- smallgovt 8y agoIn a way, startups are leaving SF BECAUSE startups are coming to SF. That is, when there is a large influx of capital-rich startups, startups w/o capital (or who are capital sensitive) are forced out. Overall, there's a net in-flow of startups into SF, and so, the VC's follow.
- gxs 8y agoReminds me of the popular quote: "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."
- gubbrora 8y agoYou can interpret it as "a small fraction of people go because the absolute number of people is larger than capacity" Stated like this it becomes obvious we need to pay attention to the denominator.
- andrewbinstock 8y agoYogi Berra lives!
- matchagaucho 8y agoOr modern day... "Nobody uses Facebook anymore, it's too crowded"
- zavi 8y agoThere's not a whole lot of data suggesting an exodus from SF. There's increasing amounts of VC funding in Asia so SFBA is not as dominant as it used to be 20 years ago but SF is still by far the center of the universe as far as starting a startup goes, and there's no major trends that would suggest a decline in absolute terms. http://startupsusa.org/global-startup-cities/ http://startupsusa.org/global-startup-cities/
- csomar 8y ago> I am hearing that startups are moving out of SF because it is too expensive. Much like the city is soo crowded these days that nobody goes there anymore. I mean it's true (because it is crowded people get pushed to the periphery) but it also implies that the city has reached capacity and that it is crowded all the times. More like: startups with low funding are moving out of SF because it is too expensive.
- minimaxir 8y agoThere's quite a lot of large startups in that area that A16Z has (or had) a stake in and would only be a block away from. (e.g. Lyft, Okta, and GitHub)
- lozaning 8y agoDoes anyone other than Microsoft have any stake in GitHub anymore?
- chejazi 8y agoRIP Say Media (/ Six Apart / Videoegg). We used to work in that building.
- minimaxir 8y agoAre other startups in that building now? I thought I saw a few when I last passed by it.
- chejazi 8y agoQuite a few were last time I checked. Say went from filling up that entire building, to renting out the basement, to renting out the upper floors, and then moving into the basement X(
- _eht 8y agoDid Say Media finally kick the bucket? I remember around four or five years ago they stopped paying publishers and had to make payments with a cash flow injection. Hundreds of thousands later they made everyone whole, but damn. Specialized ad industry did not treat them well.
- chejazi 8y agoPretty sure they ultimately got acquired at a heavy discount. I left before that though -- around the period you describe.
- chipotle_coyote 8y agoTheir web site is still around with a 2019 copyright date, so they appear to be hanging on. I used to work at the building just north of that one (at Realm, the mobile database company, which was located between Say and Docker's offices), and I used to be a big fan of Movable Type, so I was always sort of curious about them. Say's web site, incidentally, now lists their SF office as 442 Post Street, Suite 901. From their job listings, I get the impression that most of the action is in the NYC and the Portland offices now, though.
- normalperson 8y agooh good! just where society needed a venture capital office!
- abakker 8y agoIn the article about Sam Altman stepping down, it mentioned that YC was moving to the city as well. I guess the center of the universe is less and less actually SV.
- eanzenberg 8y agoI think the center of SV is becoming SF actually.
- gatsby 8y agoPerfectly said. In the 80s and 90s, the "center" of SV was Mountain View and surrounding cities, with the VCs mostly in Menlo/Palo Also. In the last 10 years, as companies have decided to increasingly be based out of SF, the radius of SV is expanding, and a lot of that expansion is to the north + east: Richmond, Concord, Walnut Creek, San Rafael, Mill Valley - making SF the center of the action.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> the radius of "the bay area"/SV is expanding The radius of the Bay Area hasn't changed, “Silicon Valley” has just moved to align more with the Bay Area rather than being an overlapping region to the South. All the places you point to as “new expansion” for “the Bay Area” have always been part of the SF Bay Area which SF has always been part of.
- gatsby 8y agoFair point - updated my original comment to remove the expansion of the "bay area."
- adw 8y agoAlso, the South Bay is becoming/has become enterprise-land. As Silicon Valley startups increasingly aim towards the consumer market, it makes sense that they would locate themselves in the biggest media/consumer/tourist hub. (Even the biggest enterprise companies can be SF-based, though – SalesForce, for example...)
- pavlakoos 8y agoWeren't everybody supposed to start moving to Oakland?
- gatsby 8y agoWhat's your point? People are moving to Oakland, and it's a lot easier to commute from Oakland to SF than from Oakland to Palo Alto or Menlo.
- barbecue_sauce 8y agoCompanies, not people. (I'm assuming).
- paxys 8y agoAlmost every big tech IPO of 2019 (Uber, Lyft, Pinterest, Slack, Postmates, Airbnb, Instacart) is headquartered in SF. It's undeniable that the center of silicon valley is slowly shifting north.
- Judgmentality 8y agoHave any of those companies gone public yet? While I believe there is a shift north, I also believe a lot of the newer companies won't exist in 5 years. I guess I feel SF is still a lot more ephemeral than its southern neighbors.
- 2arrs2ells 8y agoTwitter, Atlassian, Eventbrite, Okta & Dropbox, are all pubic & in SF. Facebook, Google, Microsoft (Github) have a sizeable SF presence.
- shanev 8y agoAtlassian is based in Sydney, Australia.
- andrewbinstock 8y agoTheir original US office (and I believe still their biggest in the US) is in SF.
- lemoncucumber 8y agoSquare too.
- paxys 8y agoSquare and Salesforce as well
- cgy1 8y agoSplunk too.
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- cweagans 8y ago1 month later: "We really didn't expect how expensive rent was. Sadly, we must announce that our funds have been depleted and we're officially out of the investing game."
- KorematsuFred 8y agoI think the millennials are settling into better jobs like Google and Facebook and the younger people are flocking to startups. That might be the reason why startups are now focusing on SF rather than SJ area.
- httpz 8y agoI thought Gen Z was just entering college? They're in the job market already?
- hokumguru 8y agoOn the older end of gen z, yes.
- KorematsuFred 8y agoI was referring to people who are in their early twenties. They are probably younger millennial or older gen-z based on how you see it. Also there is another effect. Sex. People like to hangout in cities where they can have more sex. Many college kids presents opportunities to have more sex and parties. That also leads to people in their 20s to prefer those locations more.
- nostrademons 8y agoYes, Gen Z (whatever they're called - I've heard "Homelanders" and "iPod generation", neither of which really feels right) is just entering college. The people entering the workforce now are younger Millenials. The Millenial generation really has three sub-generations: Xennials (1981-1986, distinguished because they can a. remember the Cold War and b. graduated into a decent economy, so they don't have the economic despair of the rest of Millenial generation), older Millenials (1987-1992, these are the folks who were totally fucked over by the Great Recession), and younger Millenials (1991-2000, young enough that they could actually adapt to the post-2009 economic conditions and make life-choices accordingly). Almost all Millenial billionaires are actually Xennials: Mark Zuckerburg, Brian Chesky, Drew Houston, Kevin Systrom, Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen, et al. The older Millenials are who people usually think of as "Millenials" (grew up expecting a lot, graduated when not a lot was to be found). There's a marked difference in behavior with young Millenials: they are much more studious, much more career-focused, more of them went into STEM careers, they're the ones driving the FIRE & cryptocurrency movements, etc.
- jedberg 8y ago> (The park was known until January as AT&T Park; it has since been renamed Oracle Park.) I've always called it Pac Bell park to avoid confusion.
- autotune 8y agoI like “the ballpark” best, that name is timeless so won’t matter which company buys up naming rights next.
- jedberg 8y agoYeah but then I don't know if you're talking about SF or Oakland. :)
- autotune 8y agoTechnically it'd be the "Oakland Coliseum," although I've never actually heard anyone else refer to it as that as I don't know too many folks who enjoy sports in Oakland, or I'd just call it "the Oakland Ballpark" to differentiate heh. Once the "the ballpark" in Mission Bay starts hosting games then I think we'll have to resort to alternative naming schemes but I'm sure something better than "Chase Center" will be figured out.
- jedberg 8y ago> although I've never actually heard anyone else refer to it as that as I don't know too many folks who enjoy sports in Oakland That's what I call it. But I spent eight years living in the East Bay, so that may be why.
- redwyvern 8y agoTheir current office is in a pretty nice place, but it sure did feel like it was far from the action.
- floatingatoll 8y agoI used to live in California near A-H and the traffic at that location is easily some of the worst traffic they could possibly encounter on 280. I believe the local transportation divisions outright list their nearby 280/Sand Mill exchange as a critical priority to revamp. Imagine a 30 minute line of cars where someone unsafely cuts in every second you wait.
- batbomb 8y agoah, that's because you don't know about the back way through Whiskey Hill Road to Cañada that you should take from 5-6:30 PM if you are going north. It's not bad if you are headed south. A-H is so far up the hill that it doesn't make much of an impact for them though
- floatingatoll 8y agoI was definitely only talking about that traffic with respect to A-H, since this is a post about A-H, to try and offer some context for people who haven’t experienced that for why A-H might not favor what seems like prime real estate during non-rush-hour hours.
- lquist 8y agoI was recently grabbing dinner with a group of CEOs and the unanimous sentiment was that they would never take money from a16z (3 founders had already and one other had a terrible experience with them during the pitch). It seemed to come down to how combative and unhelpful the partners were. I am sharing because it was a bit of a surprise to me (bootstrapped) and I think it’s important to share insight into VCs—-there is so much opacity for such an important decision.
- opportune 8y agoHow specifically were the partners combative? What kind of decisions were they pushing against founders' wishes?
- chx 8y agoIt's well known a16z guys will immediate ban anyone on Twitter the moment for ... anything. I am not talking of trolling, abuse -- just polite disagreement, instant ban. Never seen any other organization doing similar and so consistently.
- backpropaganda 8y agoHow a16z manages their social media doesn't seem very relevant to founders who are deciding on VCs. Could you clarify if you disagree?
- chx 8y agoIt's their founders personal account that blocks everyone and I am reasonable sure it's a personality trait.
- geomark 8y agoAndreesen blocked me, a little nobody, when I had a different opinion than him when he was supporting an argument for an investment in some kind of app targeted at young people in Southeast Asia. The app was supposed to aid them in their entrepreneurial endeavors (or somethign like that). His comment was something along the lines that the app would be highly utilized because just about every young person in Southeast Asia is entrepreneurial. I commented that that's not what I see in Thailand where everywhere I go I see nothing but kids making silly conversation and sharing selfies. He called me a racist and blocked me, which was particularly amusing because my son is one of those kids. So could I be racist toward my own son?
- dmode 8y agoIt is surreal to commute and work in SF. I take BART or Caltrain to work and amazed every day to see hundreds of thousands of engineers, product managers, sales people, data scientists get off in Embarcadero and walk to their destination. If you are in tech, it is incredibly energetic. I play “backpack bingo”, where I try to identify someone’s employer from their backpack
- nathankunicki 8y agoThe backpack does seem to the be swag of choice for SF tech employees. Everything from Uber to LinkedIn to PlayStation. Tech branded backpacks everywhere.
- Judgmentality 8y ago> If you are in tech, it is incredibly energetic. I've never understood this. I'd like to be surrounded by people that don't all do the same thing as me. I want to meet new and interesting people, not expand the bubble around me. I already interact with everyone at work most of my day, now I have to interact with people that fit that mold even when I'm not working? Different strokes for different folks, but SF has always felt like a bit of a monoculture to me.
- AVTizzle 8y agoVery well said. I've often had trouble putting into words the exact sentiment you just described. I straddle the communities of tech/startups an the "digital nomad" world, and feel similarly when I go to dense nomad hubs (particularly Chiang Mai). Too much of one thing gets old really fast.
- wjossey 8y agoPart of why I love living in LA. Everyone else is in entertainment which makes all conversations far more entertaining for me :)
- goseeastarwar 8y agoIt's great when you're fresh out of school, single, and want to bury yourself in the work. It's unbelievably annoying after a few years when you're just trying to have dinner with your wife without overhearing someone talking about raising a round at the table next to you.
- pj_mukh 8y agoI wonder how much of this is just because of the failure of Bay Area-wide fast public transit. BART never made it to the peninsula and electrification of Caltrain is taking its sweet time. The only remaining option seems for everyone to crowd into SF :/.
- cylinder 8y agoInsane we are talking about electrifying a train line in 2019 in the tech capital of America.
- chx 8y agoWhat I always found fascinating (from very far, mind you) is how unconnected the entire area is -- while you can drive from Fremont to Palo Alto in half an hour (outside of peak hours at least) or from Hayward to San Mateo if you try this with public transit, it often becomes the proverbial "you can't get there from here" at least not without going into San Jose or San Francisco. Is there a reason there's almost no public transit on the Dumbarton and San Mateo bridges?
- JohnJamesRambo 8y agoThe “Peak California” article seems very appropriate right now.
- twblalock 8y agoNah, it's just a repetition of predictions that people have been making for decades. It has nothing new to offer -- just the same old tropes about California's inevitable decline and the rise of alternative Silicon Valleys in other states that never materialize.
- sgustard 8y ago"One of the last top-tier venture firms to resist coming to San Francisco" ... can anyone confirm it's true that most others already have an SF office?
- goseeastarwar 8y agoThat's true, but you'll find that most of the senior GP's still work on Sand Hill, because the vast majority live down there.
- alkibiades 8y agoSo instead of maybe going anywhere else in the US/World, they decide to expand 30 miles north?
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