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Apple, Google and Facebook should invest on making other areas new tech hubs. Creating more and more jobs in the Bay Area just makes it worse. There are so ma

Apple, Google and Facebook should invest on making other areas new tech hubs. Creating more and more jobs in the Bay Area just makes it worse. There are so many talented employees willing to work in other areas.

mywittyname 7y ago
> There are so many talented employees willing to work in other areas. Not enough though. I've worked at so many companies that fled the midwest due to lack of a technical talent pool and an inability to attract remote talent, even with generous relocation benefits. The appeal of Silicon Valley, NYC, or Seattle is the abundance of high paying, prestigious tech companies to work for. While it may be cheaper to live in Pittsburgh or Columbus, there's still the issue that you can't find nearly as many comparable jobs in the same market. Currently, if you work for Google in Pittsburgh, you're stuck there unless you're willing to take a paycut. This isn't a problem if you're in Seattle.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  That's why Apple and other companies need to put more than money where their mouth is, and also commit to expanding more resources in those areas and attracting workers to relocate there. It isn't as if there's a dearth of talent where CMU is, and the lower CoL and other expenses are additional benefits for opening up offices there.
  - qaq 7y ago
    They actually do Apple is investing a billion into Austin campus expansion.
- sudosteph 7y ago
  The problem with Pittsburgh (and the rust belt in general) is that it's still losing population in general. Adding a few tech jobs won't change the fact that it's a generally undesirable place to live (old infra, cold winters, high crime) - so people with the means of relocating will generally do so. Meanwhile, there are plenty of cities in the south that are rapidly gaining population, especially from people with education, and would be excellent places for companies looking to expand. Atlanta, Nashville, Austin, Dallas, Raleigh, Durham, and Charlotte are all far cheaper than SV, and are much easier to recruit talent to than Pittsburgh or Columbus.
- qaq 7y ago
  Thats selective there are fast growing tech hubs with sane cost of living. Austin TX, parts of NC, parts of CO, NoVA. It's also worth keeping in mind that counties with highest median income are all around DC.
  - ryanobjc 7y ago
    Taking Austin for a moment, the real estate market has doubled since 2012, and zillow calls the market 'hot'. While obviously not Bay Area prices, real estate growth is high. Austin has minimal mass transit - some train, some bus. For Texas in general, it's better than average. However, this popped up: https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/austin-named-one-of-the-most-traffic-congested-city-in-the-world https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/austin-named-one-of-the-mos... I'm pretty skeptical of 'in the world' claim, but I have heard that the north-south arterial axis of the city build out makes getting around challenging at times. My overall point is, 'fast growing tech hubs' have growth related problems. Only in an extreme anti-tax state like TX, you may never have any infrastructure build up, except for maybe more interstates. Ultimately, municipal elections draw only the most engaged voters, and outside of those times, officials have broad authority to control how things are built. Getting re-elected is always a concern, so we end up with a general slow-to-change civic pattern that appears to be repeating all across the US. Even in much-lauded NYC, people complain about (a) underinvestment in subways (b) many manhattan buildings are illegal under current planning code. Building code is a primary challenge to reducing change, and I hardly see anyone, except CA state authorities, attacking overly restrictive planning code.
    - qaq 7y ago
      In NoVa there is no overly restrictive planning code to begin with. It results in fairly fugly developments sometimes like parts of Tysons, but would take that any day over SV cost of living.
- Keverw 7y ago
  Yeah, one thing I always hated about tech being concentrated all in a few places. I'm not far from an Air Force base, so there's a lot of military contractors. Some of them scan Linkedin and Github, so I have had some unsolicited contacts from recruiters. I don't know if they actually looked at my projects and profile, or just automatic emails they send to everyone. It seems like they are using older technology and some stacks people hate on like Java... Actual Java, not Javascript... Sure I could probably learn those stacks too though if I wanted to, but got my mindset on certain technologies I like. I know they are working on developing drones though, but not sure if that's a contractor or Airforce itself as seen on the news. Trump wants to take money away from the military to fund the wall, which is going to have a big impact on the base funding for local jobs was reported here. But coding stuff for drones sounds fun and exciting, but knowing your tech could just as well be killing innocent people instead of only bad guys is also a conflict. Or even the possibility you screwed up something that got your own people killed, would hate to have that burden doing critical life related software. Speaking of life, I was looking up startup incubators a few years ago, but it seemed like the only one focused on medical and biotech instead of more consumer tech. Sure there's probably programming involved in those too, but probably more developing chemistry and stuff that isn't my field either, but it'd be fun to be part of a startup that could cure cancer! I wish they could attract more tech though, but I don't think it's going to happen. I think the people at large tech companies don't even have the area on the map either, and even if I got lucky with a startup and funded, I doubt I'd even consider the area either. Some of the conditions of getting seed funding, is relocating anyways. One of the cities was trying to persuade for the Amazon HQ 2 project like many others, but of course that didn't happen. I ran into one guy involved with the local tech community randomly chatting, basically was telling me that life isn't all about social and gaming apps. Sure it's probably a great paying job, but very corporate I'd imagine, and being government related probably super slow to get anything done. Meetings just to decide about your other meetings. I know some people really love startups, but then after they become more corporate they cash out and move onto something new and exciting. Plus some investors don't want founders to be CEOs and want to put someone in with more experience and adult supervision, Be nice to be able to run a large company but still have it feel like a startup. I'd imagine companies like Google is better at this than other companies. I'd imagine since Google has so many different things, different parts like Chrome, cloud, YouTube and other projects would be run like mini-companies within the bigger company, with a bunch of smaller teams since something as large as the cloud can be split up into even more smaller parts for each tech solution/products. Then some people even told me that programming isn't real work, the only real jobs are the people who put in the hours doing hard work at factories in the heat, with their hands and muscle. Sure they do valuable work too, even programmers need a computer to program on and people wanting to buy the computers to play games and chat put money in both the factory workers and programmer's pockets. However I doubt any computer factories here, but steel factories sure. I know I hear some things about factories though, and I'm surprised they don't even have heat or AC, and no mandates legally for them to do either. It seems like a form of slave labor. I feel like if I had a huge company with the resources, I'd visit the factory personally and put investments to improve life there. However if ever starting a new product, maybe at some point build your own factory instead of contracting it out, so could design everything from the ground up. I know some CEOs visit factories anyways though, but I feel like it's more of a PR stunt more than anything else when they do these events, then the mayor, state senators and others come too with the media cameras. Wouldn't surprise me though some CEOs care though, but boards and investors put profits first, I really like the idea of having a company that's profitable but also doing good and treating everyone well too. Care about customers all the way down to the employees. Even warehouse businesses look bad if you read and watch some news on it, even one warehouse had someone drop dead and management told people to keep working. I know some CEO even raised prices of life saving drugs, and said it was his fiduciary duty by law when defending himself to the media. So I guess that's a excuse to be a jerk to everyone and stretching the intent, but I think you can be profitable, while treating people good and making quality products if you really wanted to instead of being greedy. I know some companies try to not have shareholders or as many, and even pay a part of the profits back as a bonus to employees which seems like a nice incentive. However, I think people who aren't really into computers much or thought about programming imagine that programming on a computer is the same as relaxing playing video games or creating a document in Microsoft Word. People view a webpage thinking they are simple but don't know that there's HTML, CSS, Javascript just to display the page, then the backend is a whole other mess, server logic, databases, file, queuing, caching and as you get larger that gets even more complex and messy as you grow. But then again this is the rust belt. It's easier to think about doing things are easy from the 10,000 feet view, then actually getting anything done when you peel back the layers, then layers have even more of their layers to peel back. It's a never ending quest of things you can do, learn, problems come up, etc. Sure it looks easy when you watch TV and movies, especially when the CSI agents build an application in visual basic to trace an IP address and magically enhance pixels. Then also some places don't like tech, they don't trust it with all the news of breaches. Then some people also really like their town being small, and quiet. They don't want the tech money to come and increase values of housing but also increasing other things too. Heroin is a huge epidemic here too sadly. Then some towns rely mostly on one employer and they then decide to relocate can be a huge hit to a local economy. My dream is to get something going that I can manage remotely and move somewhere warmer or retire early to travel full time. However, I think some of the skills I've been studying myself like Typescript and React probably could get hired at a startup in Miami or Austin as a backup plan. However, I'm pretty much done with this area other than family. I don't see any opportunity for tech, it's cold, higher taxes than any others. I also was interested in the bay area, since that's where a majority of the tech industry started, but as I got older I realized I didn't like the politics of California as it seems like almost everything they do is backwards, then crime and affordability too. I see others are realizing this so other tech hubs are expanding and popping up too thankfully. I think the weather has a lot to do with things as people hate cold, but I think cities or the state could be doing more to attract tech. There's also the brain drain problem, people get massive amounts of student loan debts to go to schools in better places and never return home, as they get a job and fit in better in the community where their college is. There used to be a huge cash register company here, so I'd assume you could write a point of sale system software which might be fun! But Georgia gave them millions of dollars to leave for their state instead... However, I feel like my opinions don't matter, even had a teacher told me these tech people just got lucky... Sure some luck, being at the right place at the right time but also a lot of hard work and effort put in. So I feel like voting with my feet is the best option at some point. I'm sure a lot of people feel this way though, but not everyone talks about it. They just take their student loan money, hop on a plane to better cities with top schools and wave bye after being dropped off at the airport. Then also it a shame for their families, can't help out and I know some families shame their children for wanting to leave and better themselves.

mywittyname 7y ago

> There are so many talented employees willing to work in other areas. Not enough though. I've worked at so many companies that fled the midwest due to lack of a technical talent pool and an inability to attract remote talent, even with generous relocation benefits. The appeal of Silicon Valley, NYC, or Seattle is the abundance of high paying, prestigious tech companies to work for. While it may be cheaper to live in Pittsburgh or Columbus, there's still the issue that you can't find nearly as many comparable jobs in the same market. Currently, if you work for Google in Pittsburgh, you're stuck there unless you're willing to take a paycut. This isn't a problem if you're in Seattle.

Apocryphon 7y ago
That's why Apple and other companies need to put more than money where their mouth is, and also commit to expanding more resources in those areas and attracting workers to relocate there. It isn't as if there's a dearth of talent where CMU is, and the lower CoL and other expenses are additional benefits for opening up offices there.
- qaq 7y ago
  They actually do Apple is investing a billion into Austin campus expansion.
sudosteph 7y ago
The problem with Pittsburgh (and the rust belt in general) is that it's still losing population in general. Adding a few tech jobs won't change the fact that it's a generally undesirable place to live (old infra, cold winters, high crime) - so people with the means of relocating will generally do so. Meanwhile, there are plenty of cities in the south that are rapidly gaining population, especially from people with education, and would be excellent places for companies looking to expand. Atlanta, Nashville, Austin, Dallas, Raleigh, Durham, and Charlotte are all far cheaper than SV, and are much easier to recruit talent to than Pittsburgh or Columbus.
qaq 7y ago
Thats selective there are fast growing tech hubs with sane cost of living. Austin TX, parts of NC, parts of CO, NoVA. It's also worth keeping in mind that counties with highest median income are all around DC.
- ryanobjc 7y ago
  Taking Austin for a moment, the real estate market has doubled since 2012, and zillow calls the market 'hot'. While obviously not Bay Area prices, real estate growth is high. Austin has minimal mass transit - some train, some bus. For Texas in general, it's better than average. However, this popped up: https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/austin-named-one-of-the-most-traffic-congested-city-in-the-world https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/austin-named-one-of-the-mos... I'm pretty skeptical of 'in the world' claim, but I have heard that the north-south arterial axis of the city build out makes getting around challenging at times. My overall point is, 'fast growing tech hubs' have growth related problems. Only in an extreme anti-tax state like TX, you may never have any infrastructure build up, except for maybe more interstates. Ultimately, municipal elections draw only the most engaged voters, and outside of those times, officials have broad authority to control how things are built. Getting re-elected is always a concern, so we end up with a general slow-to-change civic pattern that appears to be repeating all across the US. Even in much-lauded NYC, people complain about (a) underinvestment in subways (b) many manhattan buildings are illegal under current planning code. Building code is a primary challenge to reducing change, and I hardly see anyone, except CA state authorities, attacking overly restrictive planning code.
  - qaq 7y ago
    In NoVa there is no overly restrictive planning code to begin with. It results in fairly fugly developments sometimes like parts of Tysons, but would take that any day over SV cost of living.
Keverw 7y ago
Yeah, one thing I always hated about tech being concentrated all in a few places. I'm not far from an Air Force base, so there's a lot of military contractors. Some of them scan Linkedin and Github, so I have had some unsolicited contacts from recruiters. I don't know if they actually looked at my projects and profile, or just automatic emails they send to everyone. It seems like they are using older technology and some stacks people hate on like Java... Actual Java, not Javascript... Sure I could probably learn those stacks too though if I wanted to, but got my mindset on certain technologies I like. I know they are working on developing drones though, but not sure if that's a contractor or Airforce itself as seen on the news. Trump wants to take money away from the military to fund the wall, which is going to have a big impact on the base funding for local jobs was reported here. But coding stuff for drones sounds fun and exciting, but knowing your tech could just as well be killing innocent people instead of only bad guys is also a conflict. Or even the possibility you screwed up something that got your own people killed, would hate to have that burden doing critical life related software. Speaking of life, I was looking up startup incubators a few years ago, but it seemed like the only one focused on medical and biotech instead of more consumer tech. Sure there's probably programming involved in those too, but probably more developing chemistry and stuff that isn't my field either, but it'd be fun to be part of a startup that could cure cancer! I wish they could attract more tech though, but I don't think it's going to happen. I think the people at large tech companies don't even have the area on the map either, and even if I got lucky with a startup and funded, I doubt I'd even consider the area either. Some of the conditions of getting seed funding, is relocating anyways. One of the cities was trying to persuade for the Amazon HQ 2 project like many others, but of course that didn't happen. I ran into one guy involved with the local tech community randomly chatting, basically was telling me that life isn't all about social and gaming apps. Sure it's probably a great paying job, but very corporate I'd imagine, and being government related probably super slow to get anything done. Meetings just to decide about your other meetings. I know some people really love startups, but then after they become more corporate they cash out and move onto something new and exciting. Plus some investors don't want founders to be CEOs and want to put someone in with more experience and adult supervision, Be nice to be able to run a large company but still have it feel like a startup. I'd imagine companies like Google is better at this than other companies. I'd imagine since Google has so many different things, different parts like Chrome, cloud, YouTube and other projects would be run like mini-companies within the bigger company, with a bunch of smaller teams since something as large as the cloud can be split up into even more smaller parts for each tech solution/products. Then some people even told me that programming isn't real work, the only real jobs are the people who put in the hours doing hard work at factories in the heat, with their hands and muscle. Sure they do valuable work too, even programmers need a computer to program on and people wanting to buy the computers to play games and chat put money in both the factory workers and programmer's pockets. However I doubt any computer factories here, but steel factories sure. I know I hear some things about factories though, and I'm surprised they don't even have heat or AC, and no mandates legally for them to do either. It seems like a form of slave labor. I feel like if I had a huge company with the resources, I'd visit the factory personally and put investments to improve life there. However if ever starting a new product, maybe at some point build your own factory instead of contracting it out, so could design everything from the ground up. I know some CEOs visit factories anyways though, but I feel like it's more of a PR stunt more than anything else when they do these events, then the mayor, state senators and others come too with the media cameras. Wouldn't surprise me though some CEOs care though, but boards and investors put profits first, I really like the idea of having a company that's profitable but also doing good and treating everyone well too. Care about customers all the way down to the employees. Even warehouse businesses look bad if you read and watch some news on it, even one warehouse had someone drop dead and management told people to keep working. I know some CEO even raised prices of life saving drugs, and said it was his fiduciary duty by law when defending himself to the media. So I guess that's a excuse to be a jerk to everyone and stretching the intent, but I think you can be profitable, while treating people good and making quality products if you really wanted to instead of being greedy. I know some companies try to not have shareholders or as many, and even pay a part of the profits back as a bonus to employees which seems like a nice incentive. However, I think people who aren't really into computers much or thought about programming imagine that programming on a computer is the same as relaxing playing video games or creating a document in Microsoft Word. People view a webpage thinking they are simple but don't know that there's HTML, CSS, Javascript just to display the page, then the backend is a whole other mess, server logic, databases, file, queuing, caching and as you get larger that gets even more complex and messy as you grow. But then again this is the rust belt. It's easier to think about doing things are easy from the 10,000 feet view, then actually getting anything done when you peel back the layers, then layers have even more of their layers to peel back. It's a never ending quest of things you can do, learn, problems come up, etc. Sure it looks easy when you watch TV and movies, especially when the CSI agents build an application in visual basic to trace an IP address and magically enhance pixels. Then also some places don't like tech, they don't trust it with all the news of breaches. Then some people also really like their town being small, and quiet. They don't want the tech money to come and increase values of housing but also increasing other things too. Heroin is a huge epidemic here too sadly. Then some towns rely mostly on one employer and they then decide to relocate can be a huge hit to a local economy. My dream is to get something going that I can manage remotely and move somewhere warmer or retire early to travel full time. However, I think some of the skills I've been studying myself like Typescript and React probably could get hired at a startup in Miami or Austin as a backup plan. However, I'm pretty much done with this area other than family. I don't see any opportunity for tech, it's cold, higher taxes than any others. I also was interested in the bay area, since that's where a majority of the tech industry started, but as I got older I realized I didn't like the politics of California as it seems like almost everything they do is backwards, then crime and affordability too. I see others are realizing this so other tech hubs are expanding and popping up too thankfully. I think the weather has a lot to do with things as people hate cold, but I think cities or the state could be doing more to attract tech. There's also the brain drain problem, people get massive amounts of student loan debts to go to schools in better places and never return home, as they get a job and fit in better in the community where their college is. There used to be a huge cash register company here, so I'd assume you could write a point of sale system software which might be fun! But Georgia gave them millions of dollars to leave for their state instead... However, I feel like my opinions don't matter, even had a teacher told me these tech people just got lucky... Sure some luck, being at the right place at the right time but also a lot of hard work and effort put in. So I feel like voting with my feet is the best option at some point. I'm sure a lot of people feel this way though, but not everyone talks about it. They just take their student loan money, hop on a plane to better cities with top schools and wave bye after being dropped off at the airport. Then also it a shame for their families, can't help out and I know some families shame their children for wanting to leave and better themselves.