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Tech elites leaving San Francisco threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy
- ijidak 6y agoThere is a supremacy, but the idea that it is threatened is hyperbolic, designed to get readers. This is a small shift in the grand scheme. It might help create new centers. But the gravity is going to be around the universities and infrastructure that is unique to the area. Shifts like that rarely happen overnight. Especially not because of something as temporary as a pandemic.
- claydavisss 6y agoThe "shift" has already been happening for a decade or more, covid just created a few visible outlier migrations that have pushed the conversation into the open. At this point, Netflix is the only major company I know of that that still locates 100% of software work in the Bay Area.
- herbst 6y agoThere are great universities outside of sf and even the us. ETH zurich for example. In zurich you also have google, oracle and co. We also have high speed internet for cheap. And are able to fo worldwide business, even in a pandemic. And thats just switzerland. Not sure if there is any reason for sf once most startups moved sonewhere else.
- xiphias2 6y agoOne of the things that would maybe help Switzerland is to make English an official language (there are already 4 langauges, supporting English wouldn't be that hard). For me dealing with Swiss laws to make a company would make things much harder than for people who speak German well.
- medium_burrito 6y agoYou have 4 different official languages to choose from; surely it cannot be that hard to learn one of them for even the most meanly educated tech worker?
- xiphias2 6y agoI tried to learn Swiss German, but gave up quite fast, it's just not my style. Also even people who came from Germany said that it's hard for them, and Swiss people never really take them in their social circle, that took away all my motivation. I could do everything in English though except the tax returns, it just didn't feel like home to me, so like many others I came away. Good luck fitting in for you when you get there!
- medium_burrito 6y agoI speak several languages fluently, so no big deal for me, but one of my talents is learning languages easily. The not fitting in is a way bigger deal in Switzerland. Germans will never be accepted, no matter what. Eastern Europeans aren't even considered people.
- herbst 6y agoThen again as austrian o barely face any issues.
- residentfoam 6y agoStill, I am sure Zurich wouldn't even come close to the number of opportunities one get in SV. My LinkedIn account is always flooded by recruiters. That gives engineers leverage to seek new and better opportunities all the time. Plus networking is also a big one. Unless you get a job at Google/Oracle and planning on retiring there, SV wins hands down. The language barrier is also a no go along with cost of living.
- tharne 6y agoNew England has a ton of world-class universities and yet nothing even close to Silicon Valley. The gravity you mention, is the people, and once they start leaving that "gravity" goes with them.
- nradov 6y agoNew England had something close to (or even superior to) Silicon Valley. Most of the leading minicomputer companies were headquartered in the Boston area, and benefitted from the world-class universities there. But that industry collectively missed disruptive changes from minicomputers to microcomputers, and then the Internet.
- ghaff 6y agoIn fairness, I think that's partly comes from defining "tech" as the stuff that's done in Silicon Valley. SV doesn't have the pharma and biotech that Cambridge has for example. That said, there was something of a shift westward for VC funding and new company formation post the minicomputer era and a lot of the new tech-related employment in the city proper are outposts of west coast companies. (There was basically not a single tech company in Boston proper after Teradyne moved out until the past 20 years or so. The computer companies were all outside; hence "Route 128" companies.)
- zarkov99 6y agoThe university situation is not particularly unique in SV. What other infrastructure do you mean?
- ijidak 6y agoVenture capital, finance, concentration of mentors, proximity to Asia, liberal culture and massive population of California. Infrastructure might be the wrong word. I was mainly thinking of soft factors that take time to grow following the exodus. As well as geography and demographics.
- zarkov99 6y agoI think other than proximity to Asia, Austin has all of this and fewer of the problems. I would not be surprised if there is a significant shif in the coming years.
- ed_balls 6y ago> Especially not because of something as temporary as a pandemic. One could argue that diseases were major contributors to the collapse of the Roman Empire - internal problems didn't allow them to keep the external forces at bay.
- polskibus 6y agoPaywalled, can anyone provide a summary?
- bigyikes 6y agoAs it happens, tomorrow I’m putting in my 30-day notice to terminate my lease and leave the Bay. (And I’m paying 2 additional months rent in fees to do so) Not being tied to the office fundamentally changes the calculus of choosing where to live. There just aren’t good reasons to live here anymore for so many of us. Even if you enjoy the area, chances are you can get a better deal by moving just a bit further away. Actually, I can pay the 2 months rent in termination fees and move almost literally anywhere else in the state and still come out ahead financially. Since commute time is not a factor, many options have become viable.
- sandworm101 6y ago>> and still come out ahead financially. Ya. Earning a SF wage but living elsewhere is great. But there is a flip side to this coin. As employees realize they can work from home, employers also realize they can have employees work from home. They will soon realize they don't need to pay SF wages. Those who convert their in-office jobs into work-from-home are a covid oddity. Those who will be hired in the future on the assumption that they will always work remotely will likely face much lower wages. I predict a race for the bottom.
- birdyrooster 6y agoWe’ve been trying to hire these people for ages locally and remotely and we still couldn’t find them so I have no idea where you think all the talent was hiding until covid 19.
- etimberg 6y agoA lot of people, myself included, have been quite hesitant to work remotely until now. I've been pleasantly surprised how well it's gone and would consider a remote position in the future but I think it'd have to be a fully remote team. When offices do return, being one of a few remote workers means you will likely be left out of a lot of teambuilding, conversations, etc.
- 6y ago
- zteppenwolf 6y agoWhat a shitty website with such click bait lol
- coldtea 6y ago>threaten Silicon Valley's supremacy There was no inherent "supremacy", just one created by a bunch of companies being together. Did SV municipalities do anything else to deserve it? There are better places, with more rental space, more resources, better weather, and so on, plus WFH is here to stay...
- qppo 6y agoNot municipalities but the state's labor laws are highly conducive to the tech culture and don't exist most places in the country. There's not much money for the startup crop that feeds big tech outside the Bay Area. It's all on Sand Hill Road. I can only speak for myself but I'll never live in a red state again. Not even Texas, it's not worth it. Even where I grew up (the purple midwest) is too socially conservative for me after living in California.
- gedy 6y agoUnless you are a political junky reading news all day - what practically speaking is so intolerable about living there or your neighbors?
- renewiltord 6y agoIt's hard to describe to people who are both White and American. That's not because they're inherently incapable of understanding. It's just a problem you don't face as much so you don't understand it. It's like how for most of my life I barely understood the mitigating measures women take in many situations where I don't even notice the situation.
- gedy 6y agoEast Asian family in different parts of Texas are California expats and love it.
- renewiltord 6y ago
- clubdorothe 6y agoGenuine question: Are the the local communities who complained about tech people raising price are now happy/satisfied?
- ylhert 6y agoTech in SFBA reminds me of the Resource curse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse). SFBA did nothing special to attract the wealth of technology companies, they effectively got lucky with Shockley/Fairchild/Traitorous 8 and the boom in technology that followed. It seems the local gov't have squandered an opportunity to truly capitalize on the gift they were given, and perhaps even done their best to jeopardize these resources.
- dekhn 6y agoThis is ridiculous. The Bay Area, specifically Stanford and Berkeley, contributed to the WWII tech research initiative and then afterwards, Terman made Stanford Research Park which led to Silicon Valley.
- bgorman 6y agoWithout William Shockley moving to the west coast, the "Silicon" part of Silicon Valley would likely be elsewhere in the world.
- dekhn 6y agohe played an important role, but all the work by military tech companies and stanford during the war did as well.
- obmelvin 6y agoAs you point out he could've chosen elsewhere to move. Seems likely the aforementioned developments helped him pick where he did.
- jgon 6y agoHe chose to move where he did because he was raised there and moved back to take care of his ailing mother.
- CalChris 6y ago
- tharne 6y agoThis is what happens when a city neglects basic quality of life issues, and allows petty crime to thrive. It happened to New York in the 1970's and took roughly three decades to recover from. Good luck, San Francisco.
- shuckles 6y agoI don't think New York in the 70s can be explained by its own governance alone, so I object to your characterization of New York in the 70s being the result of its own failings. The state and federal governments basically abandoned the place ("Ford to City: Drop Dead"), and something similar is happening to San Francisco as well. What a loss for the country, as the next Silicon Valley, if there is one, likely won't be in the United States.
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoBecoming so hated that people want you to fail is arguably "the result of its own failings" regardless of whether the subject is NYC then or SF now.
- shuckles 6y agoThe urban vs. rural culture war in politics has little to do with inherent value and everything to do with resource allocation in an government system that allocates highly leveraged influence to the individuals on one side.
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoThis isn't about urban vs rural. Thinking SV is such a joke it must be run by clowns is one of the (few, but these kinds of people have more in common than you'd think) things that inner city types and people from the panhandle of any state that has a panhandle have in common.
- shuckles 6y ago
- angelbar 6y ago"That's a good thing"® ™
- munaf 6y agoIt's notable that a lot of people are moving, but I'd wait until at least early 2022 to make judgements about lasting impacts on SV. WFH might not stick widely, and some firms will pick a hybrid model (i.e. partial WFH) over going fully remote. Not to mention that few places can match all the benefits of SV, i.e. unenforceable non-competes, fantastic weather and surroundings, an educated and diverse population, cultural activities, very high compensation, etc. I don't think it'll be as easy to displace SV as these articles regularly imply, despite the downsides of living here.
- fossuser 6y agoYeah, I've had some friends leave (to CO and DC), but I'm skeptical of companies and VCs leaving. For a kind of funny example, there was an episode of the all-in podcast (mostly a podcast of successful VCs) where they talked about SV politics and leaving. The irony was while they talked about CA politics to an absurd degree ("worst run state in US", etc.) when they asked each other if they were planning on leaving all of them said no. People complain a lot (and there are good reasons to complain!), but people have been complaining since at least 1993 and it's still an economic hub for startups. I'm skeptical of that leaving. I have seen coworkers and friends leave, but it's mostly a housing issue. As people turn 30 and want to have a family if you haven't cashed out $5M in some exit event then it sucks to live here. $500k can get you a nice place in CO, $750k for outside Seattle. I have had older friends leave to have a family. They went to Santa Cruz, Seattle, Denver, DC, and Austin. It's a shame. The ones that stayed either are very rich where a $5M house is not an issue, or they still live with three roommates and rent without kids. Some other reasons to complain about, but that I don't think are usually deciding factors for people to leave: - Bad policy (AB5), Extra founder Tax, Hostility towards tech in general. - Political monoculture (I don't mean not enough trump people, I mean it can be controversial to be an obama era moderate/neoliberal and 'woke' politics is hard to avoid). - High state taxes that harm capital gains and new money. This is related to housing and prop13. Not only do the people that live in housing they bought decades ago pay almost no property tax compared to new buyers, they then push to restrict new supply while also pushing to increase tax on new money. This comes in the form of higher capital gains tax (there's a bill to raise it to 16.3% this year retroactively, by far the highest in the country). They also push legislation to increase tax on the companies excluding homeowners to fund their services (which indirectly affects the employees again). This kind of thing makes it doubly hard to be able to buy in and live here.
- jamesmehaffey 6y agoWeather aside, I really enjoyed living in Amsterdam. It is a crowded and rather small city, but it is a big center for banking and tech. Europe doesn’t really do the sprawling mega cities like the US does, though everything is very well connected. Still though, that headline is a bit overblown.
- ChuckNorris89 6y agoAmsterdam is a pretty expensive city(for Europe, I know it's cheap compared to Sf but so is everything else out there). Wow are the median tech salaries there?
- jamesmehaffey 6y agoI suppose the salaries are somewhat comparable if perhaps a little lower, however the cost of living is much less in general compared to SF. The most important thing is that the beer is inexpensive, and the fact that you can spend every weekend in a different city for next to nothing more than makes up for the discrepancy.
- ChuckNorris89 6y agoI wasn't comparing Amsterdam to SF since nothin in Europe comes close to Bay Area, I was saying Amsterdam is expensive compared to most cities in Europe but when I look t wages I don't see anything special than cities in Europe with a lower CoL.
- javajosh 6y agoThe walkability of older European cities cannot be overstated as a huge quality-of-life improvement! Bikability too, which is a big feature of many European cities. The language issue is real, though. It's probably better, I think, to accept that you can't speak the language, and to give yourself a break learning it. If you like it, and want to learn, and want to be able to deal with banks and mobile providers over the phone (extremely difficult without fluency, and computer translation tools won't help you!), then take a class, and take it slowly. It's stressful enough to move overseas. My advice is not to add language on top of everything else you have to learn - you are lucky to speak English, so lean into that. (Many people will appreciate practicing their English with a native speaker, too - although some small minority will hate you for it.) But yeah, don't do what I did and try to do everything at once. It's stressful, exhausting, and you never give yourself a chance to recover, mentally or emotionally, from the stress of learning. Be kind to yourself!
- corytheboyd 6y agoIt sucks to be locked up in the apartment watching my favorite places die. I grew up with San Francisco in my life, and have lived here myself for 10 years. Just trying to give out some positive energy for this place, but also it deserves all of the negative comments lol. Anyway, I too am moving on, San Francisco (in February), thanks for helping make me who I am today :)
- vmception 6y agoYou see the irony right? I'm only mocking the gatekeeping done in SF but they'd say you would have no claim to "watching SF die" if you moved there in the last ten years, because you killed it. Rents have only dropped to levels seen in the last few years lol, and will just "crater" to 2010 levels once tech and students finish leaving.
- corytheboyd 6y ago“Tech killed SF” is such a tired scapegoat. I also didn’t even work in tech when I first moved here, does that unfairly change your perception of my “killing SF”? Without the tech angle, arguments like this to me are reduced to the weight of “KIDS THESE DAYS DON’T GET IT AND RUIN EVERYTHING THAT I USED TO LIKE”
- vmception 6y agoI don't care I'm mocking the entire sentiment. Every single thing I've ever heard about how "SF used to be" sounds even more unappealing than what it is today. "Oh wow all the currently nice neighborhoods were sketchy ghettos? How quaint!" but at least artists could live there! As soon as you leave SF you will realize how weak and absurd the various generation's arguments about SF are.
- corytheboyd 6y agoMaybe it came across differently but I’m not so emotionally attached to this place that I can’t see past the romance tinted glasses. Any place you spend a good chunk of your life in will have an impact, one of those places was SF for me. I’m not defending anyone, or really standing on a platform of my own even. It was just a nice place to live for a while and it’s also nice to be moving on :)
- NeverFade 6y agoInstead of trying to help the tech boom and the people who created it, SFBA government and locals grew ever more greedy and entitled, looking to fleece techies at every opportunity. "Why should we build more affordable housing? We'd rather ban development, and make these 'rich young techies' pay through the nose to landlords who just happened to buy a house here 20 years ago!" "Who cares about ensuring reasonable quality and cost of living in SF? As the local government, we'd rather just figure out a way to tax the crap out of them!" Enjoy the result.
- rhacker 6y agoI don't understand how the bay area could even handle more people. I think you'd have to increase the number of lanes on the 101, 280, 237, 85 by at least 4 more to make it work with the current population.
- VintageLight 6y agoYou could build up housing density in the places that people work so they wouldn't have to commute.
- rmk 6y agoMass transit is what enables population growth, but the numbskulls in the Bay Area decided to have a dozen different transit agencies who all fight like mortal enemies when it comes to even simple things like coordination of schedules. Not to mention the complete incompetence in just improving existing infrastructure like Caltrain and various light rail systems.
- NeverFade 6y agoHigher density housing. You can turn parts of the bay into a modern city, with highrises. That way folks won't have to commute to work. Or you can massively increase transportation capacity, not just with roads but (more effectively) with trains and subways and other forms of fast, efficient public transportation. Of course none of this will ever happen, SFBA residents and government will continue to exclusively focus on slaughtering their golden geese until they all gone.
- neurobashing 6y agoHow many companies recant on the benefits of remote work and return to offices, how much "geo-pay" gets accepted as "well this is how remote work is now", and probably people burning out of working out of their home office are things to watch in the next few years. People might actually want to go back to places like SV when they get bored making 2/3 less in some quiet burg in Indiana.
- AndrewKemendo 6y agoI'd love to hear from people who want to stay in the Bay area what is unique that you cannot find elsewhere in cheaper locales. I lived in Mountain View for 3 months during 500 startups and the valley proper was the most garden variety suburban existence you could find anywhere. I lived in SF proper off and on and can attest that it certainly has (had?) fantastic restaurants/shops and a particular type of culture that many people love. However the basic infrastructure and problems with SF are well known and have been documented. I can't see at this point how the former plusses of SF outweigh the latter negatives and frankly I see no inherent plusses to the Valley. It seems that people (technologists mostly) literally only value the valley because of technology companies and even more pointedly - because that's where the big VC money lives.
- kilbuz 6y agoFor me (in SF): climate that matches what I want perfectly. The option for snow or beaches on the same day. The food, the diversity, the grittiness, the jobs, the history. And all my family lives here, too. The biggest one of all: walkability, never having to get in my car unless I want to leave the city. Where did you end up moving that you found a better fit for yourself?
- AndrewKemendo 6y agoNorthern Virginia about an Hour from DC. The only two things you miss in VA on your list is "grittiness" which is a negative for me, and walkability, which you could get if you go closer to DC.
- kilbuz 6y agoAnd the family, which is maybe the biggest draw for many of us. The more I think about it, the more I realize the choice of where you live is barely rational, if at all. Sure we come up with reason about why we are where we are post hoc, but are those the real reasons? I can almost guarantee I will never move to DC or Virginia. Not because it isn't an amazing place with everything you can want, but because it's just not me for some reason that's hard to articulate. I would guess you would almost guarantee you'd never move to CA, too.
- Arubis 6y agoHaving read this headline ad infinium over the last 20 years or so, I will believe this when the majority of VCs move out of, and not "keep a place" in, the Bay Area. Other places have and will continue to develop, and that's great! But the center of gravity is going to remain where you can get face time with investors.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- standardUser 6y agoKeen observers will notice a dozen or more US-based tech hubs emerging in those 20 years. Twenty years ago, where else would you go for a promising/lucrative tech career? Today, you can pick a state!
- Arubis 6y agoCompletely true! But the center of gravity remains unmoved. For context: I've never lived in the bay area; if anything, I'd benefit from there being more dissipation.
- rmk 6y agoThe major obstacle to living in SV is the insane cost of homeownership that puts the (pretty commonplace) aspiration of living in one's own home with a nice yard out of reach of all but the richest (even being in the top 5% of incomes in the nation is no guarantee of being able to own a house in Palo Alto, for example.) With the recent passing of Prop 19, things get even worse: people who are looking to inherit homes from their parents are in for a shock if they have siblings --- they may be forced to pay a much higher property tax if they do not all live in the property! Prop 19 is written to benefit Realtors and Firefighters: realtors get to pry houses out of seniors' hands to sell, and firefighters get to increase their salaries and ranks. Prop 19 will also massively reduce incentives to rent (or alternately, bump up rents to much higher levels to cover the much higher property taxes), leaving housing the same or much worse off (my bet is on the latter.) Add to this the ridiculously high income tax burden and sales tax burden, and it becomes clear that raising children is also out of reach for most (particularly if you do not want to send your children to the piss-poor public schools in many areas.) For singles also, particularly men (who comprise the majority of techies), things are pretty bleak: there is too much competition for women, and opportunities to date do not come by easily at all. If homeownership and family formation are supremely hard, and so is finding a mate, what exactly is the rationale for continuing to live in the Bay Area? It seems to me that the Bay Area will become an in-and-out type of place (like Manhattan or some of the other New York boroughs perhaps), wherein you bust your ass for several years and decamp to a lower-tax (or better still, no-tax) jurisdiction to get on with the next phase of your life.
- akhilcacharya 6y ago> poor public schools in many areas What exactly makes them so bad?
- rmk 6y agoI don't know exactly, but my experience is that most parents say private schools do a better job (teachers are better engaged and aren't checked out, apathetic pencil pushers). In the areas with good school districts (and there are a handful of those), things swing to another extreme: too much pressure, like Singapore-style schools, which causes children to buckle under the pressure later in their lives.
- api 6y agoThe NIMBYs might get their wish...
- cultofmetatron 6y agogiven how much the locals hate techies, the migration couldn't happen soon enough. I haven't been in SF in 4 years and its been great. I made valuable contacts but beyond that, there isn't much SF offers now that remote work is becoming mainstream
- krohling 6y agoAfter 10 years in the Bay Area tech scene I'm sitting here at a co-working space in Poulsbo, WA. Home ownership is still a challenge given how crazy the market is for places that are not in a city but close enough to commute if you wanted to. However, many QoL enhancements including views of the mountains every day, close to the Olympics, generally lower taxes/cost of living. I left the Bay in June and don't see going back any time soon.
- exogeny 6y agoRabois is a clown, an arrogant jerk who isn't worth taking seriously. Even if you ignore his multiple sexual harassment scandals, it's very clear that he's a hypocrite on this issue and therefore should not be taken seriously on this or any issue. After all, he claims to want to solve big problems, and ostensibly there is no bigger problem in his world than this. And yet, he wants to cut and run; why? Well, it starts with the fact that he's only got one hammer, and that hammer is to give the white kid from Stanford $10 million, and then backup that investment by subsidizing losses in a race to monopoly. If and when it works, Rabois then takes the credit. But this is a problem that he can't solve, certainly not in the way he solves things, and even if he did, it would run up against the libertarian fantasies that infuse every tweet he writes. As opposed to admitting failure and admitting that his narrow-range expertise doesn't apply to everything, he runs to Miami instead, proving that he's simply a rent-seeker fraud there to sap the area of its resources until the resources are dry, complaining the entire time about how unfairly he's been treated in that he hasn't been getting his ass kissed in the manner in which he's become familiar.
- pluc 6y agoI can't read this article because this site is blocking me from doing so.
- bcheung 6y agoIf you hit <esc> at just the right time you can get it before the article disappears.
- nrmitchi 6y agoNote that I have no evidence to support this hypothesis, and I would love if someone would prove me wrong, but I suspect the following: - The "Tech Elite" who are leaving are, by definition, the ones who have the financial freedom to go pretty much wherever they want. Anyone mentioned in this article could buy a house in Miami/Austin/Denver without worrying about any transaction costs if they turn around and sell it in 6 months. - SF (and California in general) are being much more aggressive with anti-COVID policies. - The cities that are being focused on (Miami and Austin) are overall pretending that COVID isn't a thing (I live in Austin, and this is my experience). - Well-off individuals currently under lock-down are looking at people living "freely" in Florida/Texas and are jealous, because they think that the SF-lockdown rules shouldn't apply to them, because they are less at risk (this is a discussion for another day) - They've now set themselves up with a plausible "I moved out of California. My reason was COVID." story to try to avoid paying California state taxes in the future, even if they still end up being back in SF the majority of the time for their business. tldr; the "elites" leaving are moving for short-term quality-of-life improvements due to COVID, and will have no issue turning around and moving back in 6-12 months when SF is "open for business" again. Update: I have seen the shift in Austin from watching stories/tweets/social-media of people who have been moving from SF -> Austin. I was excited at first of the prospect of Austin become a much larger tech city, but am now noticing that the overwhelming majority of this content (although I could easily be seeing a biased sample, of course) is that the vocal group of "I moved from SF to Austin" is the same group that is extremely excited to go out to restaurants and public events again.
- throwaway45349 6y agoWhat's wrong with going to restaurants and public events? If people don't want to be locked down, there's not much you can do about that.
- nrmitchi 6y agoI did not state one way or the other in my comment about whether it was right or wrong, and frankly my opinion on that topic is not of importance to my point here. I stated that it seems clear that these people are moving way from temporary restrictions (by relocating to places that do not have the same restrictions), and that there is no guarantee that any of these will be 'permanent' moves after those restrictions are no longer applicable.
- Xcelerate 6y agoIt will be interesting to see what happens. I work at one of FANG and recently relocated to Asheville from the Bay Area (sooner than I expected; we have a newborn and wildfire smoke was getting pretty bad). Compensation adjustment is surprisingly less than I would have expected, although it's hard to say if this trend will hold over the next decade or not. Our rent is 1/4 of what it was in the Bay Area for one more bedroom now. I do miss California a lot though; the weather, food, and culture are very hard to beat (although Asheville isn't too bad in this regard, but at perhaps 1/20 of the scale). Ironically, with the amount that I am able to save from not living there anymore, I plan to save up and buy a house somewhere in the Bay Area in 15-20 years. But this is assuming my income will remain at Silicon Valley levels. If companies change their mind about embracing remote work, it will drop quite a bit since we are definitely not moving back any time soon. Personally, I feel that I am more productive working remotely than in person, but I do miss all of the office perks.
- burntoutfire 6y ago> wildfire smoke was getting pretty bad For reference, can you give some numbers on this situation, such as average/high daily PM25? I've heard multiple people refer to the smoke as bad, but I'm wondering what it means exactly.
- pbuzbee 6y agoThis site offers visualizations of air quality over time: https://www.epa.gov/outdoor-air-quality-data/air-data-multiyear-tile-plot https://www.epa.gov/outdoor-air-quality-data/air-data-multiy...
- sfblah 6y agoI think people in this thread have expressed well that the concern is when you want to change jobs. It's just a lot easier to do when you're in the area.
- Trias11 6y agoI did it too in March. Working remotely for the same company. Getting 10% more pay just because i vote with my feet. DemocRATs destroying CA. And NY.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- raldi 6y agoSilicon Valley is Over is the new The Suit is Back. "I think it's fair to say that Silicon Valley is dead." —Founder of Altavista, 1993 https://groups.google.com/g/alt.folklore.computers/c/bvE0Ka5nCnM/m/NAIOQnrEyCAJ https://groups.google.com/g/alt.folklore.computers/c/bvE0Ka5... (Link doesn't work on mobile)
- omgwtfbyobbq 6y agoEverything old really is new again. The cost of housing and office space has spiraled out of control, thanks to the environmentalists and Prop 13.
- zapita 6y agoI don’t see much discussion of the unmovable reality of timezones. Sure, any tech worker can work remotely for any employer... In theory. In practice, timezone distance is becoming the new relevant measure of distance. The further you are (in TZ distance) from an organization’s management, the less opportunities are available to you in that organization, because the degraded communication will make it impossible for you to fully participate in the decision-making process. So I think that the most skilled tech workers over time will gravitate to areas which combine 1) high quality of living and 2) minimal timezone distance from management.
- barce 6y agoIt's still difficult to export very unique tangibles and intangibles from Silicon Valley. The intangibles: a high tolerance for risk and a high degree of insatiable curiosity unfettered by local religious and cultural customs found elsewhere. And these both fostered at the universities. Tangibles: Capital as a result of the largest growth of wealth in human history & the only port in the United States to export more items than it imports - I'm referring to the port of Oakland. The light manufacturing sector is wholly responsible for this and is always underestimated. This sector is always the first to try on Silicon Valley innovations despite such innovations being readily available on the Internet. If anything, these souls leaving are merely setting up satellite bases for Silicon Valley's continued hegemony.
- qqqwerty 6y agoAgreed. The tech industry had a very deep and localized impact in the last 30 years, but the conditions that led to the CA boom extend well beyond tech. Broadly, the ports, agriculture, weather, culture of tolerance, universities, natural spaces, etc. all contribute to the "innovation melting pot". If you are going to start a startup, CA provides much more than just VC funding. Tangentially, lots of folks complain about high CA taxes, but these taxes largely go towards local projects and paying local salaries (unlike Federal taxes). These projects and jobs are direct stimulus to the economy and also provide a large potential customer base to startups. This is likely playing a bigger role in the startup ecosystem than most people realize. On a more specific and personal anecdote, the green/clean energy sector is heavily based in CA because CA was an early mover in climate change energy policy and regulation. These policies started in the 70's, and the long slow growth of the industry that they enabled may be the primary reason that the US is even remotely in a position to try and tackle climate change (still a long way to go though). It takes a certain cultural and political climate to embrace these types of things, especially when the potential return on investment is on such long timescales.
- iancmceachern 6y agoIt has everything to do with the lack of overly constrictive employer non compete agreements. I personally do not want to live in a state that allows an employer to own the work of an employee that is created on personal time at personal cost. Its simple freedom, freedom to create.
- KoftaBob 6y agoSF could've been a modern metropolis if the state and local government had effectively taken advantage of their tech boom. Instead, the NIMBYs and their passionate hatred for any change or growth led to a bottleneck in progress. New housing construction has been anemic at best, and Prop 13 has starved local budgets (especially schools). So they took the economic/innovation powerhouse of tech and squandered it with absurd housing costs and an inability to pay civil servants adequately. To all the SF locals who regularly pushed for these things, you reap what you sow, and all the damage to SF is on you.
- fortran77 6y agoThere's more to "Silicon Valley" than San Francisco. I'd argue that SF isn't really part of the "Valley". Certainly not by a geographical definition of a valley.
- standardUser 6y agoThe tech industry has beaten the Bay Area to within inches of its life. The pandemic may have saved it. Political mismanagement probably deserves most of the blame, because how else do you explain a historically significant economic boom reducing the quality of life for a highly developed region? I tried for many years to view the tech boom optimistically, but I as wrong.
- jaredtn 6y agoYou said it youself: political mismanagement. Make it illegal to build apartment buildings, make it impossible to build good public transit. Ban plastic straws. Refuse to prosecute criminals. Close the safe outdoor parks. Force public servants to pay into a bloated pension system. That's how you reduce the quality of life.
- halfmatthalfcat 6y agoLol ban plastic straws.
- sneeze-slayer 6y agoYes, if only we had our plastic straws, then all the problems in the area would magically disappear.
- jaredtn 6y agoThat's exactly my point :) It's not that plastic straws are significantly good or bad - they're a distraction from the real issues. And the fact that it gets any airtime at all is absolutely ridiculous. Certainly distracted you from discussing housing, infrastructure, or crime in your response.
- sneeze-slayer 6y agoI can agree with that. Plastic straws suck, and banning them is good for oceans, but small stuff like this is focused on. Just ban them/add a surcharge, like plastic bags, and move on to bigger things.
- IcePowder 6y agoClick Bait for Business Insider.
- coffee 6y agoThis is wonderful, in my opinion. The bay area has become crowded and expensive. Looking forward to that changing :-)
- JJMcJ 6y agoHow many are really leaving? A few thousand departures can result in a flood of rentals on the market, depressing prices. Many articles on many subjects began with the writer observing a few people doing something and turn it into trend spotting.
- ur-whale 6y agohttps://archive.is/R1JB1 https://archive.is/R1JB1
- beeforpork 6y agoTo me, 'supremacy' sounds scary -- not positive at all. Too much misuse of all kinds of perceived supremacy.
- 01100011 6y agoEh, I'd love to leave but I think, as an aging engineer(45) my prospects are better if I stay. Sure, if I was a top technical contributor I'd leave in a second, but I'm not. I need to be close to HQ for now until I receive a strong signal from management indicating otherwise. I did recently evaluate moving to our Redmond office so that I can better care for my aging mother in my old hometown. Then I saw that houses nearby are even more expensive than the bay area. Nuts. Finding a rental house that can accomodate my mom and family in the south bay will not be easy though. Slightly unrelated, I'm excited to see if satellite internet will open up even more remote areas of the country to remote developers. It would be nice to setup a coding cabin in the backwoods somewhere far from the city, where I can go part-time to escape the din.
- xivzgrev 6y agoBlah blah blah. There are still a lot of people and companies based in Silicon Valley. If anything Silicon Valley will die a slow death, and that won’t be clear until after the covid dust settles. For now people are still paying absurd amounts for homes so no lack of people wanting to live there (yet)
- dep_b 6y agoIt always felt to me like everybody likes to hype up the amount of people leaving in the hope that people actually leave and the rent might go down. I don't think people really want leave San Francisco and the few unlucky ones that do will pay even more rent when they come back as soon as things start booming again.
- amoorthy 6y agoFor me, the Bay Area offers a few benefits that are hard to replicate elsewhere. 1. Cultural diversity. I'm an immigrant and having lived in Seattle, Boston, NYC, and Philadelphia, I'd say the Bay Area is hands-down the most welcoming of all of those. It may seem like a small point but my parents and family can walk downtown in traditional clothing and no one even notices. Not true elsewhere. 2. The weather. Initially I thought this was overstated but I've realized after two decades in Boston and Toronto that seeing trees without leaves for six months of the year has an impact of my mental health. Seeing greenery, and enjoying warmth, even in January has a huge positive impact on my health. 3. The optimism. Most people I meet in the Bay Area are optimistic about how a problem can be improved. That's rare and I haven't found that in other cities or countries I've lived in. As an entrepreneur that's a wonderful to be part of. Detractors of the Bay Area seem to hang out in very specific circles of friends which seem to be rather homogenous. A solution for me was having kids who go to public schools. I end up hanging out with people who are typically not other tech founders.
- tb303 6y ago1+2 for me, then i'd sub 3 with - access to the ocean, mountains (of different geology, from gentle rollers to crags & couloirs), forests, desert all within half a day's drive. not that your 3 isn't accurate, it would just be my #4 :)
- amoorthy 6y ago:-) I love the scenery here too. I get a lot of happiness just by seeing mountains and the bay even if I don't hike/swim there that often. Just driving down 280 has such a calming effect in a way that no highway on the east coast ever does for me.
- 11thEarlOfMar 6y agoThis general topic seems to come back into focus on a regular basis on HN. People have been leaving in numbers for the 30 years I've been here, always citing traffic & cost of housing as the primary reasons. Nonetheless, the population growth remains net positive. Re-posting my take: "The fundamental design of the Internet was to be robust against various forms of damage to the network. I see Silicon Valley as a similar type of system. It is not difficult to look back 40 years and see how at each inflection point, The Valley's constituent technologies, and the companies they spawned, led the rest of the world and scaled The Valley up. - In the 1980s, Silicon Valley's Intel lost it's dominance in DRAM production to Japan. The economic impact was dire, and yet - In the early 1990s, networking and workstations emerged from the likes of SUN and Cisco. They carried through until global competition stole their wind, and it was on to - The late 90s and the .COM boom. And what a boom it was, Amazon, Google, followed by another death knell for myriad .COM corpses. Promptly engendering - The 2000s birth of social media. MySpace faltered, then LinkedIn, then Facebook, then Twitter, came up and are still going strong on the foundation of - 2010s open source platforms. Still mind-blowing: At one point WhatsApp had 40 software engineers and 400,000,000 users. At 3 years old. I've heard about the exodus from California, usually citing so many thousands or 10s of thousands of people leaving. But looking a the net population changes, Santa Clara County is down 5,000 from 2018-2019. Alameda, San Mateo, San Francisco are all up. Silicon Valley is a system that regenerates from one generation to the next, and so far, always bigger and more influential than the last." Original post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24803215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24803215
- cercatrova 6y agoOne reason to stay in SV: Big tech total compensation is higher here than anywhere else in the world. That's why I'd continue to stay in SV rather than moving.
- ausjke 6y agoThe negative side is that those elites can not wait to make their new home the same as the old home, then they will move to yet another new place. It's called plague. As Texan, I dislike any companies who relocated from CA in particular, they're cancerous. Looking at what they did to Denver, Salt Lake etc.
- ausjke 6y agoNYC spread out the COVID-19 to the whole country. CA spread out the liberal and leftism to the whole country. Please do not come to Texas. You fled CA, then can't wait for a second to make your new home to become another CA, stop the plague.
- jader201 6y agoI’ve told my wife and others this for a while, but my prediction is that we’re going to see two big changes in a post COVID world: 1) Many companies will realize that they can not only survive, but thrive with employees working from home. 2) Satellite internet will open up rural areas to be a viable place for people to live and WFH. I speculate (and already see evidence) that there will be a shift for many office workers in congested cities to move to rural areas, for a simpler life, where it was not possible before due to both points above. If this becomes true, I’m curious to see what becomes of both real estate scarcity and prices for large lots of land in rural areas, and the impacts of the economy in these originally less viable areas for people to live and work, as they’re currently only inhabited by people that can earn a living from things like farming. I could be totally off, but this seems at least possible.
- foxtr0t 6y agoHow many times can SV, SF, the Bay Area, California die? How many of these articles will be written? How many 400+ comment meltdown threads about the end of Silicon Valley will we see? Our economy is cyclical, so is the technology industry, and so is the technology industry within the Bay Area. It seems to me a large cohort of the HN community has reached an age where they'd typically move to suburbs, "back home", or just to cheaper areas to raise a family. This was hastened by COVID, and yet, the next cohort of new grads is right around the corner, just like it is every year. Is the calculus about where to live different? Slightly, now you pick from 10 metros instead of 5. Are people going to be full time remote? Yes. Can they live anywhere? Certainly. Will new grads be better of starting out in an office just like most people here did? Certainly yes. Can we recognize for a moment that the collective value of the technology sector located along the West Coast is probably north of $10T? If anything, the tech industry is annexing new metros, not moving to them, as tech continues to eat the world.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- menomatter 6y agoSame with NY
- opportune 6y agoAs a perennial SF-complainer (mostly about housing) who also really likes SF, I'm convinced half the bay area haters have never even lived there, and judge the entire area based on hearsay or a single experience where they took BART from SFO to Civic Center.
- _prototype_ 6y agoDo not move to Texas please if you plan to vote the same way that has made California as unbearable as it is today.
- carapace 6y agoSan Fransisco isn't part of Silicon Valley. You have to drive for, like, an hour to get to SV from here. SF isn't a nice town. It has nice aspects and places, sure, but it's always been pretty rough here just under the surface. The initial Mission was like a concentration camp for Indians. I just found out that SF State University is built on an Ohlone graveyard. Chinatown was harsh, the population was almost entirely male, except for prostitutes who were often enslaved[1]. There were gangs of bandits living under the piers. What I'm saying is, folks moving here with their great tech jobs and expectations of picket fences and rose gardens are a little naive. You moved to a freak down and then got freaked out by the freaks. It's always been a weird place to go to start a software business. E.g. Twitter moving into the center of skid row was bizarre. They're not Mother Teresa? [1] "The White Devil's Daughters: The Fight Against Slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41181183-the-white-devil-s-daughters https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41181183-the-white-devil...
- Panini_Jones 6y ago> SF isn't a nice town You make this assertion but back it up by remarking on things from the past. The Mission was a bloodbath for Native Americans one or two centuries ago, yes, but how does that support your initial claim that it currently isn't a nice town? Is that supporting claim really affecting the residents of the mission so greatly right now? I think San Francisco is a nice town. I hated it before the pandemic because I only stuck to the Mission and SoMA. I started taking walks in Russian Hill, North Beach/Telegraph Hill, the Marina, Ocean Beach, etc. Those are awesome neighborhoods with great people and many things to do. Just like any city in the USA, you get out of it what you put into it.
- carapace 6y ago> The Mission ... currently isn't a nice town? I lived in the Mission District. I can tell you some stories. Gangsters and just crazy shit. It's still pretty wild there despite gentrification. Sunset used to have something called "Sunset District Incorporated" or something like that. Skinheads basically. Dunno how it is now. I went to high school in Hunters Point. Doublerock isn't as famous as Compton but it gets respect. East of 3rd street down there is where the enlightened progressives of San Francisco segregate our Black folks. What I'm saying is we have lots of different sorts of gangs here in SF. You don't get jumped for your Nike's on Muni so much these days, but still. But that's not all. Go walk around the Tenderloin for a minute (DO NOT ACTUALLY DO THIS, I am speaking rhetorically. It's physically dangerous. Highest incidence of male-on-male rape in the nation in the Tenderloin.) I lived there briefly and saw some wild things. I haven't even touched on the folks living in tents and in Golden Gate Park and down by Lake Merced, or the rampant public drug abuse downtown. > Russian Hill, North Beach/Telegraph Hill, the Marina, Ocean Beach, etc. Are you trolling? Those are the nice neighborhoods! Even Detroit has nice neighborhoods. In contrast I lived in a Canadian city for a little while and I can remember the night I was coming home late and it dawned on me that I was perfectly safe, in a way that I had never felt growing up in San Francisco. I love this town, but she's a shady lady. - - - - And BTW wtf are you doing going for walks and doing "many things" in the middle of a pandemic!? Goddamnit dude.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- adventured 6y agoWestern Europe is about to finally see a substantial tech boom. It won't be due to any of the rather laughable government programs being attempted there routinely, rather, it's going to be caused by a large influx of US venture capital that has begun and will get a lot larger across this decade. That venture capital will reshape European tech dramatically, altering how they do tech start-ups and producing the first new tech giants there. European governments however will take most of the credit for the boom, because all of their efforts have failed across decades now and they're desperate. The primary things lacking in Europe have been enough risk capital and the shaping (how it's done, how you rapidly scale tech giants globally), the US VCs will bring that capital and the understanding of how to build giants (which Europe entirely lacks); they have all the talent necessary. Also, tech salaries in Europe will increase dramatically as they begin building some giants that poach at ever higher salaries.
- n13 6y agoDo you mind if I ask you few questions via email?
- bcheung 6y agoAs a bay area native (since 1980) thought I would add my reasons for moving and my thought process. These are my observations and opinions only. YMMV I recently sold my house and moved to Las Vegas. It was largely for quality of life and failed gov't policies which seem like they are only going to continue. I moved from a 1800sqft family home to a 5000sqft fully furnished mansion for the same price. It's actually cheaper when you consider not having state income tax and having roommates brings the cost down even more. Granted I'm currently renting but plan on buying again within the next few years if I decide I like it here. Once COVID-19 happened it seemed like remote work was going to become the new norm, even after the pandemic passes. I'm predicting downward home price pressure in the SF bay area and a slight increase in other metro areas where tech workers are migrating to (slightly in Vegas but much more so in Austin). I wanted to sell my home before that happened. I also think the suburbs further away from SF but commutable once or twice a week won't be hit as hard as people in SF will get homes still in the bay area but further out. Within the last year I was seeing a rise of homelessness in my neighborhood. Been woken up in the middle of the night a few times from people yelling and fighting. That never was an issue 2-3 years ago. Local stores had been closing more and more with many prime locations remaining vacant for years. I'm predicting COVID/gov't lockdowns and the homeless situation will only accelerate that. Politically the bay area is definitely an echo chamber. In Vegas, I have friends who are both extreme left and extreme right and we all get along fine. In the bay area it felt like everyone was far left and anyone moderate or to the right remained silent for fear of being attacked or retaliated against. "Tolerance" and "diversity" seemed like they were in name only, at least when it comes to politics. The high taxes was definitely a strong motivation for moving as well. Remote jobs don't pay as well and I think over time there will be downward pressure on tech salaries as workers become more spread out but in terms of compensation compared to standard of living I think it is an improvement. Everything also feels modern and clean compared to the bay area. Roads are maintained, dramatically less traffic, parking is easy to find (especially problematic for those who have a truck in the bay area), utility rates and internet are cheaper. Stores and restaurants are open later. The bay area, especially SF seemed really cramped and kind of grungy in comparison. It will be interesting to see what happens after the pandemic but my thinking is that there will still be an exodus due to remote work still being common place and accepted. Socially I was able to make friends and network extremely fast. That might be a Vegas thing specifically though. After a few months now I have no regrets and am very happy with how things are turning out.
- hodorink 6y agoAt the end of the day you cannot underestimate the value of being surrounded by high caliber people and how it will impact you. People will always have to pay a premium for that. Which is why cities like SF and NYC will always have a draw for young and ambitious people who don't mind living in rat holes.
- SoSoRoCoCo 6y agoPaywalled, so can't read it. But most of the comments assume "remote work" will be de facto from this point on. Not sure I'm ready to bite that worm yet.
- rpearl 6y agoNobody really brings up that the bay area is one of few places in the US where you can live without a car. Really, even compared to other "walkable" cities beyond a select few, similarly expensive places. Nobody really brings up that the bay area has better LGBT and other minority protections than anywhere in the US, either. Every time someone mentions cheap midwest cities I have to pull up https://crossingenres.com/out-in-the-united-states-where-can-i-live-f44954bf06b2 https://crossingenres.com/out-in-the-united-states-where-can... and see if anything's changed since I last checked. Nobody really brings up the general art and culture scene in SF and Oakland. Or access to extremely high quality produce and food. Generally nobody brings up the possibility that some people _want to be here_ outside of their jobs. It's weird. I guess most of those that want to be here don't really comment on articles like this.
- wetpaws 6y ago>Nobody really brings up that the bay area is one of few places in the US where you can live without a car I'm not sure what bay area are you talking about. The SF bay area is absolutely unmanageable without a car, unlike Portland or Seattle.
- geebee 6y agoThat's an interesting observation, though I think you've missed the effect of scale. Keep in mind, a one block town would be 100% accessible by a public transportation system consisting of a horse drawn carriage on permanent loop. More of Portland is accessible by public transportation than the SF Bay Area, but then again, in absolute terms, there's notably less Portland to be accessed. I'd say that what you can access on public transportation in the SF Bay Area vastly exceeds what you can access in Portland, mainly because the SF Bay Area is far, far, bigger. There's also a lot more that you can't access in the SF Bay Area (and if you work in tech, you may be forced to access it). One way to illustrate this would be to overlay a public transportation map on top of population density map based on census tracks. You'll see that there are far more high density census areas in SF/Oakland serviced by light rail, subway, bus systems, and so forth than in Portland, and that the areas connected offer vastly more in the realm of commerce, entertainment, arts, sports. The same will be true of Seattle was well.
- dmode 6y agoThere have been endless articles about Bay Area "exodus", yet I see suburban housing demand going through the roof. Many companies haven't committed to full WFH (Google, Uber, Airbnb, Doordash, Tesla comes to mind). I will wait for a while before writing Bay Area's obituary.
- neonate 6y agohttps://archive.is/JXyMX https://archive.is/JXyMX
- auston 6y agoFeel like this article is thin on people moving to Miami, so here's a short thread of people ID'd as moving to Miami in just the last seven days: https://twitter.com/bunsen/status/1335735136277688329 https://twitter.com/bunsen/status/1335735136277688329
- pm90 6y agoI think this has been happening for a while now. Even if the pace might be accelerated, until we get alternate cities that develop a startup ecosystem, you will simply never have the level of innovation that comes out of SF (and to a lesser extent NYC).
- spamizbad 6y agoMight be for the better. It's interesting how quickly the conventional wisdom shifted from "You have to be in the Bay Area if you want to do X!" to it not mattering.
- wolverine876 6y agoIt's depressing to see yet another intellectual 'bubble' sweep through the Internet and the educated parts of society, especially one that falls apart so easily under a little scrutiny (as they all do). The cost of living in the Bay Area reflects extremely high demand for living there. Other than some people becoming more comfortable with remote work, what will have changed when the pandemic ends? You can't visit SF and not see that it's a special place. An amazingly dynamic, exciting city filled with creativity, culture, beauty, resources (including two elite universities and many others), natural resources, etc. People LOVE San Francisco (and many other cities). Cities in general are well-documented and researched as the great economic and cultural engines of our societies. It's not hard to see why or how that would be. We all knew it well; then suddenly it became trendy to forget it. We know well the subtext of the new anti-urbanism: Reactionary politics. The reactionaries in the US (primarily the Republican Party and sympathizers) have been trying to denigrate cities for many years because, despite the facts on their success, cities are strongly liberal, ethnically diverse, and pro-Democratic. As an example, Trump tried to make it the focus of his campaign over the summer and a/the major focus of the Republican convention, though that fizzled. Taxes are bad (by definition!), liberalism is bad, protestors are bad, college education is bad, homeless people are bad ... it's a highly conservative perspective - conservative as in, 'protect existing interests' - rather one that reflects a belief in progress, knowledge, change, and in the potential in every person (not just the wealthy ones) to do great things. Cities are inherently optimistic and reactionaryism is inherently pessimistic - why choose the latter, other than that is where the social herd is running? How will that turn out? The IT industry didn't discover remote work in the last year; it might have been forced on reluctant managers in some industries, but we knew it very well. Companies tried it years ago, and then walked it back (I remember them telling employees they had to come back to the office). Nothing replaces the dynamism of meeting people in the hallway, seeing people face-to-face, etc. Remember everything SV companies invested to keep their employees at work and having fun? Now they think it's the same if they are home and isolated from each other? Bubbles in finance are about ideas, not money. People feel compelled by the normalization of a social tide. If you think you're too smart for it, you are a prime target.
- habosa 6y agoIn the last 10-15 years San Francisco gained a ton of residents that didn't want to be there at all. They moved there because the job opportunities in tech were too hard to turn down. I had some friends like this, they just never really liked the city. Now they're all leaving because their job is not making them stay. That's fine and I'm happy they have more choices now. But there's a flip side to that. One of my least favorite part of San Francisco was actually that group of people! I loved SF and I was always bothered by the constant complaining by tech workers who were there semi-involuntarily. They weren't willing to give the city a chance and instead always wanted to change it to be more bland or more like somewhere else. If a bunch of those people are now leaving and the rent is dropping a bit, all of a sudden I really want to come back. I also think the city will be easier to govern if more of the residents are there because it's where they actually want to live. (Note: I was in SF for 6 years, left just before the pandemic for a temporary assignment in London)
- dpeck 6y agoI think most bigger cities have this same set of people, though I would guess SF has it more. I’ve certainly experienced it in Atlanta, and from former coworkers in Chicago/NYC/Boston as well. There are a lot of people who will complain incessantly about the place they live, and how it’s not as good as some other place. A lot of those folks aren’t going to find happiness with their move but some will. The grass is always greener until you’re standing on it.
- tempsy 6y agoThis story is insanely misleading though. Everyone here is talking about why the tech elite are leaving due to the quality of life when Keith Rabois specifically has like 3-4 IPOs he was an early investor in going public right now and makes no sense to stay in California in 2021 and pay state capital gains taxes on those sales. Same with Elon Musk and Tesla’s absurd stock price. And probably a lot of other people given the hot IPO market. Point is it’s so disingenuous for these people to say it’s because of SF or California when it has everything to do with taxes and not much else. To blast the Bay Area and state which made them rich and then flee before they owe a penny is gross.
- tabtab 6y agoSV has remained a key center of technology because it's easier to find elite and specialized talent there. Telework has yet to prove as collaboration-friendly as face-to-face and water-cooler talk. I'm not sure cost of living alone can counter that advantage. Any other city that "collects" enough techies to do the same will start to have cost of living problems of its own. Plus, SV is used to "foreigners" and oddballs. Many other cities are not. As soon as you leave downtown, tradition-based evangelical influences take over. Rural areas are going to be that way no matter where you are in the US, but the intensity is generally more gradual in CA.
- problem-halting 6y agoPLEASE LEAVE. WE DONT WANT YOU HERE. LEAVE. BEGONE. GOOD RIDDANCE.
- lanevorockz 6y agoPeople believe on the Too Big to Fail fallacy. Silicon Valley only survived because it was a cyclic move, things became bad when companies got involved in politics and turned into legal monopolies. Silicon Valley was supposed to be a place for geeks and creative people, not just a bunch of lawyers running monopolies.
- LdSGSgvupDV 6y agoThe reason most of people went to CA is the same as the reason people went to US. Opportunity and money. People come, people go. Why does SF's supremacy matter? There is always next Silicon Valley.
- joshfraser 6y agoIt blows my mind that SF chose to demonize its most productive citizens, both from a policy perspective (higher taxes), and a cultural perspective (the "god hates techies" messages painted on the sidewalks or the bricks thrown at Google buses). Any other city in the world would be thrilled to welcome the kind of tech talent that used to congregate in SF. And now they will.
- cmdshiftf4 6y agoThere's more to life, society and culture than the mere generation of dollars for your (company's) owners and local government.