4 ms·

Outside of having top notch universities, the biggest indicator of a city's ability to have a big tech industry is the size of the VC community. VCs are largel

Outside of having top notch universities, the biggest indicator of a city's ability to have a big tech industry is the size of the VC community. VCs are largely already wealthy, and SF is a pleasant city to live in if you're already wealthy. As such, they have little incentive to move, and so founders will continue to flock there to start their companies. I completely agree that shopping around for cities should be easier, so that city governments like SF are forced to get their head out of their ass and make their city competitive. However, until SF becomes unpleasant to live in for rich people, not much is going to change.

selectodude 8y ago
There is nowhere on earth that can't be made pleasant to live if you have enough money to do it. More to the point, I'm always confused how VCs actively encourage pissing away their own money on somebody else's rent. Sure, spend your own scratch on an $8 million 1000sqft half-lot house, but why not actively encourage others to make your money go farther.
- ghobs91 8y ago
  Great point, something I've wondered myself. You'd think with the immense amount of money and influence tech companies and VCs wield, they'd do more to out-lobby the NIMBY homeowners and get denser housing approved.
- gridlockd 8y ago
  Rent is just another overhead. What good is it to save 50% on investment by moving to the middle of nowhere when you can't readily hire anybody? Sure enough, other cities are up and coming, but it takes time.
  - selectodude 8y ago
    You don't even need to move to the middle of nowhere. Basically anywhere else would work. Even San Diego is rather substantially cheaper than the SF bay and the weather there is orders of magnitude better.
    - mark212 8y ago
      San Diego has the tenth highest rent in the US and while it may be cheaper in absolute terms, the average salaries are lower too. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/real-estate/sd-fi-rent-sept-20181009-story.html https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/real-estate/sd...
      - selectodude 8y ago
        Sure, I'm not saying pay people the local prevailing wage. I'm saying pay people the same and let them keep way more of that money, or hire more devs, or have nicer offices, or whatever. Just stop handing it to landlords in the Bay.
  - chadash 8y ago
    The problem is that outside of a few tech hubs, most companies are unwilling to pay developers salaries that even come close to what they can make in a tech hub. So the best developers move to the tech hubs, where the jobs tend to be more interesting and pay better. Plenty of people would take a 25% pay cut to live in a cheaper city than SF, but the reality is that they might have to take a pay cut of 50% or more, and even when you adjust for cost of living, that sort of pay difference is still dramatic (housing might be cheaper in many cities, but car ownership, healthcare, groceries and your kids' college tuition are largely the same).
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  No amount of money can fix humidity, lack of sunshine, or lack of mountains/ocean and the corresponding activities possible with them (or whatever other natural feature one prefers). Saudi Arabia and UAE can spend all of their natural resource wealth building shiny buildings, but it's still a desert. Also, no one has the amount of wealth needed to stabilize a whole country to make it politically stable and secure.
  - qaq 8y ago
    San Diego is pretty good and not that far :)
    - geggam 8y ago
      and that is why San Diego rents are heating up.
      - gusmd 8y ago
        Talk about heating up! My rent in Carmel Valley increased by 10% last month!
    - mark212 8y ago
      More than half of San Diego renters spend 30%+ of income on rent, making it one of the least affordable areas in the country. https://www.kpbs.org/news/2019/jan/03/more-half-san-diego-county-renters-are-burdened-ho/ https://www.kpbs.org/news/2019/jan/03/more-half-san-diego-co...
  - raverbashing 8y ago
    To be very honest weather is the least of the concerns. Otherwise other cities wouldn't have gatherings of people. Nobody is saying they should put all the money into turning a developing country in the USA, but maybe they can, I don't know, try other cities around the valley and not get crammed all together into one city that's naturally restricted in growth
    - 8y ago
- ex_ex_nihilo 8y ago
  If you want to sell software, it's good to be situated physically next to the biggest software companies in the world. I work in the Valley (but live on the East Coast), and having your company immersed in that culture can have benefits. There is a certain perception that persists, a certain level of legitimacy you are granted just for living alongside the Big Boys. Along with the accompanying downsides, of course. The answer to why VCs stay in the Valley is because it's been working for them.
gridlockd 8y ago
> VCs are largely already wealthy, and SF is a pleasant city to live in if you're already wealthy. Is it though? I feel SF is a rathole that is occupied by a lot of people who overpay for rent because their salary allows them to. If you're really wealthy, you're not going to be living in the city at all.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  >If you're really wealthy, you're not going to be living in the city at all... ??? Huh? Are you talking about the same San Francisco as everyone else here?
  - gridlockd 8y ago
    Perhaps I'm not talking about the same "city" or the same "really wealthy people".
  - hodr 8y ago
    Probably. The rich live in San Francisco, the wealthy live in Napa Valley / Sonoma County. Can't fit a helipad, two tennis courts, putting green, and an olympic size swimming pool downtown.
    - bilbo0s 8y ago
      The wealthy don't live in Napa Valley, new money does. Totally different thing. Napa Valley is to San Fran what the Hamptons are to New York. IE - the place boringly nouveau riche go to emulate the rich of yesteryear. The wealthy have their own very large islands. Islands that are very likely nature preserves. They don't need Napa Valley. I can assure you though, that the wealthy also have homes all over the world. And I guarantee you that crappy cities that smell like pee, such as London, San Fran, and Paris, are on their holdings list. That's just the way it is, cool kids want to hang out with cool kids. And when they're not, they want their privacy.
chadash 8y ago
VCs are one piece of the equation, but so is talent. Google could care less about VC money at this point, but they have large presences in Boston and New York where there's a strong local talent pool to draw from. And there's not much talent outside of certain cities, because the best talent from other areas tend to move to these cities.
stcredzero 8y ago
VCs are largely already wealthy, and SF is a pleasant city to live in if you're already wealthy. As such, they have little incentive to move And apparently, little incentive to improve their city and environment. What the wealthy need to realize is that human nature is hard wired to notice relative wealth inequality. Crime and social unrest are directly related to perceptions of relative wealth inequality. Past a certain point, life expectancy is directly correlated with relative wealth inequality, not absolute wealth. [b] http://www.sfindicatorproject.org/indicators/view/146 http://www.sfindicatorproject.org/indicators/view/146 https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/02/15/income-inequality-in-the-bay-area-is-among-nations-highest/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/02/15/income-inequality-in-... ([b] Ichiro Kawachi, 2000. Income Inequality and Health. In Social Epidemiology. Eds. Lisa Berkman and Ichiro Kawachi. New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 76-94.)

selectodude 8y ago

There is nowhere on earth that can't be made pleasant to live if you have enough money to do it. More to the point, I'm always confused how VCs actively encourage pissing away their own money on somebody else's rent. Sure, spend your own scratch on an $8 million 1000sqft half-lot house, but why not actively encourage others to make your money go farther.

ghobs91 8y ago
Great point, something I've wondered myself. You'd think with the immense amount of money and influence tech companies and VCs wield, they'd do more to out-lobby the NIMBY homeowners and get denser housing approved.
gridlockd 8y ago
Rent is just another overhead. What good is it to save 50% on investment by moving to the middle of nowhere when you can't readily hire anybody? Sure enough, other cities are up and coming, but it takes time.
- selectodude 8y ago
  You don't even need to move to the middle of nowhere. Basically anywhere else would work. Even San Diego is rather substantially cheaper than the SF bay and the weather there is orders of magnitude better.
  - mark212 8y ago
    San Diego has the tenth highest rent in the US and while it may be cheaper in absolute terms, the average salaries are lower too. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/real-estate/sd-fi-rent-sept-20181009-story.html https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/real-estate/sd...
    - selectodude 8y ago
      Sure, I'm not saying pay people the local prevailing wage. I'm saying pay people the same and let them keep way more of that money, or hire more devs, or have nicer offices, or whatever. Just stop handing it to landlords in the Bay.
- chadash 8y ago
  The problem is that outside of a few tech hubs, most companies are unwilling to pay developers salaries that even come close to what they can make in a tech hub. So the best developers move to the tech hubs, where the jobs tend to be more interesting and pay better. Plenty of people would take a 25% pay cut to live in a cheaper city than SF, but the reality is that they might have to take a pay cut of 50% or more, and even when you adjust for cost of living, that sort of pay difference is still dramatic (housing might be cheaper in many cities, but car ownership, healthcare, groceries and your kids' college tuition are largely the same).
lotsofpulp 8y ago
No amount of money can fix humidity, lack of sunshine, or lack of mountains/ocean and the corresponding activities possible with them (or whatever other natural feature one prefers). Saudi Arabia and UAE can spend all of their natural resource wealth building shiny buildings, but it's still a desert. Also, no one has the amount of wealth needed to stabilize a whole country to make it politically stable and secure.
- qaq 8y ago
  San Diego is pretty good and not that far :)
  - geggam 8y ago
    and that is why San Diego rents are heating up.
    - gusmd 8y ago
      Talk about heating up! My rent in Carmel Valley increased by 10% last month!
  - mark212 8y ago
    More than half of San Diego renters spend 30%+ of income on rent, making it one of the least affordable areas in the country. https://www.kpbs.org/news/2019/jan/03/more-half-san-diego-county-renters-are-burdened-ho/ https://www.kpbs.org/news/2019/jan/03/more-half-san-diego-co...
- raverbashing 8y ago
  To be very honest weather is the least of the concerns. Otherwise other cities wouldn't have gatherings of people. Nobody is saying they should put all the money into turning a developing country in the USA, but maybe they can, I don't know, try other cities around the valley and not get crammed all together into one city that's naturally restricted in growth
  - 8y ago
ex_ex_nihilo 8y ago
If you want to sell software, it's good to be situated physically next to the biggest software companies in the world. I work in the Valley (but live on the East Coast), and having your company immersed in that culture can have benefits. There is a certain perception that persists, a certain level of legitimacy you are granted just for living alongside the Big Boys. Along with the accompanying downsides, of course. The answer to why VCs stay in the Valley is because it's been working for them.

gridlockd 8y ago

> VCs are largely already wealthy, and SF is a pleasant city to live in if you're already wealthy. Is it though? I feel SF is a rathole that is occupied by a lot of people who overpay for rent because their salary allows them to. If you're really wealthy, you're not going to be living in the city at all.

bilbo0s 8y ago
>If you're really wealthy, you're not going to be living in the city at all... ??? Huh? Are you talking about the same San Francisco as everyone else here?
- gridlockd 8y ago
  Perhaps I'm not talking about the same "city" or the same "really wealthy people".
- hodr 8y ago
  Probably. The rich live in San Francisco, the wealthy live in Napa Valley / Sonoma County. Can't fit a helipad, two tennis courts, putting green, and an olympic size swimming pool downtown.
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    The wealthy don't live in Napa Valley, new money does. Totally different thing. Napa Valley is to San Fran what the Hamptons are to New York. IE - the place boringly nouveau riche go to emulate the rich of yesteryear. The wealthy have their own very large islands. Islands that are very likely nature preserves. They don't need Napa Valley. I can assure you though, that the wealthy also have homes all over the world. And I guarantee you that crappy cities that smell like pee, such as London, San Fran, and Paris, are on their holdings list. That's just the way it is, cool kids want to hang out with cool kids. And when they're not, they want their privacy.

chadash 8y ago

VCs are one piece of the equation, but so is talent. Google could care less about VC money at this point, but they have large presences in Boston and New York where there's a strong local talent pool to draw from. And there's not much talent outside of certain cities, because the best talent from other areas tend to move to these cities.

stcredzero 8y ago

VCs are largely already wealthy, and SF is a pleasant city to live in if you're already wealthy. As such, they have little incentive to move And apparently, little incentive to improve their city and environment. What the wealthy need to realize is that human nature is hard wired to notice relative wealth inequality. Crime and social unrest are directly related to perceptions of relative wealth inequality. Past a certain point, life expectancy is directly correlated with relative wealth inequality, not absolute wealth. [b] http://www.sfindicatorproject.org/indicators/view/146 http://www.sfindicatorproject.org/indicators/view/146 https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/02/15/income-inequality-in-the-bay-area-is-among-nations-highest/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/02/15/income-inequality-in-... ([b] Ichiro Kawachi, 2000. Income Inequality and Health. In Social Epidemiology. Eds. Lisa Berkman and Ichiro Kawachi. New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 76-94.)