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I couldn't disagree more about the access to talent section. While many engineers are willing to relocate to the bay area, many also are not. Right now, it is

I couldn't disagree more about the access to talent section. While many engineers are willing to relocate to the bay area, many also are not. Right now, it is pretty saturated. There is also a missing part of your function, # of good positions with other companies. When you move to the bay area, because of the saturation of engineers, the lowest hanging fruit for many is to poach engineers who work at other companies. You are going to have much, much more competition for your engineers in SV than virtually anywhere else in the world. Your example of Waterloo proved it is a great place to bring in talented engineers with RIM, even if they didn't hold on to their dominant position.

curun1r 12y ago
The part about the average size of the deal is also somewhat misleading. The difference between an average of $16M and $6.9M starts to look a lot smaller when you see recent college grads getting ~$100k/yr and office space costing you ~$80/sq ft. And that $100k/yr will start to look a lot smaller to that recent college grad each time his $3500/mo rent check is due...SV startups are essentially paying inflated real estate prices twice, once in rent, once in employee salary.
s73v3r 12y ago
"While many engineers are willing to relocate to the bay area, many also are not." The numbers indicate that many more are willing than those who are not.
- ejdyksen 12y ago
  Which numbers might those be?
- dsugarman 12y ago
  You can't honestly believe that. Consider the # of professional software developers in the US alone is much higher than the total population of San Francisco.
  - s73v3r 12y ago
    If the opposite was true, and more were not willing to go to San Francisco, don't you think most of the larger companies there would have moved elsewhere? Keep in mind, I said "willing to go," not that they were already there.
- nostrademons 12y ago
  They don't, actually. While the engineering population of SF is growing fast, the increase is a tiny fraction of the total number of software engineers in the U.S, let alone in the world. Remember Joy's Law: "No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else." [1] What the Bay Area does have is a greater concentration of talented engineers than any other major municipality. When you're trying to make a concrete decision where to locate your startup, that matters. And most of the people who argue "Don't move to SF" aren't actually arguing "Move somewhere else", it's usually "Adopt a distributed team where you pick the best engineers regardless of location." The latter approach has a bunch of its own problems, so it becomes a tradeoff of getting the biggest possible talent pool possible vs. reducing communication costs and building a team locally. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy%27s_Law_%28management%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy%27s_Law_%28management%29
  - solve 12y ago
    The vast majority of men do not actually date supermodels, and therefore they must not be willing to. Just joking, but I think your logic might be slightly missing some other important factors.
    - nostrademons 12y ago
      It works if you substitute "willing and able" for "willing", which is the usual context of this discussion. If you are willing and able to date a supermodel and you don't, well, why the hell not? (FWIW, I personally have little interest in supermodels...but then, most people would consider that lack of interest = "not willing", so the logic still holds. Like all logic, it obscures subtleties - I'd be quite willing if she were a good match beyond being a supermodel and I weren't already attached - but then, this is a problem generally with imposing words on the world, and not with the specific instance.)
      - solve 12y ago
        The parent in this thread literally said "willing".
solve 12y ago
As someone living in a very low wage country now, I will never again want to grow a company / work as an employee, in a place where the workers are lowly valued. In my experience, it turns out bad for everyone. The company gets a far higher ratio of people who don't mind being lowly valued, the workers get lowly valued. Bad for everyone.
- jarek 12y ago
  If you're hiring people in Waterloo it's not because you want low-wage seat-fillers. That would be, like, Podunk, New Brunswick. There's levels between "lowly valued" and "omg i can only get best A-players in SF"

curun1r 12y ago

The part about the average size of the deal is also somewhat misleading. The difference between an average of $16M and $6.9M starts to look a lot smaller when you see recent college grads getting ~$100k/yr and office space costing you ~$80/sq ft. And that $100k/yr will start to look a lot smaller to that recent college grad each time his $3500/mo rent check is due...SV startups are essentially paying inflated real estate prices twice, once in rent, once in employee salary.

s73v3r 12y ago

"While many engineers are willing to relocate to the bay area, many also are not." The numbers indicate that many more are willing than those who are not.

ejdyksen 12y ago
Which numbers might those be?
dsugarman 12y ago
You can't honestly believe that. Consider the # of professional software developers in the US alone is much higher than the total population of San Francisco.
- s73v3r 12y ago
  If the opposite was true, and more were not willing to go to San Francisco, don't you think most of the larger companies there would have moved elsewhere? Keep in mind, I said "willing to go," not that they were already there.
nostrademons 12y ago
They don't, actually. While the engineering population of SF is growing fast, the increase is a tiny fraction of the total number of software engineers in the U.S, let alone in the world. Remember Joy's Law: "No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else." [1] What the Bay Area does have is a greater concentration of talented engineers than any other major municipality. When you're trying to make a concrete decision where to locate your startup, that matters. And most of the people who argue "Don't move to SF" aren't actually arguing "Move somewhere else", it's usually "Adopt a distributed team where you pick the best engineers regardless of location." The latter approach has a bunch of its own problems, so it becomes a tradeoff of getting the biggest possible talent pool possible vs. reducing communication costs and building a team locally. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy%27s_Law_%28management%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy%27s_Law_%28management%29
- solve 12y ago
  The vast majority of men do not actually date supermodels, and therefore they must not be willing to. Just joking, but I think your logic might be slightly missing some other important factors.
  - nostrademons 12y ago
    It works if you substitute "willing and able" for "willing", which is the usual context of this discussion. If you are willing and able to date a supermodel and you don't, well, why the hell not? (FWIW, I personally have little interest in supermodels...but then, most people would consider that lack of interest = "not willing", so the logic still holds. Like all logic, it obscures subtleties - I'd be quite willing if she were a good match beyond being a supermodel and I weren't already attached - but then, this is a problem generally with imposing words on the world, and not with the specific instance.)
    - solve 12y ago
      The parent in this thread literally said "willing".

solve 12y ago

As someone living in a very low wage country now, I will never again want to grow a company / work as an employee, in a place where the workers are lowly valued. In my experience, it turns out bad for everyone. The company gets a far higher ratio of people who don't mind being lowly valued, the workers get lowly valued. Bad for everyone.

jarek 12y ago
If you're hiring people in Waterloo it's not because you want low-wage seat-fillers. That would be, like, Podunk, New Brunswick. There's levels between "lowly valued" and "omg i can only get best A-players in SF"