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My girlfriend and I (both in tech) have also left San Francisco as of last month, but for slightly different (but related) reasons. The 75,000 mentioned people
by cwilson 12y ago
My girlfriend and I (both in tech) have also left San Francisco as of last month, but for slightly different (but related) reasons. The 75,000 mentioned people who have moved to the bay area for tech have caused rent to rise by such a large amount, that even though we can afford to pay, it feels like a huge waste of our money. We could be spending it doing other things or just saving for our future.
Instead we'll continue to work in tech doing consulting work, but we're going try our hand at being completely nomadic while doing it (starting with Central and South America, though we'll be picking a place and staying there for a few weeks to a month at minimum). We've sold pretty much everything we own and have whittled down our belongings to a large backpack and daypack each. It feels pretty amazing to be this lightweight and mobile, and our current budget has spending about 3x less than we were while living in SF (and still living very well).
- jseliger 12y agoThe 75,000 mentioned people who have moved to the bay area for tech have caused rent to rise by such a large amount, that even though we can afford to pay, it feels like a huge waste of our money This is also primarily a political problem, as I wrote previously here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7382097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7382097 and as Kim-Mai Cutler cogently described here: http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ . Seattle has somewhat similar problems (http://www.smartgrowthseattle.org/sally-bagshaw-yesterday-tomorrow/ http://www.smartgrowthseattle.org/sally-bagshaw-yesterday-to...), but they're not nearly as bad.
- cwilson 12y agoAgreed, both great pieces on the problems in SF at the moment, and I definitely didn't mean to discount those details as part of our reasoning for leaving. I love San Francisco and really all of Northern California, but we're getting out of dodge before things get really out of hand. I do hope to be able to return some day.
- smoe 12y agoI'm currently doing the same. Left Switzerland about one month ago, and I'm now working from Colombia. Not that I couldn't afford living in Switzerland, but among other reasons, I felt like I didn't get enough value for my money there. Also, I love traveling, but as a freelancer it would have been kinda hard to just do that for a longer period of time. So I decided to combine the both. I too felt amazing after quitting my apartment and getting rid of all the stuff. Now everything I own, fits in my backpack. Except my books, which are with my sister:)