Whoa-whoa-whoa hold up. The spiraling cost of rent 'threatens the well-being of our industry?' I say this as an engineer who's worked in the local industry duri

Whoa-whoa-whoa hold up. The spiraling cost of rent 'threatens the well-being of our industry?' I say this as an engineer who's worked in the local industry during both booms and as a native-born "local." Sure, perhaps but only just like it does for every other industry besides fancy restaurants and cafes. Rent is too damn high and no one wants to pay it, and we seem to be the only ones who can. But lets get some perspective here. I'm willing to posit that the relative high rent prices has give our industry to greatest boost of all in town [quick edit: for clarification if everyone is pushed out and only tech workers can move in, does that not just create room for more founders? Not at all arguing that wasted money is good]. This city is still the Gold Rush, always has been. People move here with the dream to make a ton of money and have a good time, most likely moving away after <10 years when they get serious about family. This city is fueled by alcohol and general hedonism, which is fun! San Francisco is an awesome place to live, and people want to live in it. Tech workers move in to town and push everyone out, blah, blah, blah -- but its true, for better or for worse. Top talent not only wants to work in the Bay Area, but are also so often willing to throw away everything to live in San Francisco. The Valley down south has been there for half a century, attracting the best and brightest in the world. Its only now, with this Second Boom's influx of new businesses into the City Proper and the realization company-provided motorcoaches to bust the commute, that the tech workers are really pouring into SF. We're the only ones who can afford to live, so we stay here, working more and founding more businesses. If the price continues to go up (mark my words, no more than 30% above now), rather than be threatened, the industry will slowly spread out to the periphery. What is startup-rich Soma was urban blight during the 90's, the periphery. I'd be the first to argue that urban development is good, especially when done effectively (not the conversion of existing rental space into high-HOA condos), and quickly (unlike commercial real estate development in Soma and South Beach). Just realize that we are the kings of this age of this city, and we are the last ones who would be at threat, especially when you can just move East or South and ride the comfy bus in to work. tl;dr Nothing threatens tech but the drying up of capital to be invested in new business. Rent and/or supply is far, far down on the list of even those potential threats to the SF tech industry.