
Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer - MilnerRoute
http://oaklandlocal.com/2014/12/why-oaklands-a-tech-start-up-game-changer/
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nailer
I don't live in the US, but it's weird: downtown San Francisco people tend to
look down on Oakland, but every time I've been, San Francisco is unique in
having human feces on the streets.

In Oakland: there's a bunch of parks, a hacker space called the sudo room, a
bunch of JS related companies included npm Inc are headquartered there and the
last JSFest was there.

~~~
justizin
Please do not try to understand this through such a narrow lens.

San Francisco has human feces because it is one of the only cities in the USA
which has not completely criminalized homelesness, because there are a lot of
services there, and because once people decide that San Francisco is home,
they really, really, really do not want to leave.

First of all, there are plenty of human feces in Oakland, but again, let's try
and crawl away from that lens. If you become homeless in Oakland, the best
advice I can give you is to spend your last $5 on a BART ticket to San
Francisco. Oakland and a lot of Alameda County's solution to these sort of
problems are a humongous jail called Santa Rita which is comparable to the
size of the nearby San Quentin prison. Most of the people in there are there
for minor crimes related to homelessness or poverty, and their situations
escalate once they enter what is a major portal to our for-profit prison
system, which per-capita is the most heavily populated in the world.

~~~
nailer
I'm glad you acknowledge the problem, but I think you're understanding it
through a narrow lens yourself: there are many cities worldwide with the the
same levels of homeslessness as San Francisco (or higher), none are as filthy.
Hell even in the US Portland has methheads everywhere: they don't shit on the
street. SF has a unique problem.

Your claims about for profit prisons may be true, but they don't change the
fact that San Francisco is uniquely filthy.

~~~
RyJones
Agreed. San Francisco is the filthiest city I've ever worked in. That the
residents appear A-OK with public activity that would at least warrant a visit
by social services or the cops in other cities amuses and amazes.

~~~
notjackma
> San Francisco is the filthiest city I've ever worked in.

Literally.

How many of you reading this are in San Francisco and live in an apartment
building? Go and check the trash room.

You'll probably find that Recology emptied out the bins today but left
garbage, even if tied up neatly in trash bags, piled up against the wall or
door.

Disgusting and unsanitary. What happened to common sense? What happened to
people doing their job? Seriously, is there some law which says that trashmen
are not allowed to place trash bags into a wheelie bin for expensive
compacting trucks to get to work?

San Francisco is one of the worst run cities I have ever seen.

~~~
ch4ch4
BTW, Recology will not pick up trash that's not in the bin because the trash
collection service is billed by volume. They'll usually ask the subscriber to
upgrade to a larger bin.

[That's what happens when a private company is granted a monopoly to perform a
necessary public service.]([http://www.trashrecology.com/stop-the-sf-
monopoly.html](http://www.trashrecology.com/stop-the-sf-monopoly.html))

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tzs
According to Wikipedia, "Oakland has the fifth largest cluster of 'elite zip
codes' ranked by the number of households with the highest combination of
income and education". That's a good sign.

On the other hand, Oakland is also persistently near the top of the list of
most dangerous cities in the US. One recent report put it at #2 [1]. That's
generally not a good sign.

Is there much interaction between the high income/high education areas
(presumably where you'd want to put your start up), and the high crime areas?

BTW, in addition to having one of the highest crime cities in the nation with
Oakland, the Silicon Valley area also has one of the lowest. That would be
Sunnyvale, which was the 10th on this recent list of safest cities in the US
[2].

[1] [http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/11/11/the-most-
dang...](http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/11/11/the-most-dangerous-
cities-in-america-4/)

[2] [http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/11/12/the-safest-
ci...](http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/11/12/the-safest-cities-in-
america/)

~~~
thrownaway2424
Being in danger in Oakland is related to being part of a dense network of
dangerous people. If you're not in that network, you're not in danger. I don't
know why those people make their home in Oakland, but basically if you're not
a criminal or friends with criminals than you'll survive.

~~~
rifung
Is this really true though? I mean even if you are not in that crowd you could
just happen to be a witness to a crime. In that case I imagine they might not
be so happy about it.

Or, probably more commonly, if you have nice things you could be a victim of
theft.

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Mz
_“Oakland has a unique opportunity. It has an opportunity that no other region
has anywhere in the world, so if Oakland can’t do it, no one else can,”
Selassie said._

I don't see any reason to believe that. I mean if Oakland pulls it off --
diversifying tech and becoming an important hub in that regard -- awesome. But
I see no reason to believe that it has to be something in the SF Bay Area.
Part of what made Silicon Valley a growth opportunity is that that area was
relatively undeveloped and it was, thus, cheap. Historically, a lot of our
biggest companies were founded during a recession or depression and a lot of
stuff was founded someplace cheap. In order to go live someplace expensive,
you need to already be making good money. By definition, brand spanking new
businesses and industries are not doing that.

So I don't see any real reason to believe that any place in the SFBA is The
Spot to bet on for becoming "the next Silicon Valley -- only for X thing or
with X twist."

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illicium
It's only a "game changer" because SF is now too crowded and expensive, so
startups are moving to Oakland because it's still close by and a little
cheaper.

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ryanSrich
Oakland is incredibly close to San Francisco. If you want all the benefits of
being in Silicon Valley's startup network with only a fraction of the cost,
then Oakland is your spot. The only downside is that many businesses already
realize this and have begun driving up renting costs.

~~~
teej
> have begun driving up renting costs

The two bedroom I rented near the 19th St BART in Oakland was $1,700 in 2009
and is now on the market for over $4,000 a month.

~~~
ryanSrich
In Oakland? That seems about right, considering it's a 2 bedroom, a comparable
spot in SF would be closer to $6 or $7k.

Out of curiosity do you know the folks living their now? I'm always curious to
hear who these people that are making enough money to justify a $4k rent
payment.

The Bay Area never ceases to amaze me. The rent prices are so crazy yet the
pay increase is negligible.

~~~
dllthomas
19th St Bart is _right_ by Pandora, which (per glassdoor) seems to have a
number of jobs around $100k. Cutting the cost and time of a commute is worth
paying for.

~~~
ryanSrich
That still seems way low to me. A qualified software engineer or designer can
command a six figure salary remotely, thus eliminating a commute and the need
to live in an expensive city. If Pandora is doing $150k for mid level
developers then I'd say it's worth it, but not a penny less.

~~~
dllthomas
Not all those jobs were development roles.

[http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Pandora-
Salaries-E262334.htm](http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Pandora-
Salaries-E262334.htm)

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pla3rhat3r
It makes me happy to see other markets besides Silicon Valley and SF (yes I do
not consider SF part of the Silicon Valley) get some attention about what
they're doing.

US News did a great piece about my hometown, Portland about how it's becoming
a great place to start a company.

[http://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-
intelligence/2014/12/...](http://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-
intelligence/2014/12/23/portland-oregon-is-a-hub-for-entrepreneurship-and-
startups)

I can attest to this. SF is a great place to start a company, but Portland is
a different world. People are much more collaborative. If you start a company
here, you'll be able to find help. It's incredible. I'm Bay Area born and
raised, but I'll never go back. The underserved markets are less toxic, more
collaborative, and foster an ecosystem in which people can focus on their
product or services without a lot of underlying tension.

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fyell
Great article. The diversity in tech is definitely apparent in Oakland. Not
just in employee demographics, but in how companies tend to think in a
different manner.

The article mentions that start-ups in Oakland are driven by a social mission,
and it's very true. I work at VSCO and we're based in Oakland. VSCO is not
about giving likes, being popular, or generating money through ads. We are
simply about empowering the community with the art of photography. Without
trying to sound too self-righteous, I like to think that the tech companies
coming to Oakland also share a sentiment of contributing to social causes
bigger than themselves.

~~~
krakensden
> I like to think that the tech companies coming to Oakland also share a
> sentiment of contributing to social causes bigger than themselves.

I'm pretty skeptical. It's telling, too, that there was no mention of the big
companies with their names on towers.

~~~
justizin
I interviewed with one of them, and they picked a fight with me about
advertising because I felt my previous employer had taken the absolute lowest
possible road. I continually tried to acquiesce, even noting that they had a
paid option, and they basically said that they hate their paid customers, who
they lose money on (why not charge us more?!?), and that they only ever did a
paid option because they were forced to.

Pretty sure I had been using their fucking service longer than anyone I
interviewed with there, but whatever. ;)

~~~
guelo
Fuck Pandora. They use to have a mission. Nowadays they've even given up on
the vaunted Music Genome project in order to play more "hits" and shove in
more advertising.

~~~
aorloff
If the startup is venture backed, the mission is creating shareholder value.
The rest is just lip service. You should know as much too.

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NDizzle
My personal experience is trying to run a food related startup in Oakland. It
didn't go so hot, but then again I think we tried to do too much.

We tried to make the food, deliver the food, and provide the technology to
order the food. (a menu that changes day to day - different menu items based
on what was in season, etc) In 2010.

It may seem that you can be the 'local boy makes good' when in Oakland, rather
than SF. You can garner a lot of support from various groups by bringing
business to Oakland as well. Just realize that as long as you are tech focused
most of your customer base will be in SF.

~~~
thrownaway2424
Maybe people in Oakland don't need food delivered because we don't have multi-
hour lines out the door of every restaurant like SF has :)

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hadley
I found the title very hard to parse. It would be better as: "Why Oakland Is a
Tech Start-up Game Changer"

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millermp12
Really only two takeaways from an overly long article:

1) the diversity thing has more than a whiff of wish fulfillment to it.
Repetition in this regard just makes the dubious sound downright desperate.

2) if money is really flowing to the next Netflix for Latinos, what stronger
"sell" signal do you need?

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LISPmasta
45 comments? God you fucking sub-par coding python hipsters only care about
things unrelated to actually doing work. Go make some commits on useful public
libraries and stop circle jerking to your shitty cities.

