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Why Apple’s Suburban Spaceship Could Lose the War for Tech Talent

32 points by d99kris 13y ago

paddy_m 13y ago
I think this article is spot on. I would already be fearful of working at a place with an insular attitude, to be physically isolated too would be difficult. I think the physical isolation is something that Steve wanted. It also will probably affect Apple less than other companies because they have such a top down management style (where the intermingling of ideas wouldn't help so much).
yalogin 13y ago
This might completely change b 2016. Who knows how things change by then. When the start ups mature they will/might rethink where they operate. We could enter a recession or every start up could be priced out of SF.
mc32 13y ago
Or they could build a huge campus in SF and then suffer the wrath of locals decrying how tech cos directly take up valuable real-estate, as well as indirectly by people who move to be closer to campus all driving up prices and driving out the poor from the city. Attack local zoning laws which made sense in the 50s but don't make sense in a modern metropolis. The peninsula should make El Camino, from SSF to Santa Clara a high density canyon with underground transport. The transit project would lose money the first decade or two, but would set the stage for the following decades for business development, housing and community. [Added] It's not lost on me that this would require State governance to overcome the hurdles presented by having to manage the needs and input from ten different local governments and agencies.
- jseliger 13y ago
  This is an astute comment and I hope it gets the upvotes it deserves; for more on the subject, see http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/11/25/bay_area_zoning_if_you_want_to_talk_housing_you_have_to_talk_zoning.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/11/25/bay_area_zoni... and http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/12/10/housing_costs_it_s_the_zoning_stupid.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/12/10/housing_costs... .
- babesh 13y ago
  Like previous replier, good comment. The tiny Peninsula city I live in is exploring a two story complex near its Caltrain station. The only concern I have is that it be beautiful while useful. Most developments like this are generic stucco and stone.
stevesearer 13y ago
I think about offices a lot, but I don't really agree with this article all that much. Apple isn't the same company as the so called "hot, tech" companies located in San Francisco. An office for a growing 20-150 employee company, or even 1000+ employee company is entirely different than an office that will hold 15,000 employees, r&d facilities, parking, etc. Apple would literally need to build a skyscraper to achieve that in San Francisco proper. I also don't agree that Facebook moved from Palo Alto to Menlo Park to be closer to the city in order to attract talent. It was about gathering enough real estate to house their growing company (and probably about who offered higher tax breaks). EDIT: I guess my comment doesn't really address the idea that they might lose tech talent, but rather more the idea that having an office in SF is actually feasible.
- melling 13y ago
  According to Google Maps, Menlo Park is about 3 miles from Palo Alto. For those of us not in SV, are we missing some reason why this really rates as closer?
  - wl 13y ago
    No. The author's assertion has no basis in fact.
  - stevesearer 13y ago
    I thought about that as well, but just didn't add it in my comment. The office is probably actually further away for many employees that already located themselves in Palo Alto to be close to HQ.
    - stephencanon 13y ago
      Also much worse for those who located themselves close to 280 / Caltrain / Foothill Ave for the easy commute to the old office.
  - mc32 13y ago
    None, the Menlo Campus is further from Caltrain, fwiw. So, from that (transport) perspective, it's rather a worse proposition.
Aloha 13y ago
Not all of us want to live and work in the city.
vikas5678 13y ago
Are they limiting the definition of "tech talent" to single 25-somethings? I know plenty of engineers with families who dont want to or cannot afford to live in San Francisco and like to live in the south bay/east bay or in the peninsula.
TwistedWeasel 13y ago
The article assumes that the best people to hire are twenty-somethings that want to live in the city. What about catering to the 30 and 40 something senior engineers? In my experience it's much easier to hire a newly graduated, smart young engineer than it is to hire somebody with 10+ years experience. Those people may have a family, and would much prefer a suburban home in a good school district. Apple isn't part of the tech _startup_ scene, it's been around a long time and they know the value of retaining experienced engineers.
- jseliger 13y ago
  Those people may have a family, and would much prefer a suburban home in a good school district. For the last 50 or so years, "urban" has always had the property "bad school district." I wonder how preferences would change if urban school districts were functional, or at least more functional than most of them are now. In addition, safe and functional urban neighborhoods tend to be expensive because of zoning (see Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City for more on this). What would happen if we had cities in which housing weren't so expensive?
  - mc32 13y ago
    One other issue with urban schools is that they're mixed --some good some bad, but often cities try to raise the performance of poor-performing students by 'busing' them to schools with students with aptitude. One, this adds uncertainty --is your pupil going to end up at your choice of school? Two, the students with poor aptitude often are not elevated by good aptitude students, so often this effort goes for naught.
    - jseliger 13y ago
      Very true—and the WSJ, when it was still a good paper, had a long article about this dynamic in Seattle: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116519951912839643.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116519951912839643.html . As far as I know, however, busing is more or less over in Seattle, such that most parents can figure out based on housing locale where their kids are going to go to school.
bluthru 13y ago
I'm sure most of Apple's most valued employees are already near the new campus location. Relocating the office to the city to increase commute time and stress just wasn't going to happen. Another office in SF like Google might be a good idea, though.
- stevesearer 13y ago
  I imagine that dividing up where Apple's main product engineering, design, etc is not something that Apple even wants to do in the first place. Keeping secret things secret is probably much easier when it is all located in one place as opposed to spread out in many places.
  - fiatmoney 13y ago
    Apple is already spread out into many buildings all over Cupertino.
tthomas48 13y ago
Honestly my bigger issue (and I'm not a twenty-something engineer) is that it's such an isolated campus. I might not mind working in the suburbs, but even the suburbs are moving towards walk-able interesting places, rather than these weird isolated complexes you drive between. There are areas in the suburbs that have apartments, restaurants, stores, and offices. I'd much prefer to work in one of those mixed-use environments. I would definitely consider not working for a company that took 15 minutes just to get from the building back to a road.
- babesh 13y ago
  I think the problem is that other than San Jose, there isn't really a large scale downtown or space that can easily turn into one that can accommodate such a large campus. So you get stuck with isolated campuses like Google, Facebook, etc... Apple's offices are actually closer to a downtown than those two.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
What a silly article. Combined with the Forbes article today on where people are moving after they get a bit older it is even more obviously wrong. Personally I think a lot of people will really enjoy working in that building. Certainly enough to fill it up. I look forward to seeing it and the little tourist shop replicas :-).
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Combined with the Forbes article today... The premise of this article is that Apple's Most Desired hire is a hip-and-with-it 22-year-old, so I can see why they would ignore the Forbes article about where the 30-somethings are moving. Not to say, of course, that I believe Apple is gunning for the fresh-faced crowd with this campus.
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    True, from PayScale [1] - *"The median age of Employees 31" [1] http://www.payscale.com/top-tech-employers-compared-2012/employee-demographics http://www.payscale.com/top-tech-employers-compared-2012/emp...
27182818284 13y ago
Apple could have found itself (accidentally) in a great position where they capture the people who are highly technical, but also looking to get their kid into a good, easy-to-access school. I can't really add much other than anecdotal evidence, but, the PhDs I know loved San Fran when they were young and hate it now that they're trying to raise a family. Instead of the "I love Berkeley!" and "I love San Francisco!" like I used to hear from them, I now hear things like, "We're thinking something outside of San Diego." or even more drastically, "Why don't we look at houses in Wisconsin the next time we visit your folks over Christmas?" ...And family seems to be the deciding factor that changed the tune.
josephscott 13y ago
Increasingly, young tech talent wants to live and work <strike>in cities.</strike> remotely.
- Aloha 13y ago
  Yes, this.
suprgeek 13y ago
If like me you sometimes skim the comments before going to the article - SKIP reading this article completely. There are a couple of major assumptions and lot of specious reasoning. Apple could lose the War for talent because...it is not in SF. Being in SF counts because...because every company who wants "20 Somethings" is presumably migrating to SF or setting up a presence. So the company with the "think different" slogan that is famous for doing things its own way should...stop being different & follow everyone. This writer should be embarrassed to write such drivel.
- lambdasquirrel 13y ago
  Well if they just want 20-somethings, they could always market the spaceship as a retreat center. I mean, cmon, it'd be the ironic thing to do. ;-)
logfromblammo 13y ago
Yes, about that... I'll live in downtown San Francisco when Federal Reserve Notes start to grow out of my hair follicles. There are experienced and talented engineers that won't even live anywhere in the entire state of California. Apple is not shooting itself in the foot by building an enormous headquarters in the suburbs: it is shooting itself in the foot by building an enormous headquarters, period. Tech companies that large should instead be establishing as many satellite offices as they can manage in the commercial collar areas between urban centers and their suburbs. You don't actually want all of your employees to be competing with each other for their homes and groceries, because that just raises your labor costs. Also, you don't want to dredge the bottom of a local talent pool while ignoring the cream at the top of another. Instead of 2000 employees in one building, you can pay less on labor costs (which will dwarf your facilities costs) by putting 200 employees in 10 buildings. Let's just say Portland, Denver, Dallas, Chicago, St. Louis, Nashville, Raleigh, Albany, Ottawa, and Guadalajara. That way, you don't end up competing with yourself for resources.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
gdubs 13y ago
The green space of the future Apple campus is incredible -- it would be very hard to achieve that in the city.

32 points by d99kris 13y ago

I think this article is spot on. I would already be fearful of working at a place with an insular attitude, to be physically isolated too would be difficult. I think the physical isolation is something that Steve wanted. It also will probably affect Apple less than other companies because they have such a top down management style (where the intermingling of ideas wouldn't help so much).

yalogin 13y ago

This might completely change b 2016. Who knows how things change by then. When the start ups mature they will/might rethink where they operate. We could enter a recession or every start up could be priced out of SF.

mc32 13y ago

Or they could build a huge campus in SF and then suffer the wrath of locals decrying how tech cos directly take up valuable real-estate, as well as indirectly by people who move to be closer to campus all driving up prices and driving out the poor from the city. Attack local zoning laws which made sense in the 50s but don't make sense in a modern metropolis. The peninsula should make El Camino, from SSF to Santa Clara a high density canyon with underground transport. The transit project would lose money the first decade or two, but would set the stage for the following decades for business development, housing and community. [Added] It's not lost on me that this would require State governance to overcome the hurdles presented by having to manage the needs and input from ten different local governments and agencies.

jseliger 13y ago
This is an astute comment and I hope it gets the upvotes it deserves; for more on the subject, see http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/11/25/bay_area_zoning_if_you_want_to_talk_housing_you_have_to_talk_zoning.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/11/25/bay_area_zoni... and http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/12/10/housing_costs_it_s_the_zoning_stupid.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/12/10/housing_costs... .
babesh 13y ago
Like previous replier, good comment. The tiny Peninsula city I live in is exploring a two story complex near its Caltrain station. The only concern I have is that it be beautiful while useful. Most developments like this are generic stucco and stone.

stevesearer 13y ago

I think about offices a lot, but I don't really agree with this article all that much. Apple isn't the same company as the so called "hot, tech" companies located in San Francisco. An office for a growing 20-150 employee company, or even 1000+ employee company is entirely different than an office that will hold 15,000 employees, r&d facilities, parking, etc. Apple would literally need to build a skyscraper to achieve that in San Francisco proper. I also don't agree that Facebook moved from Palo Alto to Menlo Park to be closer to the city in order to attract talent. It was about gathering enough real estate to house their growing company (and probably about who offered higher tax breaks). EDIT: I guess my comment doesn't really address the idea that they might lose tech talent, but rather more the idea that having an office in SF is actually feasible.

melling 13y ago
According to Google Maps, Menlo Park is about 3 miles from Palo Alto. For those of us not in SV, are we missing some reason why this really rates as closer?
- wl 13y ago
  No. The author's assertion has no basis in fact.
- stevesearer 13y ago
  I thought about that as well, but just didn't add it in my comment. The office is probably actually further away for many employees that already located themselves in Palo Alto to be close to HQ.
  - stephencanon 13y ago
    Also much worse for those who located themselves close to 280 / Caltrain / Foothill Ave for the easy commute to the old office.
- mc32 13y ago
  None, the Menlo Campus is further from Caltrain, fwiw. So, from that (transport) perspective, it's rather a worse proposition.

Aloha 13y ago

Not all of us want to live and work in the city.

vikas5678 13y ago

Are they limiting the definition of "tech talent" to single 25-somethings? I know plenty of engineers with families who dont want to or cannot afford to live in San Francisco and like to live in the south bay/east bay or in the peninsula.

TwistedWeasel 13y ago

The article assumes that the best people to hire are twenty-somethings that want to live in the city. What about catering to the 30 and 40 something senior engineers? In my experience it's much easier to hire a newly graduated, smart young engineer than it is to hire somebody with 10+ years experience. Those people may have a family, and would much prefer a suburban home in a good school district. Apple isn't part of the tech _startup_ scene, it's been around a long time and they know the value of retaining experienced engineers.

jseliger 13y ago
Those people may have a family, and would much prefer a suburban home in a good school district. For the last 50 or so years, "urban" has always had the property "bad school district." I wonder how preferences would change if urban school districts were functional, or at least more functional than most of them are now. In addition, safe and functional urban neighborhoods tend to be expensive because of zoning (see Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City for more on this). What would happen if we had cities in which housing weren't so expensive?
- mc32 13y ago
  One other issue with urban schools is that they're mixed --some good some bad, but often cities try to raise the performance of poor-performing students by 'busing' them to schools with students with aptitude. One, this adds uncertainty --is your pupil going to end up at your choice of school? Two, the students with poor aptitude often are not elevated by good aptitude students, so often this effort goes for naught.
  - jseliger 13y ago
    Very true—and the WSJ, when it was still a good paper, had a long article about this dynamic in Seattle: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116519951912839643.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116519951912839643.html . As far as I know, however, busing is more or less over in Seattle, such that most parents can figure out based on housing locale where their kids are going to go to school.

bluthru 13y ago

I'm sure most of Apple's most valued employees are already near the new campus location. Relocating the office to the city to increase commute time and stress just wasn't going to happen. Another office in SF like Google might be a good idea, though.

stevesearer 13y ago
I imagine that dividing up where Apple's main product engineering, design, etc is not something that Apple even wants to do in the first place. Keeping secret things secret is probably much easier when it is all located in one place as opposed to spread out in many places.
- fiatmoney 13y ago
  Apple is already spread out into many buildings all over Cupertino.

tthomas48 13y ago

Honestly my bigger issue (and I'm not a twenty-something engineer) is that it's such an isolated campus. I might not mind working in the suburbs, but even the suburbs are moving towards walk-able interesting places, rather than these weird isolated complexes you drive between. There are areas in the suburbs that have apartments, restaurants, stores, and offices. I'd much prefer to work in one of those mixed-use environments. I would definitely consider not working for a company that took 15 minutes just to get from the building back to a road.

babesh 13y ago
I think the problem is that other than San Jose, there isn't really a large scale downtown or space that can easily turn into one that can accommodate such a large campus. So you get stuck with isolated campuses like Google, Facebook, etc... Apple's offices are actually closer to a downtown than those two.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

What a silly article. Combined with the Forbes article today on where people are moving after they get a bit older it is even more obviously wrong. Personally I think a lot of people will really enjoy working in that building. Certainly enough to fill it up. I look forward to seeing it and the little tourist shop replicas :-).

sliverstorm 13y ago
Combined with the Forbes article today... The premise of this article is that Apple's Most Desired hire is a hip-and-with-it 22-year-old, so I can see why they would ignore the Forbes article about where the 30-somethings are moving. Not to say, of course, that I believe Apple is gunning for the fresh-faced crowd with this campus.
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  True, from PayScale [1] - *"The median age of Employees 31" [1] http://www.payscale.com/top-tech-employers-compared-2012/employee-demographics http://www.payscale.com/top-tech-employers-compared-2012/emp...

27182818284 13y ago

Apple could have found itself (accidentally) in a great position where they capture the people who are highly technical, but also looking to get their kid into a good, easy-to-access school. I can't really add much other than anecdotal evidence, but, the PhDs I know loved San Fran when they were young and hate it now that they're trying to raise a family. Instead of the "I love Berkeley!" and "I love San Francisco!" like I used to hear from them, I now hear things like, "We're thinking something outside of San Diego." or even more drastically, "Why don't we look at houses in Wisconsin the next time we visit your folks over Christmas?" ...And family seems to be the deciding factor that changed the tune.

josephscott 13y ago

Increasingly, young tech talent wants to live and work <strike>in cities.</strike> remotely.

Aloha 13y ago
Yes, this.

suprgeek 13y ago

If like me you sometimes skim the comments before going to the article - SKIP reading this article completely. There are a couple of major assumptions and lot of specious reasoning. Apple could lose the War for talent because...it is not in SF. Being in SF counts because...because every company who wants "20 Somethings" is presumably migrating to SF or setting up a presence. So the company with the "think different" slogan that is famous for doing things its own way should...stop being different & follow everyone. This writer should be embarrassed to write such drivel.

lambdasquirrel 13y ago
Well if they just want 20-somethings, they could always market the spaceship as a retreat center. I mean, cmon, it'd be the ironic thing to do. ;-)

logfromblammo 13y ago

Yes, about that... I'll live in downtown San Francisco when Federal Reserve Notes start to grow out of my hair follicles. There are experienced and talented engineers that won't even live anywhere in the entire state of California. Apple is not shooting itself in the foot by building an enormous headquarters in the suburbs: it is shooting itself in the foot by building an enormous headquarters, period. Tech companies that large should instead be establishing as many satellite offices as they can manage in the commercial collar areas between urban centers and their suburbs. You don't actually want all of your employees to be competing with each other for their homes and groceries, because that just raises your labor costs. Also, you don't want to dredge the bottom of a local talent pool while ignoring the cream at the top of another. Instead of 2000 employees in one building, you can pay less on labor costs (which will dwarf your facilities costs) by putting 200 employees in 10 buildings. Let's just say Portland, Denver, Dallas, Chicago, St. Louis, Nashville, Raleigh, Albany, Ottawa, and Guadalajara. That way, you don't end up competing with yourself for resources.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

gdubs 13y ago

The green space of the future Apple campus is incredible -- it would be very hard to achieve that in the city.