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>what's hampering Silicon Valley innovation right now is the outrageous cost of living. I wish a “remote hub” concept would become popular. Where you work remo

>what's hampering Silicon Valley innovation right now is the outrageous cost of living. I wish a “remote hub” concept would become popular. Where you work remote but need to be close enough to come in once a week or for big meetings. This would allow people to move a little further away and would possibly allow areas right outside the bay to become an extension of Silicon Valley.

jedberg 7y ago
Part of the reason the Valley is so successful is because after work you can pop over to a meetup about your very niche expertise, or meet up for coffee with some old coworkers. If you only come to the office once a week and otherwise live outside of the valley, that gets a lot harder to do. I live in the south bay and already feel the pinch, as most of the meetups I'd want to go to are in San Francisco, about an hour's drive away. When I worked in SF, it was no big deal to stick around for a meetup or a drink. Now it's 1/2 a day's outing.
- nine_k 7y ago
  Are these meetups any useful? I ignore 99% of such events, and keep communication almost exclusively online. Am I missing much? (I'm an engineer, though, not an entrepreneur.)
  - rmason 7y ago
    I live far from the Valley but every single time I'm in SF I make it a point to attend a meetup three or four nights a week. As a coder I meet the people who wrote the books or headline the conferences. I can walk up afterward and ask for advice. I meet founders, some of whom will eventually be household names and others not. I've kept up email correspondence with a few of my fellow user group managers and I try to take them out to lunch when I return. Probably will be in SF in April if any HN'ers want to hit me up, especially those interested in the No Code space.
foota 7y ago
This would be trivial if we had more effective mass transit
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  That would require far more dense housing.
  - foota 7y ago
    In general I disagree with this, if we spent a fraction of what we do on car transit on mass transit we'd be able to support mass transit basically anywhere, except large cities with ridiculous spread, like Phoenix. In particular here though I was just talking about better commuter trains and (the existence of) HSR, neither of which is really dependent on density.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      Who would support mass transit? If everyone has the option of low density housing with the luxury of their own cars, they're going to take that option instead of mass transit. The proof is everywhere.
      - foota 7y ago
        Everyone that lives in the downtown of a city?
    - nine_k 7y ago
      Mass transit becomes slow when it has to make many stops and goes for long distances. NYC subway is only efficient because Manhattan is so dense, and much of areas around it are reasonably dense. Commuting from further away, like a couple dozen miles into NY or NJ, becomes massively more burdensome, because a train has to go all this distance, and the station is not close to home. Of course, you can spend this hour or two reading, or maybe writing or even sleeping on the train, unlike driving.
3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
I love this idea. You work remotely 4 days a week.

jedberg 7y ago

Part of the reason the Valley is so successful is because after work you can pop over to a meetup about your very niche expertise, or meet up for coffee with some old coworkers. If you only come to the office once a week and otherwise live outside of the valley, that gets a lot harder to do. I live in the south bay and already feel the pinch, as most of the meetups I'd want to go to are in San Francisco, about an hour's drive away. When I worked in SF, it was no big deal to stick around for a meetup or a drink. Now it's 1/2 a day's outing.

nine_k 7y ago
Are these meetups any useful? I ignore 99% of such events, and keep communication almost exclusively online. Am I missing much? (I'm an engineer, though, not an entrepreneur.)
- rmason 7y ago
  I live far from the Valley but every single time I'm in SF I make it a point to attend a meetup three or four nights a week. As a coder I meet the people who wrote the books or headline the conferences. I can walk up afterward and ask for advice. I meet founders, some of whom will eventually be household names and others not. I've kept up email correspondence with a few of my fellow user group managers and I try to take them out to lunch when I return. Probably will be in SF in April if any HN'ers want to hit me up, especially those interested in the No Code space.

foota 7y ago

This would be trivial if we had more effective mass transit

lotsofpulp 7y ago
That would require far more dense housing.
- foota 7y ago
  In general I disagree with this, if we spent a fraction of what we do on car transit on mass transit we'd be able to support mass transit basically anywhere, except large cities with ridiculous spread, like Phoenix. In particular here though I was just talking about better commuter trains and (the existence of) HSR, neither of which is really dependent on density.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    Who would support mass transit? If everyone has the option of low density housing with the luxury of their own cars, they're going to take that option instead of mass transit. The proof is everywhere.
    - foota 7y ago
      Everyone that lives in the downtown of a city?
  - nine_k 7y ago
    Mass transit becomes slow when it has to make many stops and goes for long distances. NYC subway is only efficient because Manhattan is so dense, and much of areas around it are reasonably dense. Commuting from further away, like a couple dozen miles into NY or NJ, becomes massively more burdensome, because a train has to go all this distance, and the station is not close to home. Of course, you can spend this hour or two reading, or maybe writing or even sleeping on the train, unlike driving.

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago

I love this idea. You work remotely 4 days a week.