

Why Are Startups Flocking To SF? There’s No More Room In Silicon Valley - flavio87
http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/23/title-why-are-startups-flocking-to-sf-theres-no-more-room-in-silicon-valleys-inn/

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pg
Every startup I know of that moved to SF did it because they thought it would
be easier to recruit hackers there.

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baddox
And hackers move there for better hiring opportunities.

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dredmorbius
Quality of life has a lot more to do with it.

There are gigs on the Penninsula. Might as well be living in LA though. You
drive to everything. Traffic is nuts. Biking puts your life and sanity at
constant risk. Few areas have any charm to them, and none of those are
remotely affordable. San Jose / Santa Clara proper are, apologies, pits.

San Francisco is walkable, has street life, functioning transit (well, for low
values of "functioning"), is _not_ strictly a tech ghetto in the way the
Penninsula / South Bay are, and beats the heat in the summer (temps ~15-27C
rather than 27 - 41C). You can walk to bars, clubs, museums, talks, art shows,
or a gym after work, or reach it quickly on transit. When Muni breaks down,
you can reasonably walk home.

Yes, housing cost per square foot is higher than elsewhere. That's what
density means.

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carterschonwald
Isn't it just a flat out better quality of life choice to live & work in a
city? Traffic and a commute etc, and the lack of local food alternatives...
that just sounds terrible!

(I like dense urban locals)

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haberman
Totally agree. One of the things I love about Seattle is that I can live _and_
work in the city. No 45-minute commute required.

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BadassFractal
Seattle is definitely quite nice from that point of view. The whole Cap Hill /
Lake Union area is dense with activity and places where to have it.

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tete
I think there should be more major cities like SF.

The reason is that this will cause infrastructure to be built. While I am
(still) living in Europe and have very good infrastructure as someone
interested into technology I fear that such developments could cause
infrastructure to mainly be built at certain cities making everyone else
living in some kind of desert, which could cause places to be underdeveloped,
which leads to inequality, which then leads to unused potential, which is
generally a problem that people see way too seldom these days. If you have
people that are poor and stuff this means you loose potential, which means you
waste the chance of someone bringing everyone forward, which maybe causes the
next Einstein (just to make a point) to become a criminal instead of solving
problems and creating amazing technologies.

One could see it as evolution. If the first humans had have bad luck, because
of being at a bad spot, where intelligence wouldn't have helped at all, there
was a drought period or just a predator or a virus, maybe even a meteorite
they could have just gone extinct and could have exterminated a race that now
can be considered dominant.

You could also see this with genes, like the one that causes western people to
be able to drink milk. If the first individuals had back luck we probably
wouldn't have that option now.

So every time you prevent someone from having the right infrastructure,
eduction, society, life and if it's just the money you potentially prevent
someone from solving the biggest problems.

Yes, one can argue that someone smart could make his life everywhere, but
people need to learn this first. No matter how smart you are, if you just
don't know you can do it that way, because you have no examples and no parents
that tell you to make something out of yourself and instead society just
reinforces you to do something different or bad you won't become a scientist,
even if you'd have the potential for a Nobel Prize, unless something causes
you to find it out, have self-esteem, etc.

So, it's okay to build nice technology cities and invest money in certain
areas and places, but it would not only be bad, but also dumb if this makes
you forget about the rest.

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hkarthik
Housing sucks in the valley too. Too expensive and car driven to appeal to the
young hackers.

Singles enjoy the city life and those with families get more value in the East
Bay with SF just being a BART ride away.

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bcantrill
Yes, exactly. My career started in Silicon Valley (Sun's Menlo Park campus --
now Facebook), but when we went to start a startup within Sun (Fishworks), we
demanded that Sun lease space in the City for it. This had nothing to do with
vacancy rates, and everything to do with the fact that all of us lived in the
City and -- despite our love for CalTrain -- we wanted to be done with the
Peninsula commute. (That we wanted space in the City was a huge emotional
sticking point with Sun's executive management; Scott was exasperated that we
refused to work in his million square feet of vacant office space in Santa
Clara.)

A couple of kids later, I live in the East Bay and with casual carpool to the
City, the commute's a breeze; at this point, I would only consider a job on
the Peninsula (or, God forbid, the South Bay) if there were no alternative in
the City. And to be honest, if I were looking for space now, I might give
Oakland a serious look: with the expansion of Silicon Valley into San
Francisco, Oakland is no longer the remote outpost it was -- and rents are
cheap cheap cheap...

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BadassFractal
Recommendations for good areas in Oakland and also East Bay in general, with
nice access to the city through BART?

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dredmorbius
Rockridge. Downtown / Lake Merritt.

Alameda or Jack London Square, and you can hop on a ferry.

BART gives you 5-15 minute headways from 5am until midnight/1 am, and is very,
very reliable except when it isn't. Ferry service is less frequent but
generally a nicer ride (more room, less riff-raff, much less scary crap in the
upholstery, literally).

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wickedchicken
There's also the lack of soul-crushing suburban sprawl of the south bay, and
the fact that you can legitimately live without a car.

Still no late-night coffee (with wifi!) but that has a higher chance of
springing up in the city than in Santa Clara.

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Apocryphon
There's some 24-hour food joints in SF, but no all-night cafes?

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wickedchicken
Sparky's is open 24hrs but doesn't have wifi (I believe intentionally).

I'm a little spoiled having lived in NYC directly across the street from a
24/7 Dunkin' Donuts.

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cjensen
What nonsense. East Menlo Park near Facebook has vacancy, and it's just a ten
minute drive away from Palo Alto. Or drive across the bridge an extra 10
minutes from there and there is infinite room in Fremont and Newark.

A minor inconvenience could lead to a lot less burn rate spent on rent.

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joshu
Palo Alto != Silicon Valley. There's a TON of space out here. Millions of
unleased square footage north of 101. Bah.

Also, Palo Alto sucks.

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dsl
Silicon Valley is: Campbell, Cupertino, Gilroy, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills,
Los Gatos, Milpitas, Monte Sereno, Morgan Hill, Mountain View, Palo Alto, San
Jose, Santa Clara, Saratoga, Sunnyvale

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley>

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pbreit
I'm surprised Palantir wouldn't consolidate somewhere. I know Peter has
discussed how communication breaks down even just being on different floors.

I also find the article unconvincing that companies are moving to San
Francisco because they can't find real estate elsewhere. There are a lot of
desirable ares in the peninsula other than downtown palo alto. And the fact
is, San francisco is a very good place to locate right now.

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greglindahl
Two words: Redwood Shores.

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SiVal
Please don't tell anyone about Redwood Shores until I get my office space!

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cluda01
My company (not a startup but a software company) is moving from Sunnyvale
near Moffett field to Palo Alto on Page Mill road. We are doing this because
google is eating up all the real-estate in mountain view and sunnyvale.

We used to be located near google right on Crittenden near LinkedIn but had to
move because google came into the market and theres no way we could match
their bids. Now we have to move again because again google is coming into the
market.

But still, we're looking at probably leasing the old facebook office space
(speculation as my company hasnt formally disclosed anything other than that
we're moving to palo alto)

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apaitch
Are SF and Silicon Valley really that different? Isn't Palo Alto like a 30
minute drive from SF? I know of people who bike the distance as a daily
commute. Sure, there are advantages and disadvantages to living in and outside
the big city (SF), but "why SF and not Palo Alto" seems to me like a rather
unimpressive and, perhaps, not terribly important question. Something like
"Why Silicon Valley?" may spur a far more interesting discussion :)

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mikeklaas
By that logic, New Jersey and Manhattan aren't that different.

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redwood
SV is not full at all... even Palo Alto, out of downtown, has countless vacant
office parks. They're not accessible to mass transit though, which makes them
not accessible to San Francisco folks which I think is a big part of it and
which makes Downtown Palo Alto more attractive.

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stewie2
I think Davis is a good place to run a startup. The only downside is that it's
too hot in summer.

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dannyr
What about Facebook's former office in Palo Alto (near Page Mill)? That should
still be open.

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phamilton
I'm married with a kid, live in Mountain View and work in Downtown Palo Alto.
Aside from rents I love it. The only reason I'd want to work anywhere else
would be to save money. SF has zero appeal.

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Codhisattva
Every time I hear about Palantir I expect Gandalf to way against looking into
it.

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brianbreslin
What's the scene like in Santa Cruz?

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necubi
It's pretty quiet. There were several large tech companies that set up here in
the 90s but most left after the bubble imploded. There is, however, a
surprisingly vibrant indie gaming scene, and a few start-ups here and there.

I've long found this situation surprising, because there are quite a lot of
engineers here, many of whom would likely take a pay-cut not to have to
commute over 17 every day.

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redwood
Seagate's still in Scott's Valley right?

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necubi
They still have an office there, but the headquarter moved to Cupertino.

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stephengillie
Think outside the valley.

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maybird
East bay? Santa Cruz? Marin?

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Apocryphon
Santa Cruz would be amazing, but SR 17 would make a daunting commute.

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lhnn
Y'all talk about all these different cities as if the distance is that big a
deal. Help me understand. In Texas, everything is 10-20 miles from everything
else.

In other words, y'all phrase it as if these cities are very distinct and
unique. All of Palo Alto, MV, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara can fit in the
northern half of San Antonio.

SF vs. Silicon Valley is one thing.. but Palo Alto vs. Mountain view sounds
like complaining about one side of the street vs. another.

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joshAg
it's not the distance, it's the time it takes to get from A to B (during rush
hour) and the distinct cultures.

The cities all have enough of a distinct vibrant culture that locals can
differentiate between cities. In another world, these town might just have
been different districts in a super city (there is literally no separation
between cities; buildings and suburbia go right up to the town borders), but
each of the cities used to be separated by miles of orchards and farmlands
before the tech boom, so each town had a chance to develop a slightly unique
culture (if you think of the finches Darwin discovered in the galapogos
islands, it's bout the same).

Because the entire area is suburbia, this leads to interesting transit
situations. Ignoring public transit for a minute, estimating time to go from A
to B becomes less of a function of distance, and more a function of how close
each endpoint is to an arterial route. Sometimes,

let me throw some numbers at you, to help explain the situation.

I work in sunnyvale near highway 101 and maude. I am in the process of moving
from Campbell (union and campbell ave, if you want to google map it) to
cupertino (homestead and de anza). This reduces my commute from about 14 miles
down to about 6 miles.

Geographically, I'm going from driving through 5 separate towns (campbell->san
jo->sc->cupertino->sunnyvale), to literally just driving across sunnyvale (ok,
and a 1/4 mile into cupertino as my car drives not as the crow flies).

From the campbell apartment to work with no traffic takes about 20 minutes if
you tend to drive at the speed of traffic instead of the posted limit. If I
were to commute during rush hour, this would be closer to a half hour or 40
minutes (i've only done it like twice because it is so horrid). From my new
apartment to work will take about 10 to 20 minutes without traffic (slower
roads, more stop lights, &c.). So despite cutting my commute distance by a
factor of roughly 3, I only reduced my time spent commuting by about 0-50%.

For reference, going from my campbell apartment to my company's sf hq (soma)
will take about 80 minutes when commuting during rush hour on public transit
(door to door via the caltrain from tamien to sf).

And we haven't even talked about the differences in weather, yet, which due to
microclimates can be 10 to 20 degrees different in the space of a few miles.

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lhnn
Interesting. In Texas, location matters in transit (arteries and such) in a
similar manner, esp. in San Antonio. That's why I choose to live a mile from
work, so my commute is 10 minutes on a really bad day.

But ya, Texan neighborhoods might have their own style and some unique places,
but not a totally distinct culture.

BTW, I'm in San Francisco for the first time this week, and it's an amazing
city.

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joshAg
I'm glad you're enjoying it! have you done any cool tourist-y things?

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lhnn
Walked around Japantown and went on a sailing cruise. Might check out the
Haight later.

