
A CEO Who Pays Employees to De-Locate from the Bay - janober
https://blog.ycombinator.com/the-ceo-who-pays-employees-to-de-locate-from-the-bay/
======
chrissnell
As someone who works remotely and who posts remote-friendly openings for his
team in the Who's Hiring HN thread, it's kind of amazing to me that more
people aren't actively looking to get out.

I live and work in a small midwestern town because my wife's military job has
us here. If I was single, however, I would make the most of my remoteness and
try working from a variety of towns. Here's some places that I would try if I
was a young remote worker:

\- A small Colorado/Utah/Montana ski town. Some place like Telluride, where I
could ski/hike/bike in the mornings

\- A fun desert town with great recreation like Moab, UT...Prescott,
AZ...Bend, OR...

\- A beach town in S. Florida during the winter

\- Costa Rica, Panama, Bay Islands of Honduras in the wintertime

\- Thailand

\- South coast of Texas in the Winter, Texas Hill Country in the fall

It could be so much fun...

~~~
chasb
I lived in Denver for 2 years, and now Portland. Bend, SLC/Sandy, Jackson,
Durango, Steamboat, the list goes on.

edit: I'm CEO at Aptible, where we recruit for remote. Personal freedom is a
nice perk.

~~~
lstyls
That's awesome. What are the challenges you've faced as a remote employer?

------
sabujp

        "was if you're in the Bay Area and you take a job with 
        Zapier we'll pay $10,000 to help you relocate to 
        anywhere, or as we call it, de-locate."
    

..so this is just a one time re-location "bonus"? I think many large companies
"pay you" something close to this amount to re-locate _to_ the bay area. This
really doesn't help that much. What would be better is to pay bay area
salaries/rates in another part of the country that doesn't have stupid
expensive housing rates + 10k/yearly for _not_ working in the bay area.

~~~
phamilton
$10k is usually the signing bonus I get for just changing companies. Is this
in addition to the signing bonus?

~~~
rifung
Yes it is separate. At Amazon the signing bonus you owe if you leave within
one year but the relocation bonus you owe if you leave within two; both are
prorated

~~~
bsder
> At Amazon the signing bonus you owe if you leave within one year but the
> relocation bonus you owe if you leave within two; both are prorated

Um, wow. Yet another reason not to work at Amazon.

How does Amazon still get employees when they just seem to pile these kinds of
irritating, anti-employee behaviors up one after another?

~~~
msthrow
Are these bonus terms not standard? These prorated periods are the same for
Microsoft.

How else do you stop someone walking out on day 1 with 50k cash?

~~~
jon_richards
The alternative would be to have a "guaranteed" bonus after a certain amount
of time, but people overwhelmingly prefer having something now, even if it
means they might lose it later.

------
s73ver_
Ok, so I "delocate". Do I then have to take a pay cut because I'm now
somewhere else?

Spreading the tech sector out around the country even more is great, and
things like this can be a step in the right direction. But a big part of why
the Bay Area is what it is has to do with funding. Most VCs are there, and
don't seem to be willing to move away. Hell, YC requires you to be there, at
least during your time with them. And the concentration of tech talent means
that it's always easy to find a new job, or even to start your own company.

~~~
alexbanks
> And the concentration of tech talent means that it's always easy to find a
> new job, or even to start your own company.

I've never been there, but I see this echoed a lot. Is it actually true? I'm
interested in both, but I'm wary of the exaggeration that may be "it's easy".

~~~
aphextron
>but I'm wary of the exaggeration that may be "it's easy".

It really is. It's why I cant bring myself to leave this place even with all
it's warts. Knowing that you can just screw off and do whatever you want for a
year then have a dozen interviews lined up for six figure jobs with nothing
more than a few emails is really empowering, actually. I can't imagine the
anxiety of living somewhere else and being dependent on a single good job no
matter what the relocation bonus is.

~~~
optimusclimb
> Knowing that you can just screw off and do whatever you want for a year then
> have a dozen interviews lined up for six figure jobs with nothing more than
> a few emails is really empowering, actually.

Unless you're a front end engineer. Then you'd be behind about 4 frameworks, 2
build systems, and 3 transpiled languages. Might as well be a fortran
programmer at that point.

------
jpao79
He (and Sam Altman for all YC companies) should have the startup(s) all de-
locate to the same town that's within driving distance of the Silicon Valley.

I bet you could convince a lot of tech people to move to Santa Cruz or
Monterey. You could also recruit from UC Santa Cruz and Cal Poly. Both
downtown Santa Cruz and downtown Monterey feel pretty small town urban-y.

Plus the Silicon Valley VC's can play golf at Pebble Beach or Half Moon Bay
Ritz Carlton and make a weekend getaway out of it AND get a business trip tax
write-off for mileage and hotel says.

And maybe before descending on the town you can get the city council and a
developer to agree to build high density housing in the downtown core.

This Palo Alto planning commissioner/Palantir spokesperson for high density
housing in Palo Alto ended up moving to Santa Cruz:
[http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/08/10/palo-alto-planning-
com...](http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/08/10/palo-alto-planning-commissioner-
quits-over-high-housing-cost/)

~~~
myrandomcomment
I lived in Menlo Park for 8 years with my family. When I moved there the
startup I went to work for was a 5 minute walk from my house. My current
startup is also in Menlo. A year ago my wife and wanted a larger place. We
looked in Menlo and PA. $3M for a teardown / needs tons of work. After
thinking about it we started to look outside of the area. School district was
a key factor of course. We ending up going as far up the mountain from Los
Gatos as we could and still be in the school district. $1.3M+500K remodel.
Half of my companies employees are remote. We use G-apps with Meeting and
Slack. It works well. I drive into the office 2 days a week timing the drive
to be outside of traffic hows. 50KM drive outside of traffic is 30 minutes,
with traffic is 1.5 hours. I have friends that moved to Morgan Hill, Gilroy
and take the CalTrain in. We other developers relocate out of state because of
the cost of living. The cost of housing in the main areas is stupid, even if
you can afford it. Menlo and PA are doing NOTHING to support the high density
housing required to make things better.

I agree there is something unique about being able to have everyone around you
in the same line of business (tech) and it is great for making contacts, etc.
However the cost are really starting to outweigh the benefits.

The bay area needs to look to places like Tokyo as an example of how to build
out from the trains to the housing.

~~~
jpao79
Been meaning to checkout Morgan Hill. I hear downtown Morgan Hill is pretty
happening these days.

I also noticed that there is a self-driving car company down there:
[http://velodynelidar.com](http://velodynelidar.com) Are there any other
interesting tech companies down there?

Nice thing is that if you live near downtown you could take the Caltrain up to
downtown MTV or PA.

~~~
joejerryronnie
Morgan Hill / Gilroy area is fantastic - small town feel, slower pace of life,
diverse population, significant rural element, growing dining/entertainment
options.

Housing is certainly less expensive than the peninsula but by no means cheap
compared to the rest of the state/country. I would still plan on spending $1
million plus but you will get a big new single family home instead of a 50
year old 1200 sf beater.

The downside is, of course, the commute. There are some alternate
transportation options, e.g. Caltrain, some companies like Apple run buses
down to Morgan Hill, but this will limit the geographic area that you can
reasonably commute to. IMHO San Jose, Santa Clara, & Cupertino are doable,
Sunnyvale & Mountain View are pushing it, and Palo Alto is too far. There are
a few companies in South Santa Clara county (and hopefully this will
dramatically increase over time) but you'd still probably be commuting north.

~~~
jpao79
Downtown San Jose's re-development would be pretty big for Morgan Hill.

[http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/14/real-estate-a-
develope...](http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/14/real-estate-a-developer-
describes-the-epic-impact-of-googles-plans-for-downtown-san-jose/)

[http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Googles-Property-
Buying...](http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Googles-Property-Buying-Spree-
in-Downtown-San-Jose-Continues-439684563.html)

Looks to be about 35 minutes to downtown San Jose via Caltrain. That's do-
able. The younger employees could live downtown in San Jose and the employees
with kids could live in Morgan Hill.

If YCombinator (and Zapier) were to move from Mountain View to Downtown San
Jose that'd be a huge symbolic move for San Jose.

------
zitterbewegung
So by giving them a $10k carrot they can basically lock them in to the company
because it would be much more difficult to interview for competitors or even
start startups. That's pretty genius.

~~~
tehlike
The reason is probably super inflated salaries in bay area due to high cost of
living.

Lock in has probably less to do with this than pure money aspect.

~~~
eldavido
I think there's a collective realization happening in the Bay Area that the
landlords are the real winners and everyone else is just playing their game.
Employees hate seeing 3k/month fly out the door in rent just as much as CEOs
hate paying it, just as much as investors hate seeing their capital ultimately
end up with landlords.

Big companies in general are conservative. They've made it and don't want to
take unnecessary risks. Trying to introduce remote culture into a company that
isn't used to it/tooled for it is a HUGE risk.

The innovation in hiring is going to come from small companies who need to
hire but can't afford Bay Area salaries. Mid-career folks here, not even
particularly good ones, are routinely looking at 200k or more out the door
from their employers. 400k seed rounds, hell even 800k seed rounds, don't go
very far on that kind of money. So what has to happen is that (a) founders
have to get comfortable giving up a lot more equity for more capital, (b)
investors have to be comfortable paying much higher valuations for early-stage
companies, (c) employees have to be willing to take more stock in lieu of
cash, or (d) companies have to do more remote hiring. I see a mix of all four
happening depending on the particular circumstances of each company (e.g.
famous founders will be able to raise more at higher valuation)

It's all pretty simple. The landlords win and everyone else loses. The
situation will only get better once remote work is more widely accepted, but
I'm starting to think it might come to that, with how expensive things are
here. A nothing-special sandwich in Oakland, CA where I live is almost $15, at
some point you say enough is enough and go somewhere where such an obscene
price level is a joke, not day-to-day reality.

~~~
Karrot_Kream
I never realized it until you wrote it down explicitly, but you're right.
Landlords laugh all the way to the bank, while the rest of the economy pays
their tax. Amazing.

~~~
ryandrake
Silicon Valley can be thought of as a gigantic wealth transfer machine from
rich investors to rich landlords.

~~~
lbotos
I wonder what the overlap is between the groups?

~~~
fapjacks
Ah, very good point.

------
mychael
Pros/Cons of living in the Bay Area for most tech workers:

Pros

\- Proudly displaying "San Francisco" in your Twitter bio.

\- An abundance of career opportunities.

Cons

\- Making six figures, but still living with roommates.

\- Commuting to work in awful public transportation.

\- Becoming desensitized to poverty and fecal matter on the streets.

\- Feeling unwelcome by locals.

\- Not being able to afford to live in a cool part of town.

\- For straight men: Unfavorable male/female ratios at bars & nightlife.

\- Monoculture.

~~~
sidlls
You forgot at least two pros:

\- Large salaries lead to higher savings rates

\- Opportunities are just not comparable almost anywhere less expensive: there
are tens of thousands of jobs from hundreds of employers here in the Bay Area
for technology that pays well, compared with hundreds or maybe a few thousand
jobs for maybe a dozen or few tens of employers

Also the "monoculture" dig applies to tech specifically: in terms of actual
cultural diversity very few places are as interesting.

~~~
aaron-lebo
We had a dev working for the summer who got a job at an SF startup this past
week. He's making $2k a week, but his rent for his apartment costs $3k and
he's got roommates. As someone who has lived off of $40k and rented a $1.4k a
month loft that was absolutely palatial, in the middle of the city with great
views, this sounds like insanity. My coworker who is from the Boston area was
similarly aghast at the differences in cost of living.

Have fun at your nice job, but I'm not coming home to roommates for $3k a
month. The numbers don't really seem to work out, a lot of people are
basically selling great living conditions for the chance to go work at
companies that probably won't be there in a few years and really aren't doing
anything interesting.

 _Also the "monoculture" dig applies to tech specifically: in terms of actual
cultural diversity very few places are as interesting._

I feel like people who say this about any city haven't gotten out much in
other cities.

~~~
dyim
FYI, you don't need to pay $3k - I lived in the Mission / Potrero Hill area
(with roommates, mind you) for a few years, and my rent had always been
between $1000-1850/mo.

Centrally located, safe(-ish), and beautiful. You can run through Bernal
Heights Park, get ice cream at Humphrey Slocombe, and bike to the 24 Hour
Fitness on 16th and Potrero. If you're in tech, you can definitely live well
in SF :)

~~~
kbenson
Or commute a little. If you're paying multiples the cost to live 30 minutes
away and commute, that's because you've attributed a high value on that
locality, so complaining that it's too expensive doesn't make much sense.

~~~
dyim
yes - when people complain about their own revealed preferences, just smile
and nod!

------
watty
This seems pretty genius. There is a surplus of highly skilled engineers in
the Bay Area who are getting mediocre pay (when cost of living is taken into
consideration). This allows Zapier to attract more of these highly skilled
workers and not pay a premium to those in the bay area.

~~~
sidlls
When compared to cost of living, sure. But factor in savings rate and
opportunities and the cost of living cut is well worth it.

For example, I pay 2.5x in rent for a smaller place compared to what I was
paying for a mortgage before I moved here. But my salary is 2x and a bit, and
I'm saving more than 2x as a result.

~~~
smelterdemon
If you don't mind me asking, what did the 25% increase in housing/income ratio
come out of if your savings rate stayed the same?

~~~
sidlls
The only expense that went up appreciably was housing. Basic expenses for
everything else averages out to be about the same. Internet and commute costs
are about the same, food is slightly more expensive, and utilities (power,
water) slightly less than where we were.

I kept my 401k rate the same and effectively doubled the amount of money I'm
saving. It's not my only savings, but it is the bulk of it.

------
rm_-rf_slash
$10,000 is a strong relocation package but the fine print is pretty clear that
it's for reimbursement - not as a signing bonus.

You'd have to pay me pretty well to even consider moving to the Bay Area with
today's housing prices. But if I'm already there with the salary I want, it
may take even more to get me to leave. Certainly more than $10k in moving
reimbursement.

~~~
mattnewton
Agreed, the fact that I can drive to virtually any of the worlds largest tech
companies and many of its promising startups from my current work is worth a
lot more than 10k. Once that pressure is removed, I assume employers will pay
market rate at wherever you relocated to.

------
stevecalifornia
Move to Washington State. Don't pay California income tax. Instant 8% boost to
your take-home pay.

~~~
dawnerd
And if you're one of those people that really hate taxes, live in Vancouver,
WA and buy everything in Portland.

~~~
spitfire
Or just point roberts.

~~~
biggc
He meant Vancouver, WA. It's across the Columbia river from Portland

------
Adrock
"...this remote thing helps me get away from San Francisco because I'm either
_disenfranchised_ with, you know housing costs here..."

It's fascinating to see which words tech CEOs don't know the meaning of.

~~~
darpa_escapee
It's almost ironic.

------
Graziano_M
So you're getting paid to relocate to somewhere farther away from the bay.
Maybe your salary will go farther, but you're giving up the whole reason
people move to the bay area in the first place: It's where the jobs are.

The bay area is what it is because there's a feedback loop. People setup here
because there are jobs. There are jobs here because there are people to fill
them. By relocating away you're giving up your mobility to other bay area
jobs. That might be great while you keep that job, but then you're at a
disadvantage (again) when you decide to move again.

------
phamilton
Anyone who owns a home in the bay area is going to pay 5-6% in fees to sell
their home. $10k isn't going to cover that loss.

The ultimate perk (which is often provided by big corporations in a
relocation) is to cover the real estate fees.

~~~
adamdill
What percentage of developers own a home in the bay area? Its probably low
enough to not matter in this case.

~~~
phamilton
Senior Engineers? Developers over the age of 30? People with kids? Plenty own
property.

This comes across as another form of Zuckerberg-esque ageism.

------
5706906c06c
Once you leave the Bay Area, it becomes exponentially more difficult to come
back, so the what-if scenario of this employment expiring becomes a real
threat to financial viability.

~~~
r00fus
Not if you keep your house (assuming you own) and rent it. Many lucky folks
can rent for significantly more than cost/PITI, adding another passive income
stream.

So the pitch is: 1) De-locate to a more reasonable real-estate market where
you can actually buy the house you want/need. 2) Rent-out your existing SFBay
property if you own, and get additional income (even minus property management
cut) 3) Get a bonus 4) Maybe move closer to family outside of SFBay.

What's not said: 1) Career mobility is limited to whatever market you move to
and within Zapier. 2) Salary probably likely won't make same leaps as if you
stayed 3) You might have family in the SFBay - could be a downside to move
away

If you're career-stable and open to move it can be a good deal.

------
andy_ppp
I really enjoyed the podcast! It was probably the most impressive CEO I’ve
heard, love the idea that he tslks to CEO a year or two away from where he is
and picks their brains!

------
tmh79
I guess "start up pays delocation bonus that is less than 1/3 of a signing
bonus at the big valley companies" is not as complelling.

------
btilly
That is a horrible format. I don't want to listen. I want to scroll and read
at my speed. The most that I can use is what, 15% of my screen? And partway
through reading it, it decided to start playing anyways and jump back to the
beginning.

If someone (eg me) wants a transcript, make it easy to get the transcript!

------
pascalxus
I'm guessing this offer is going to be extremely popular. The second you leave
the bay area, it's like getting a million dollar signing bonus for a place to
live.

I'm a little surprised more workers aren't leaving SF and the bay area
peninsula. Even if you take 50% pay cut, your still getting paid a lot more,
relative to you cost of living. I'm guessing the reason is: us engineers have
a hard time understanding and thinking about compensation in terms of living
costs, hence only the absolute $ value of a salary is taken into account.

Also, I think a lot of people don't want to move away from friends and family.

------
salimmadjd
Interesting podcast. I didn't know about Zapier so I checked out their
website.

It took me like 5-10 minutes to understand what they do. It was only after
seeing the Gmail(attachment) > DropBox > Slack I understood what they really
do. Which is very cool.

I have one need. I want a quick way of converting a list of stuff on slack
into todo list with ability to check off the task as they're completed. OR if
I can have a keyword --TODO-- --END-- in gmail and turn it into a todo list.
Will Zapier allow something like this?

~~~
mdbennett
Zapier Support here. The most common way I see people do this is by starring
Slack messages they want to add as Todos. Here's a template that uses Todoist,
although there's no shortage of alternatives on that side of things:
[https://zapier.com/app/editor/template/1580](https://zapier.com/app/editor/template/1580)

Outside of that, you can build a zap that triggers on any message and use a
Filter step to make sure only messages that meet your criteria(e.g. your
keyword) move on to the action: [https://zapier.com/help/how-get-started-
filters-zapier/](https://zapier.com/help/how-get-started-filters-zapier/)

If your ultimate goal is to manage the todo list from inside Slack, there's
not a great way to do that with Zapier. Personally, I manually add/delete
items in my 'You' channel to get to that type of functionality.

------
ltaaug8
If you want to attract talent outside the Bay Area, pay better. Even with the
insane cost of living, I still end up ahead financially when I've compared to
other places.

------
trynewideas
Leave! The word you're looking for is "leave"!

