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Maybe San Francisco is just not suitable any more? There's nothing magic about SF's geography that makes it a tech hub. It's not a mining town that needs to be

by danjac 4y ago

Maybe San Francisco is just not suitable any more? There's nothing magic about SF's geography that makes it a tech hub. It's not a mining town that needs to be next to coal or minerals, or a ski resort town that needs some mountains and snow. It's based on work that can literally be done anywhere. Hollywood, after all, was just a dusty desert town that became the hub of the movie business because it was easier to move there and start a new one than dealing with Edison's lawyers back East, so maybe the tech industry needs to get out of SF, start a new hub somewhere else, and leave the city to the NIMBYs.

germinalphrase 4y ago
“Hollywood, after all, was just a dusty desert town that became the hub of the movie business because it was easier to move there and start a new one than dealing with Edison's lawyers back East…” Yes, but also no. Keep in mind the popularity of Westerns in the 1930’s-1950’s and the ease with which you can get to desert/mountain/beach/city/forest/etc settings within a relatively short drive from L.A. That said, I generally agree with your point.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  And sunshine. Sunshine helps when you're shooting outdoors. Southern California has more sunny days than the east.
  - dasil003 4y ago
    And a bit of haze helps the aesthetic as well.
    - sangnoir 4y ago
      They add that in post.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  After all, the Battle of the Bulge did take place in the California desert. Medieval England looks like California, too. Even the alien worlds of Star Trek look suspiciously like California.
  - crazygringo 4y ago
    Well, to a large extent, yes. You might want to look at: https://brilliantmaps.com/california-filming-map/ https://brilliantmaps.com/california-filming-map/ Also, consistent sunny weather, because wasting shooting days due to inconsistent weather adds up to losing a lot of money.
  - danjac 4y ago
    And when production moved to Vancouver in the 90s, you had shows like the X-Files which often seemed to take place in a vague Pacific Northwest location.
klipt 4y ago
Tech hubs grow organically from network effects. It's impossible to move the whole network in one go. Best you can do is make one network gradually shrink and another one gradually grow somewhere else.
- 0_____0 4y ago
  Counterpoint: Shenzhen
  - carom 4y ago
    Can we just move them to the US in one go? Asking for a friend.
wolverine876 4y ago
> There's nothing magic about SF's geography It includes two of the world's top ten universities, incredible natural beauty there and nearby, excellent weather (locals complain, as locals do, but it's wonderful), and all the resources and people are gathered there. It's hard to imagine the return on investment of moving.
- malandrew 4y ago
  It’s easy to imagine it moving. The people doing the work are the ICs (individual contributors), and up until recently, SF was the only place to go to have a top notch career in tech. People sacrificed to live in SF as junior to mid level engineers because eventually they would get to the point where they are a senior engineer and make enough to afford housing. But now the housing has gotten so expensive that even the senior ICs have difficulty justifying sticking around because they are on a treadmill that takes years to save enough for a down payment (as prices keep rising). You need like $400k saved to buy in SF and you’ll still end up with a $6000/mo mortgage. You have to be a couple. Enough have figured this is a raw deal and have fled to other places like Seattle and Austin. So many in fact that you can now have just as promising a career today as someone could only get in SF 10-20 years ago. Eventually SF will find it hard to attract new ICs to the area and you’ll end up with an aging cohort of mid level managers, directors and staff level engineers that have fewer and fewer people to manage. Companies won’t keep increasing total comp for junior engineers in SF when they can grow their offices in other cheaper cities instead. You need a robust pipeline of junior folks and SF is increasingly strangling that pipeline and other cheaper cities are as attractive as SF once was.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- avmich 4y ago
  I can think about Stanford as the first one... the other one is probably Berkeley. I'm quite surprised they both are in world's top ten universities - actually, skeptical about that. "Incredible natural beauty" is not only at least somewhat subjective, but definitely is not exclusive to SF. Weather is good, but even Honolulu and Miami would argue, not to mention quite a few other places, even if they are minority overall - so the weather is not that unique. People - yes, currently the state of the people is well tuned in favor of SF (SFBA). But the question still remains.
dasil003 4y ago
This is a questionable take on two levels. First, yes, yes there is something magic about SF's geography, it's the closest major city to the largest VC hub in the world. These companies thrive on young talent that prefers to live in a city. It's not dissimilar to the gold rush 170 years ago when you think about it. Second, what do you mean "San Francisco is just not suitable any more"? The tech companies and their employees are the least impacted by rising housing costs. By and large they are doing alright, so what is their incentive to uproot everything and randomly go roll the dice somewhere else which would A) not have a critical mass of VC in their backyard and B) will offer no guarantee of not reacting exactly the same as SF. Keep in mind, 20 years ago there was barely any tech in San Francisco proper. Sure there tech employees who chose to live there and suffer the commute to the peninsula, as is their prerogative being free individuals residing in the US. The reason tech moved in was because SF offered tax breaks—they wanted their piece of the tax revenue and daily spending from well-to-do tech workers. If the city really felt tech being there was the problem they have a lot of levers (eg. raise taxes, zoning changes, etc) to push it out. Of course they don't want to do that because it would cause far more economic harm than good. NIMBYs are of course willing to entertain the charade of successful tech companies as the scapegoat because it keeps their home values sky high while deflecting to the amorphous "tech companies", who in fact they have zero control over policy and at best marginal interest in addressing the issue at all.
- WillPostForFood 4y ago
  it's the closest major city to the largest VC hub San Jose has entered the room. San Francisco is cute and that's why people like it and ignore San Jose.
  - twelve40 4y ago
    haha fair enough, closest cute major city : ) As a longtime South Bay resident, it's super-boring down here and actually many of the same problems, expensive and lots of homeless. But all of that is beside the point. The real interesting question is whether the companies will yank the leash Musk-style and have everyone come back here, or not. There is a lot of hype in both directions, but I'd say that debate is not settled yet.
malandrew 4y ago
Hollywood also had more days of great weather than anywhere else and this was especially important for maintaining production schedules.
jjav 4y ago
> Maybe San Francisco is just not suitable any more? Good to keep in mind that San Francisco never was part of Silicon Valley, until this past decade where the mindshare of being SV migrated north to include SF.

by danjac 4y ago

germinalphrase 4y ago

“Hollywood, after all, was just a dusty desert town that became the hub of the movie business because it was easier to move there and start a new one than dealing with Edison's lawyers back East…” Yes, but also no. Keep in mind the popularity of Westerns in the 1930’s-1950’s and the ease with which you can get to desert/mountain/beach/city/forest/etc settings within a relatively short drive from L.A. That said, I generally agree with your point.

AnimalMuppet 4y ago
And sunshine. Sunshine helps when you're shooting outdoors. Southern California has more sunny days than the east.
- dasil003 4y ago
  And a bit of haze helps the aesthetic as well.
  - sangnoir 4y ago
    They add that in post.
WalterBright 4y ago
After all, the Battle of the Bulge did take place in the California desert. Medieval England looks like California, too. Even the alien worlds of Star Trek look suspiciously like California.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  Well, to a large extent, yes. You might want to look at: https://brilliantmaps.com/california-filming-map/ https://brilliantmaps.com/california-filming-map/ Also, consistent sunny weather, because wasting shooting days due to inconsistent weather adds up to losing a lot of money.
- danjac 4y ago
  And when production moved to Vancouver in the 90s, you had shows like the X-Files which often seemed to take place in a vague Pacific Northwest location.

klipt 4y ago

Tech hubs grow organically from network effects. It's impossible to move the whole network in one go. Best you can do is make one network gradually shrink and another one gradually grow somewhere else.

0_____0 4y ago
Counterpoint: Shenzhen
- carom 4y ago
  Can we just move them to the US in one go? Asking for a friend.

wolverine876 4y ago

> There's nothing magic about SF's geography It includes two of the world's top ten universities, incredible natural beauty there and nearby, excellent weather (locals complain, as locals do, but it's wonderful), and all the resources and people are gathered there. It's hard to imagine the return on investment of moving.

malandrew 4y ago
It’s easy to imagine it moving. The people doing the work are the ICs (individual contributors), and up until recently, SF was the only place to go to have a top notch career in tech. People sacrificed to live in SF as junior to mid level engineers because eventually they would get to the point where they are a senior engineer and make enough to afford housing. But now the housing has gotten so expensive that even the senior ICs have difficulty justifying sticking around because they are on a treadmill that takes years to save enough for a down payment (as prices keep rising). You need like $400k saved to buy in SF and you’ll still end up with a $6000/mo mortgage. You have to be a couple. Enough have figured this is a raw deal and have fled to other places like Seattle and Austin. So many in fact that you can now have just as promising a career today as someone could only get in SF 10-20 years ago. Eventually SF will find it hard to attract new ICs to the area and you’ll end up with an aging cohort of mid level managers, directors and staff level engineers that have fewer and fewer people to manage. Companies won’t keep increasing total comp for junior engineers in SF when they can grow their offices in other cheaper cities instead. You need a robust pipeline of junior folks and SF is increasingly strangling that pipeline and other cheaper cities are as attractive as SF once was.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
avmich 4y ago
I can think about Stanford as the first one... the other one is probably Berkeley. I'm quite surprised they both are in world's top ten universities - actually, skeptical about that. "Incredible natural beauty" is not only at least somewhat subjective, but definitely is not exclusive to SF. Weather is good, but even Honolulu and Miami would argue, not to mention quite a few other places, even if they are minority overall - so the weather is not that unique. People - yes, currently the state of the people is well tuned in favor of SF (SFBA). But the question still remains.

dasil003 4y ago

This is a questionable take on two levels. First, yes, yes there is something magic about SF's geography, it's the closest major city to the largest VC hub in the world. These companies thrive on young talent that prefers to live in a city. It's not dissimilar to the gold rush 170 years ago when you think about it. Second, what do you mean "San Francisco is just not suitable any more"? The tech companies and their employees are the least impacted by rising housing costs. By and large they are doing alright, so what is their incentive to uproot everything and randomly go roll the dice somewhere else which would A) not have a critical mass of VC in their backyard and B) will offer no guarantee of not reacting exactly the same as SF. Keep in mind, 20 years ago there was barely any tech in San Francisco proper. Sure there tech employees who chose to live there and suffer the commute to the peninsula, as is their prerogative being free individuals residing in the US. The reason tech moved in was because SF offered tax breaks—they wanted their piece of the tax revenue and daily spending from well-to-do tech workers. If the city really felt tech being there was the problem they have a lot of levers (eg. raise taxes, zoning changes, etc) to push it out. Of course they don't want to do that because it would cause far more economic harm than good. NIMBYs are of course willing to entertain the charade of successful tech companies as the scapegoat because it keeps their home values sky high while deflecting to the amorphous "tech companies", who in fact they have zero control over policy and at best marginal interest in addressing the issue at all.

WillPostForFood 4y ago
it's the closest major city to the largest VC hub San Jose has entered the room. San Francisco is cute and that's why people like it and ignore San Jose.
- twelve40 4y ago
  haha fair enough, closest cute major city : ) As a longtime South Bay resident, it's super-boring down here and actually many of the same problems, expensive and lots of homeless. But all of that is beside the point. The real interesting question is whether the companies will yank the leash Musk-style and have everyone come back here, or not. There is a lot of hype in both directions, but I'd say that debate is not settled yet.

malandrew 4y ago

Hollywood also had more days of great weather than anywhere else and this was especially important for maintaining production schedules.

jjav 4y ago

> Maybe San Francisco is just not suitable any more? Good to keep in mind that San Francisco never was part of Silicon Valley, until this past decade where the mindshare of being SV migrated north to include SF.