4 ms·

SV companies are constantly trying to get you to move back to the area after you leave. Talent outside the bay lags behind so its not as desirable for those co

by geggam 7y ago

SV companies are constantly trying to get you to move back to the area after you leave. Talent outside the bay lags behind so its not as desirable for those companies. Not to mention the valley culture is a bit guild like

djohnston 7y ago
This ignores OPs point that if remote work is normalized, they won't be asking you for anything anymore.
VectorLock 7y ago
SV companies are constantly trying to find new ways to push the "life/work" balance as solidly an inextricably towards "work" as possible. Coercing you to be in SV shows you're committed to that, and are willing to sacrifice attachments you might have to family in other areas to give it all to the company. Making you be on site in SV gives them access to so many more work-squeezing tactics. Free lunches! (less personal time during lunches and you're talking about work at lunch anyways) On-site laundry! (less time you're doing mundane chores, more time you're working.)
- bitwize 7y ago
  It's a bit like stockbrokers in NYC. In order to be taken seriously by your peers, you have to spring for the expensive luxury Manhattan apartment. If you live in Queens or New Jersey and commute into Manhattan, that tells the brokerage you won't be hungry enough to work as aggressively as they need and you will be first in line to be fired.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Find better peers.
    - wffurr 7y ago
      Yeah that's not the issue. It's when an entire industry is set up this way and the people with the real money want their highly pair employees to be competitive and addicted to their high pay. So what you are saying instead is find a better industry to be in and better people to work for. Ultimately though distribution of wealth as incredibly unequal as it is limits that choice substantially.
      - blaser-waffle 7y ago
        Self reinforcing loop. Publicly traded company has officers who have a fiduciary responsibility to return on investment aka they need to keep the stock price up and/or generate returns. Doesn't even have to be public, just one where the owners or investors are cracking the whip. Consistently failing to make it grow mean they get the axe, which means they replace the nice, patient people with aggressive type-a folks who do what needs to be done. Rise-and-repeat over several cycles and you start to see this hardcore work culture. The fat bonuses only reinforce it further. If you're gonna be copping six-figure bonuses you either hustle or you gtfo of the way, because there are plenty of people that would bust their ass for that chance. Again, play that cycle out over a few decades and here we are. It's toxic as hell, but it shouldn't be surprising that it turns out this way since it's 100% structural.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jen20 7y ago
> Talent outside the bay lags behind Wow if ever there was a [citation needed] this is it.
- Swizec 7y ago
  Simple network effects. You find the most cutting edge web development experts in the bay, just like you find the most movie makers in Hollywood. Is great work done elsewhere? Of course! But for better or for worse, the bay is where the most ambitious webdevs go righ now. Just like I bet the best aircraft engineers are in Chicago and Bethesda because that’s where Boeing and Lockheed are. It’s not the talent that lags behind, it’s the environment.
  - fogetti 7y ago
    This is an extremely limited and uninformed view of the world. Especially considering what Boeing goes through right now, I would say the best aircraft engineers right now are located in Europe and they work in the Airbus headquarters. But other than that: most recent innovative payment providers are coming mostly from Europe these days. Transferwise or Revolut comes to my mind as two such examples. Out of which Revolut reached a total valuation $1.7 billion not so long ago. Also let's take a look at the online music streaming landscape: Tidal, Deezer and Spotify are all European companies. There are whole industries (or segments at least) where SV is lagging behind. So this environment argument doesn't hold any water. Maybe there was a very narrow time period, let's say 10 years or so, when SV was really ahead of the pack in terms of technical skills, but those times are over. And BTW, I didn't even mention machine learning and AI, where China is basically becoming the world leader right now.
    - geggam 7y ago
      Californias GDP compared to the rest of the world tells a different story than what you are telling here. k8s came from where ? Containers ( cgroups ) came from where ? Hashicorp is the standard for devops Elon and Tesla took a curve out of IT but guess where they started ? Your few startups are nice but the technology they run on is built in SV and that continues to be the place of innovation regardless of VCs trying to spark it elsewhere. Yes other areas are innovating but SV does remain one of the most innovative area if not the main one. Everything else pales in comparison

by geggam 7y ago

djohnston 7y ago

This ignores OPs point that if remote work is normalized, they won't be asking you for anything anymore.

VectorLock 7y ago

SV companies are constantly trying to find new ways to push the "life/work" balance as solidly an inextricably towards "work" as possible. Coercing you to be in SV shows you're committed to that, and are willing to sacrifice attachments you might have to family in other areas to give it all to the company. Making you be on site in SV gives them access to so many more work-squeezing tactics. Free lunches! (less personal time during lunches and you're talking about work at lunch anyways) On-site laundry! (less time you're doing mundane chores, more time you're working.)

bitwize 7y ago
It's a bit like stockbrokers in NYC. In order to be taken seriously by your peers, you have to spring for the expensive luxury Manhattan apartment. If you live in Queens or New Jersey and commute into Manhattan, that tells the brokerage you won't be hungry enough to work as aggressively as they need and you will be first in line to be fired.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Find better peers.
  - wffurr 7y ago
    Yeah that's not the issue. It's when an entire industry is set up this way and the people with the real money want their highly pair employees to be competitive and addicted to their high pay. So what you are saying instead is find a better industry to be in and better people to work for. Ultimately though distribution of wealth as incredibly unequal as it is limits that choice substantially.
    - blaser-waffle 7y ago
      Self reinforcing loop. Publicly traded company has officers who have a fiduciary responsibility to return on investment aka they need to keep the stock price up and/or generate returns. Doesn't even have to be public, just one where the owners or investors are cracking the whip. Consistently failing to make it grow mean they get the axe, which means they replace the nice, patient people with aggressive type-a folks who do what needs to be done. Rise-and-repeat over several cycles and you start to see this hardcore work culture. The fat bonuses only reinforce it further. If you're gonna be copping six-figure bonuses you either hustle or you gtfo of the way, because there are plenty of people that would bust their ass for that chance. Again, play that cycle out over a few decades and here we are. It's toxic as hell, but it shouldn't be surprising that it turns out this way since it's 100% structural.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jen20 7y ago

> Talent outside the bay lags behind Wow if ever there was a [citation needed] this is it.

Swizec 7y ago
Simple network effects. You find the most cutting edge web development experts in the bay, just like you find the most movie makers in Hollywood. Is great work done elsewhere? Of course! But for better or for worse, the bay is where the most ambitious webdevs go righ now. Just like I bet the best aircraft engineers are in Chicago and Bethesda because that’s where Boeing and Lockheed are. It’s not the talent that lags behind, it’s the environment.
- fogetti 7y ago
  This is an extremely limited and uninformed view of the world. Especially considering what Boeing goes through right now, I would say the best aircraft engineers right now are located in Europe and they work in the Airbus headquarters. But other than that: most recent innovative payment providers are coming mostly from Europe these days. Transferwise or Revolut comes to my mind as two such examples. Out of which Revolut reached a total valuation $1.7 billion not so long ago. Also let's take a look at the online music streaming landscape: Tidal, Deezer and Spotify are all European companies. There are whole industries (or segments at least) where SV is lagging behind. So this environment argument doesn't hold any water. Maybe there was a very narrow time period, let's say 10 years or so, when SV was really ahead of the pack in terms of technical skills, but those times are over. And BTW, I didn't even mention machine learning and AI, where China is basically becoming the world leader right now.
  - geggam 7y ago
    Californias GDP compared to the rest of the world tells a different story than what you are telling here. k8s came from where ? Containers ( cgroups ) came from where ? Hashicorp is the standard for devops Elon and Tesla took a curve out of IT but guess where they started ? Your few startups are nice but the technology they run on is built in SV and that continues to be the place of innovation regardless of VCs trying to spark it elsewhere. Yes other areas are innovating but SV does remain one of the most innovative area if not the main one. Everything else pales in comparison