
Let People Move to Jobs - luu
https://www.jefftk.com/p/let-people-move-to-jobs
======
esotericn
The whole idea of remote working to arbitrage cost of living falls apart if
you are in any way social.

I think that a lot of people banging on about remote work just haven't tried
it for an extended period. It works for some, and for those - great.

To me, it's just another step down the 'technification' of everything in which
people don't speak to the people around them (because they've been 'removed'
from their lives) but spend all of their time in front of screens.

I don't want to live in the middle of nowhere and earn 10x what the average
local does. I want the people around me to be roughly on my level and share my
interests. That's something that's easy to do in a city.

That's how businesses end up centering in hubs anyway. Who wants to be a
startup founder living in the country alone? I'm sure this person exists, but
they're the exception not the rule.

I mean, right now, you can look at a place like London and see hyperlocal
clustering of wealth, one street will be the 'nice street' and the next one
rough. People really care about this.

If you earned a London salary in my hometown you'd be ostracising yourself
completely from those around you by virtue of just having none of the same
concerns. Yeah, you own the home outright, you can buy a brand new car every 6
months, the price tags in the supermarket may as well be blank, etc. Oh yeah,
and you have working hours whenever you want, booking a holiday is telling
your boss "I won't be in Friday, guv". Wait until your neighbour tells you
again how they're struggling to pay the bills or they've just been sanctioned
by the benefits office.

I don't see how that benefits anyone.

~~~
gurkendoktor
> The whole idea of remote working to arbitrage cost of living falls apart if
> you are in any way social.

Unless you grew up in the area from which you work remotely, in which case you
can be _more_ social because connecting with old friends and family is much
easier than making new friends at 30+.

> If I earned a London salary in my hometown I'd be ostracising myself
> completely from those around me [...] I don't see how that benefits anyone.

I don't see the problem with having more money than most of your neighbors -
instead of buying new cars, you could spend it on your neighborhood and lift
it up. Seems healthier than what is happening instead - non-techies being
forced out of their homes because they can't keep up with techie rents.

~~~
esotericn
Yeah, and all of those guys are skint and you're not. It works to an extent.

Perhaps you don't see the problem because you're theorizing about it rather
than having lived experience. As I think most people do.

Imagine that essentially everyone you meet in your age group is far poorer
than you are. Not most people but everyone. You need some sort of 'app' to
find people to speak to who are on your level.

Your specific example means you're making yourself some sort of local
pariah/celebrity/whatever. It's very nice and kind, but what about your peer
group? Do they just exist through a webcam?

It's like the FIRE folks. Everyone thinks they want to retire at 30 unless
they're in that situation, and then they realise it's deathly boring and
everyone else is at work. (Sure, FU money is great).

On reflection, I think maybe you're talking about the small arbs where like,
you move from somewhere with 500K homes to somewhere with 250K homes or
whatever; i.e. from somewhere with jobs, to somewhere with jobs (that pay a
bit less). If you're doing the big arb of moving to an economically depressed
area then you have to actually live there.

The limiting example would be like those people that move to Vietnam or
whatever and have servants. Maybe it works for them? But even if you're just
moving to a poor area in the same country it's still a massive difference.

There is a fundamental difference between having a bit more money and deleting
worldly concerns. The FIRE/low CoL idea forgets the idea that if you make
yourself 'special' you are now indeed special and weird and not like those
around you.

~~~
abnry
"On your level" just screams pretentiousness. Since when is money the measure
of a man anyways?

~~~
bitforger
It's not really the money, it's the level of education and ambition. I worked
remotely from Mount Pleasant, Michigan for a year and had a difficult time
finding anyone to talk with about things that were interesting to me. The only
group on Meetups.com was "Housewives of Mount Pleasant."

Friends are peers that have similar life experiences and values (and humor).
Sometimes people like that are hard to find.

~~~
zorak
Sounds like you were looking for more of a college town vibe. Austin, Athens,
Madison, etc.

~~~
ebiester
I'm currently in a similar situation: I'm working from a MCOL area and remote
from the home office. I don't love the city, but it's a nice city for other
people. (I am here because of my academic spouse - he wasn't offered a job in
a technical hub.)

We end up saving amazing amounts of money, relatively speaking, but our social
life has been difficult to fill in. College vibe helps, but there are vast
benefits to large cities and I'm certainly missing those.

------
neilwilson
This argument has been made for decades.

Isn't it about time we realised that people live somewhere amongst social
capital they have built up throughout their lives.

And therefore business capital should move where the people are - to avoid
damaging that social capital. Not the other way around.

Ultimately people work to live. Those who live to work are a tiny minority.

With modern technology there is little excuse. Fewer and fewer enterprises
require physical concentration to operate.

~~~
lazyjones
> _Isn 't it about time we realised that people live somewhere amongst social
> capital they have built up throughout their lives._

It's often the case, but SF, NYC, London are very popular outliers, so why
can't other regions be?

It's not social capital, it's expected quality of life that makes people move
to NYC for work and makes dilapidated areas unattractive.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I'm not sure about that, take a look at any of the who's hiring threads and
note how nearly all the UK jobs are in London.

~~~
ReptileMan
Yes because London is best for the Founders, VC, Investors, Board of Directors
and C level executives. Not because it is best for employees.

------
remote_phone
The author made a blind guess that 80% of Google would quit If they moved HQ
without any actual evidence.

If Google opened up a new large office in a place like Kansas City with no
salary cut and a strong internet presence and some other tech companies (ICE
exchange for example), I bet enough Google employees would want to move there
to make it worthwhile. Cheaper cost of living, better schools, better for
families etc. plus alternatives If you get tired of working at Google but
probably not since your lifestyle would be so much better than the Bay Area.

I know a lot of people that are very sick of the Bay Area, especially those
with kids.

~~~
duxup
Would be great for Googlers ... kinda horrible for locals in KC who would
still be making the same amount, and housing costs skyrocket.... funding
sudden needed school expansions ... and so on...

The economic and political messes of sudden expansion can be an absolute mess.

~~~
AmericanChopper
The only reason this happens is because of (perhaps misguided) attempts to
resist the changes caused by population growth from local voters. If it was up
to the market to decide, what would happen if there was a sudden spike in the
demand for housing? Developers would build more housing. Prices might move a
bit, but you’re not going to be looking at a crisis. However, entrenched
homeowners don’t want that, because it would change whatever it is they like
about their nice quite neighbourhoods. So they resist any attempt to develop
new housing. Housing supply is artificially constrained, everybody’s property
taxes go up (because the supply of property tax payers is artificially
constrained too), prices skyrocket, and access to housing plummets.

The idea that when you buy a house, that you’re somehow paying for your
neighbourhood/city to perpetually remain in a state that personally satisfies
you is behind most of our housing problems. Enabled by the almost universal
dysfunctionality of local democracy.

~~~
rightbyte
Isn't that an example of functional local democracy? Why bother make your town
a mess in the name of growth.

In SF's case the external pressure just was to huge and they should have given
up long time ago keeping it a low built city.

~~~
TulliusCicero
> Why bother make your town a mess in the name of growth.

Yeah, and why bother making the country a mess by letting foreigners into your
country?

People moving for opportunity is a fundamental part of what America _is_. To
deny others opportunities that you have by virtue of birthplace is nativism,
and it's ugly.

Sure, it sounds relatively harmless when it's "just your town", but you can
look at the bay area and see what happens when everyone behaves this way for
their neighborhood or city. Massive rents, struggling families, hideously long
commutes: all the result of NIMBYism.

~~~
ericmay
> Yeah, and why bother making the country a mess by letting foreigners into
> your country?

I mean, that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? And unless you’re a proponent for
open borders, you advocate a similar position - just a different scale. I’m
also not really a fan of the “deny others opportunities” grandstanding. I mean
you do it right now. I bet someone wants the job you have. Why not give your
money away so others have opportunities? It’s easy to talk the talk with that.
We all, by nature of our global system, deny others opportunities. The Swiss
deny me an opportunity to move to Switzerland since I don’t have a million
bucks. New Zealand requires me to invest half a million. Canada has a points
system for immigration.

> People moving for opportunity is a fundamental part of what America is. To
> deny others opportunities that you have by virtue of birthplace is nativism,
> and it's ugly.

Well, like towns, you shouldn’t expect the idea of America to not change.
There is like 350mm people here. Personally I think that’s plenty and the
Statue of Liberty mindset just reminds me of 2nd Amendment arguments. I don’t
want to end up like India, China, or Bangladesh with crowds and crowds of
people (whether they are here due to immigration or birth). I think the US is
overpopulated as it is. My idea of America is a lot of untamed wilderness,
clean air, national parks, peace and quiet. Increases on population don’t
really fit my vision (but that’s mine).

> Massive rents, struggling families, hideously long commutes: all the result
> of NIMBYism.

And this isn’t solved by building skyscrapers and having more people. It’s
solved by having fewer people and jobs less concentrated in specific areas.

PG talks about taboo topics. Population is one of those I think, for me. I
feel uncomfortable saying anything about it publicly, and I feel as though
people have largely been indoctrinated that growth=good and you shouldn’t
challenge that. I really just don’t see the value in adding more and more
people to the US (birth or immigration). If we could have fewer, better
educated people and less wealth disparity this could be an even better place
to live. Imagine getting rid of jobs that people don’t want to do and then
paying people a lot more money to do jobs they do want to do? Pay a barista
$100,000/year instead of two business analysts making $50,000. It’s not like
we’re going to add enough jobs to keep up with the pace of growth, unless we
add mind-numbing bullshit jobs or create another TSA.

But I think the whole raison d'être for everything here in this tiny post is
that our economy is built on a growth model. It’s a huge Ponzi scheme (in
function not intention), so if we don’t increase the population or increase
global population and sell to them, the whole thing falls apart. But it’s also
this growth mindset that’s destroying the pristine wilderness we have, causing
global warming, and contributing to nonsense wars and terrorism.

~~~
jefftk
_> unless you’re a proponent for open borders_

I don't know about TulliusCicero, but I agree with their comment and I think
open borders would probably be good. The US's historically high levels of
immigration have been very positive for the country and I think we could let
more people in.

 _> My idea of America is a lot of untamed wilderness, clean air, national
parks, peace and quiet_

The US is enormous, and people who want to move here are primarily interested
in living in the major cities. If we allow building dense cities we can easily
continue to have very large fractions of the country set aside as wilderness.

 _> If we could have fewer, better educated people and less wealth disparity
this could be an even better place to live._

You're only considering the interests of the people who already live here.
Keeping people out doesn't make fewer people, just fewer people here, just
like it doesn't decrease wealth disparity only wealth disparity here. Lots of
people around the world would love to come here and have the same
opportunities we have. I think we should generally let them.

~~~
ericmay
> I don't know about TulliusCicero, but I agree with their comment and I think
> open borders would probably be good. The US's historically high levels of
> immigration have been very positive for the country and I think we could let
> more people in.

My take on that is that it’s a naive, anarchist position. I’m also unsure that
anyone can anticipate the potential downsides as well. I see so many problems
it’s hard to even get a start. And it’s not about not letting in “bad” people,
but that infrastructure would be absolutely overwhelmed and it would be an
unmitigated disaster. We wouldn’t have like a couple million more people
moving in, it would be tens, maybe hundreds of millions. They all won’t fit in
NYC and SF - they’ll move to Columbus, and Pittsburgh, and they’ll move to
suburbs, and shanty towns. I just don’t see positives outweighing negatives
unless we really just skyrocket prices - but on a macro level that’s no
different than how things are.

To me it’s like putting your oxygen mask on before you help someone else. We
can’t even solve problems in this country now. But I do imagine mega corps
would love this since they’d have a much higher pool of workers, and an
expanded market that is easier to get access to, which kind of gets back to my
last point about growth-mindset.

> You're only considering the interests of the people who already live here.
> Keeping people out doesn't make fewer people, just fewer people here, just
> like it doesn't decrease wealth disparity only wealth disparity here. Lots
> of people around the world would love to come here and have the same
> opportunities we have. I think we should generally let them.

I appreciate your comment but I don’t think it’s a fair one. To start, I think
GLOBAL population is far too high, and I’d apply the same principles to the US
that I am suggesting but globally, but we were talking about the US. I also
think that this is a case where it’s easy to say “oh but if they only had the
opportunity” because it sounds great while also ignoring how it affects
others. Generally I don’t think we should let people in to the US, because it
doesn’t really solve any problems. It certainly doesn’t help the rest of the
world. Am I lucky that I was born here? You bet. But that’s it. I’m also lucky
to not be born with a disability, I’m also not lucky since I wasn’t born
wealthy.

The last point I’ll add is that the vast majority of the world disagrees with
open-borders and I think for good reason. Even the most liberal countries
(broadly speaking) don’t do it.

Thanks for your discussion points here. I’d love to hear more of what you
think - and I hope what I said doesn’t come off too poorly. It’s hard with
text and not in-person.

~~~
AmericanChopper
If you want to have open borders then there’s really nothing standing in the
way of implementing it. Except that you would need to abolish all government
welfare. Otherwise you would have every person in the world who’s quality of
life is worse than the quality of life afforded a US welfare recipient (which
is billions of people) moving to the US. Which would naturally destroy the
country.

Modern USA was created by migrants. But when the country was being settled,
those migrants were faced with having to either provide for themselves, or
die. The US has also seen a lot of growth from continuing to import
immigrants. But those immigrants were all selected based upon a relatively
strict criteria to evaluate whether they would be providing value to the
country.

------
codekansas
There's at least one large tech company that has located themselves totally
outside the typical tech hubs - Epic Systems, in Madison. I interviewed for
them after graduation but ended up taking a job at Facebook in Seattle.

The offer was for half my current salary. They tried to argue that with the
cost of living adjustment I could buy a house, but what 22-year-old wants to
buy a house? Locating in Madison is kind of a physical manifestation of their
business strategy - avoid any competition, pay sub-market rates and issue
strict, possibly non-enforceable non-compete clauses.

It works for people who really want to live in the Midwest. I think there's a
spectrum between "live to work" and "work to live", and I think most ambitious
college grads actually want many opportunities, for a while at least.

~~~
opportune
It’s also part of their strategy to churn through 22-25 year olds by
overworking them in their first jobs out of college when they likely don’t
have as many family obligations or well calibrated expectations for what work-
life balance entails. And it saves them money since they don’t have to promote
that many people to senior positions.

There are plenty of other companies outside big tech hubs, you just don’t hear
about them as much and they don’t recruit the same way a lot of other tech
companies do. For example, Epic’s competitor Cerner is in Kansas City which
many people on this post are using as an example of a cheap place with a small
tech scene, despite Cerner employing over 10K

------
foxhop
I work remotely for the past 6 years and will likely never have an office job
again.

I live in my home town and have worked for start ups in Santa Monica, San
Francisco, Boston, and New York.

I live in Eastern Connecticut, which is the side on the state that people
often do not know about. It's a 2.5 hour drive to New York or Boston. It's not
as affluent as the weat side, close to New York.

I do a lot of gardening when the weather permits.

[https://russell.ballestrini.net/how-to-work-from-home-the-
ro...](https://russell.ballestrini.net/how-to-work-from-home-the-road-to-
remote-chapter-1/)

------
systematical
The article mentions DC and I'd just like vent about how miserable a place
this is to live in. I see some people spend 10 hours a week and often more
just commuting to work. It's overpriced. And when you look at the state of IT
in the federal government you realize why this government fails so badly at
non-tech things.

I'll be running away from the major cities as fast as possible as soon as
possible.

Yuck. You actually lose money working in DC, the salaries aren't even worth.

~~~
cowsandmilk
> You actually lose money working in DC, the salaries aren't even worth.

People around DC have such low salaries that they are among the richest
counties in the country...

[https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-
jeffrey/censu...](https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-
jeffrey/census-bureau-5-richest-counties-are-dc-suburbs)

~~~
humanrebar
That just proves that there's a certain class of rich people (diplomats?
lawyers?) that have plenty of work in the D.C. area and they've carved some
neighborhoods out for themselves. It doesn't prove anything about what life
for a DBA in D.C. would be like.

~~~
cowsandmilk
Glassdoor shows the pay for DBAs in the DC area are above the national
average.

For software developers, the median salaries are below those in SF and
Seattle, but if you are a FAANG level engineer, Amazon’s pay scale in NOVA is
identical to Seattle and Facebook pays similarly.

> carved some neighborhoods out for themselves

This is an effort to imply that the suburbs of DC with high median salaries
are small enclaves. This could not be further from the truth. Fairfax County,
which has the third highest median household income in the US, is over a
million in population and the largest county in VA. Montgomery County is the
largest county in Maryland, also over a million people. So these counties are
not separated from the rest of the metro area, but instead have over 2 million
people in an MSA of 6 million.

~~~
systematical
COL eats it away, the extra salary is not worth it. I'm sure its the same for
SF, NYC, and other similar cities.

~~~
humanrebar
Outside of subsistence salaries, which are not sustainable long term through
illness, emergency, and retirement, rate of growth of net worth is a better
metric.

Point being, putting 2X thousand dollars a year in long term savings in NYC is
a better financial choice than saving X thousand a year in Townsville but
having a nicer neighborhood or something.

Not that the dichotomy works exactly that way, but adjusting gross salary of a
senior software engineer by cost of living makes little sense since only part
of her pay goes to cost of living.

------
cagenut
The housing costs of some second/third/worse tier city are almost completely
meaningless. Unless the job gave me a 10 year contract with a golden parachute
or something. It doesn't matter if you can make the numbers work once, what
matters is that you will almost certainly job hop 3 - 5 times, so you need to
be in an area _dense_ with employers to make that viable without having to
move your life/family every time. Even if you never wind up changing jobs, the
fact that you _could_ matters, you're not completely fucked if things go south
with one company. They don't own you (as much).

~~~
chrisfrantz
This statement could be made in a job where remote work doesn’t exist, but
thankfully it does. There’s more than enough work out there.

~~~
jayd16
Then why is the article talking about where the jobs should be? If this was
actually a reality then this post wouldn't exist.

------
mwcampbell
I believe we in the software industry have a moral duty to pursue remote,
distributed work, as much as possible, for a few reasons:

The software that runs the world should be developed by people living all over
the world, not just people who can move to a few cities. To me, this is part
of real diversity. We talk about gathering requirements for software. Well,
it's easier to do it when the people developing the software are as diverse as
possible. Limiting these jobs to people who are willing and able to move to
one of the tech hubs is bound to limit some kinds of diversity.

People should be free to live in and support their local communities. I think
a lot of the political polarization that has been building up lately,
particularly in the US, is between the "elites" in big cities and the "regular
people" in the rest of the country. We should try to reduce that gap. Of
course, people who find their local community intolerable should be free to
move elsewhere.

Remote work, especially when it's primarily text-based, is also more equitable
for people with disabilities. Blind people benefit somewhat from the fact that
nobody is relying on facial expressions or body language (assuming video calls
aren't a routine thing). For people with other kinds of disabilities, the
benefits can be far greater. What would you do if a deaf person or a person
with a severe speech impediment applied for a job on your on-site team? Well,
if you're primarily using text, it's not as big an issue. Sure, we can always
accommodate specific people with specific disabilities, but it's better if the
normal way of doing things already works for them.

Disclosure: I currently work at Microsoft, on the main Redmond campus. So call
me a hypocrite if you like. But I honestly think I'm doing a lot of good where
I'm at, since I work on the Windows accessibility team. I do sometimes bring
up the subject of remote work with my colleagues. And whenever I move on, I
will probably insist that my next job be remote.

------
6c696e7578
I've never understood why with IT jobs in the UK that they're all centred
around London. Especially when they then offshore bits of the company to India
or Eastern/Southern Europe requiring contracted staff to use a VPN.

It seems companies want staff onsite in London, purely for the enjoyment of
making people commute there. This does no good for the environment other than
help to conversion of fossil fuel into co².

If people are to be managed in things like "sprints" or other ticket
monitoring/work managing systems then there's no reason why people can't work
from home so long as they're happy to communicate on normal daily/weekly
management calls.

Bring on telecommuting, it works for and helps everyone.

~~~
laputan_machine
There's a push to make less expensive northern cities (Manchester, Leeds,
Liverpool) appealing for tech. London still has (and will do for the
foreseeable future) the lion's share, but there plenty of good tech jobs up
north.

~~~
ck425
Same with the Scottish central belt. There are plenty of good jobs up here.
Part of the reason for the London centricness is that relatively few people
realise just how many good jobs there are outside of London.

~~~
lotsofpulp
All the jobs are a few clicks away from being found. London probably offers
quite a few amenities that people want, even though they hate many aspects of
it. One of the crucial amenities a big city provides is security that if you
lose an income stream, you will be able to get another easily.

How much are people willing to pay for that?

~~~
ck425
If you're a software engineer that security exists in every major city. Plus
the cost of living to salary ratio is so much better that it's far easier to
save an emergency fund.

------
jillesvangurp
People move to where the economic activity is. Typically the best and most in
demand skills go first because they get payed extra. This re-enforces the
importance of these areas. That's how big cities emerged. They are
concentrations of people with skills and supporting infrastructure.

Despite the cost of living (which is insane), San Francisco is still
attractive to software companies because of the insane numbers of people with
software skills in the area.

IMHO there are a few things that are accelerating this: 1) dropping cost of of
transport (clean energy, autonomous driving/flying, etc.) this will allow
people to move more efficiently and more often and with less guilt about
environmental concerns. 2) improving tooling for remote work. 3) co-working
spaces and other flexible work infrastructure. 4) the gig economy, work,
living, eating, transport, it's basically all people outsourcing things to
each other.

------
marcus_holmes
> "physically being in the same place as your coworkers remains extremely
> valuable"

I always remain suspicious of this, because there's so many bad managers out
there who equate "working hard" with "being at your desk for a long time" and
have no idea how to manage a team if they can't eyeball them. Is being
physically present a genuine advantage to the organisation, or does it just
make managers feel better?

------
atemerev
I wonder why 100% remote positions and companies are still marginal. Software
engineering is one of the few industries where remote work is possible, and
yet hardly available, despite obvious advantages.

~~~
ozim
Because remote is hard, if it would be just about typing code then yes you
could live in igloo in Greenland.

You need people who are able to work remotely together. It is not only about
having really smart devs who can grasp how to do Y with tech Z. It is also
about having really smart managers and really smart company owners. Building
such a team takes years, it is not like you can hire 10 devs, a manager and
dump loads of cash on them to build a product.

First you have to get all those different people to trust each other. Then
there are differences in ideas how things should be done, it is hard to solve
some of those when people are in the same room. People have different
temperaments, they have different ambitions.

We have all the technology to communicate but people have problems with
stating their ideas in clear way in writing. Calling might help a bit, but to
build trust you have to work with someone face to face and go trough rough
times together.

~~~
Apocryphon
Just because it's hard doesn't mean it's worth trying. For an industry so
ostensibly focused on innovation and experimentation, much of tech remains as
conservative as any other in terms of trying out new ways of work. Though
certainly there are some bright spots opening up to remote:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21764110](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21764110)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19444960](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19444960)

~~~
ozim
This is a bit weird argument from my point of view.

I argued about that it is hard to get 100% remote companies with 100% remote
positions. Nothing about no one should ever do it. If you have smart people
who you trust, you can do it.

You bring up examples of companies that are doing remote work so someone is
trying to do that. It works for them. Expecting every company to do it is not
the way to go.

Every company should be doing what is best for them, based on people and
possibilities they have. Just like Yahoo tried remote work and Merissa Mayer
come up with remote work ban, not sure if it was good for company but that was
their decision.

~~~
Apocryphon
The point is that more companies should not fear experimentation, and should
try different policies. If it doesn’t improve, don’t use it. If it does, set a
new standard. That’s how advancement works.

------
cryptica
>> If Google announced it was moving everything to Pittsburgh, ~80% of the
company would quit.

They don't have to move everything to Pittsburgh, they could just open a small
office there and give their employees the option to move there.

>> People expected telecommuting to change this, but even though we have many
technical tools that make remote work far more practical than it was even ten
years ago, physically being in the same place as your coworkers remains
extremely valuable.

I think office politics are to blame for this. Remote people are often more
productive than those who are on-site but they are less likely to be promoted
in a mixed envrionment. That's why it's often better if everyone is remote;
then everyone has equal opportunity.

>> Good ideas flow more freely between organizations

So do bad ideas. Bad ideas backed by a lot of money spread like the plague.

>> Coordination between organizations is easier

So that they can make cartels which erode workers' rights and monopolize
industries.

>> Switching jobs is easier, so people don't get as stuck in jobs they don't
like

They can be forced to live in a horrible place that they hate, but at least
they can distract themselves from their misery by changing companies all the
time to give themselves the illusion of hope.

>> Ease of switching also allows people to take larger career risks

To the point that everyone in your workplace is focused on risky career
politics instead of producing actual value.

~~~
pb7
> They don't have to move everything to Pittsburgh, they could just open a
> small office there and give their employees the option to move there.

Google has had an office in Pittsburgh for over a decade now. There is
physical office space for 2-3x the employees it has now and year after year,
the growth there does not exceed the overall company growth. Turns out that
people don’t really want to relocate to cheap cities in droves.

------
solatic
This is a classic example of a situation where the interests of individuals
and companies are not aligned with the wider national interest. Yes, it makes
tremendous economic sense for people and companies to co-locate in cities. In
a country where individuals have a choice to live in an urban or a rural
environment, and their demonstrated preference is to live in an urban
environment, then urbanization becomes a self-reinforcing positive economic
spiral.

However, this spiral is offset by a negative economic spiral in rural areas.
As the national currency appreciates due to the increasing competitiveness of
urban centers, rural industry becomes less and less competitive. When a
national economy is in a downturn, the central bank can devalue the national
currency to improve the price-competitiveness of national products for export;
however, rural economies don't have this option as they share a currency with
urban centers. So rural communities continue their downward economic spiral.

Why is this a problem? If we could force the rural laggards to move to urban
centers, or if rural populations didn't hold outsize influence over the
political process, it wouldn't be. But we can neither coerce rural
depopulation nor can we make that kind of political change. So the situation
continues.

Unfortunately, there will be a price to pay. Increasing political polarization
leads to civil conflict. The EU narrowly avoided collapse by bailing out the
Greeks - the US Congress has been practicing "bailouts" for a century (at
least) with pork-barrel legislation. So let people move to jobs - as long as
they're cognizant that their taxes will continue to go back where they came
from.

------
specialist
My hodgepodge of notions about jobs, people, geography.

I have a very Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations) and Jane Jacobs (Life and Death
of Cities) themed view of population centers. What would it take to recreate
(clone) Silicon Valley, Shenzhen, etc? Rhetorical question, everyone is
already trying to do this. It comes down to clarity of purpose, investment,
and riding economic trends.

People getting married and starting families is mostly an economic decision.
Consequently, young families will relocate as needed. Future employers and
governments should be mindful and help.

There are always multiple trends working simultaneously. Cities, especially
coastal, will continue to become more dense. But there's also a smaller trend
(demand) to return to the land. So places like Kansas should invest in
restoring locally owned, smaller farms and enterprises.

Modeled on how Washington State created a thriving ecosystem for wine. Apply
that strategy to whatever.

------
arendtio
To me, it sounds as simple as everybody does what he thinks is best for him:

1\. Companies are founded in the big cities, to have access to talent

2\. People move to big cities to have access to better jobs

As long as the benefits outweigh the cost, the chances are small that anything
changes...

~~~
jefftk
Where this simple model fails is that existing residents oppose the
construction of additional housing. Housing prices rise, fewer people can
afford to move there, and renters with lower paying jobs get forced out.

------
Merrill
People do move. Silicon Valley itself is a product of people moving to the San
Francisco Bay Area of California. Of the eight founders of Fairchild
Semiconductor, only Gordon Moore was from the Bay Area.

Large, successful companies create the conditions for attracting employees to
new locations. Both Seattle and Austin are examples of this. Earlier, IBM had
a practice of locating in small to medium sized cities like Kingston, NY,
Rochester, MN or Sunnyvale, CA. In the '50s and '60s the aerospace industry
was highly mobile, with engineers moving from the North and East to the South
and West.

~~~
jefftk
(author)

People do move. The post is arguing that (a) this is a good thing and (b) we
should allow more housing construction to facilitate it (and to keep existing
residents from getting forced out).

------
hashkb
> even though we have many technical tools that make remote work far more
> practical than it was even ten years ago, physically being in the same place
> as your coworkers remains extremely valuable.

I've seen this artificially enforced by executives who refuse to engage in a
discussion about remote work. There are a lot of them, and until they feel
comfortable managing remotely, remote workers can't flourish. So it's nothing
to do with the nature or quality of remote work. We just don't have enough
truly remote friendly execs.

------
LockAndLol
> A major factor is that current employees don't want to move. If Google
> announced it was moving everything to Pittsburgh, ~80% of the company would
> quit. People put down roots and get attached to areas, generally more so
> than to jobs.

That's the wrong argument to make. It's not about moving somewhere, but
deciding to build a new center somewhere else (in this case Pittsburgh).

~~~
jefftk
Perhaps read the next paragraph? "New companies, however, don't have employees
they would need to move. Why do tech startups choose the Bay when almost
anywhere else would be cheaper? I see two main answers: to be close to their
investors and to be able to hire from a deep talent pool."

------
iamleppert
I hate to say it but the reason I’m in SF and not in Ohio is 100% due to the
culture. There’s simply more stuff to do here, more creative people and I feel
like I fit in better than Ohio (where I’m from).

I’ve had the opportunity to move back but I won’t, not for any amount of money
or prospect of owning a big house or early retirement.

------
cowsandmilk
People always talk about HQ2 being in Dc (and formerly NYC) but they
simultaneously announced 5,000 jobs in Nashville.

[0] [https://www.newschannel5.com/news/amazon-in-nashville-
what-i...](https://www.newschannel5.com/news/amazon-in-nashville-what-is-an-
operations-center-of-excellence)

------
VLM
The problem with making decisions based on inaccurate facts is you can get
very weird results.

There's really not much in the article based on actual data; it all seems to
be meme stuff that "everyone knows" but google queries seem to oppose.

The main problem I've seen at companies that have "... ran out of talented
devs that wanted to work in ..." stories is the labor pool is infinite IF the
pay is there. As an example from the article, the median metro income in
Milwaukee is $35K and in SF is $92K. And I found an infographic portraying the
average software engineer pay in SF as $129K. Therefore HR needs to produce a
salary for the new remote office employees and they run some simple math
formulas and declare its financially irresponsible to pay a Milwaukee software
developer more than 35/92*129 or $49K.

The problem is, again, via googling, the average software engineer on the
ground right now in Milwaukee gets $68K.

Needless to say, if the locals will pay $68K and the remote coastal office
will only pay $49K, the new remote office companies will never get an
applicant who can even fizzbuzz much less provide value. I totally understand
how the locals can produce world class software but remote offices "... ran
out of talented devs ..." and decided they had to move back to SF and pay
$129K again.

Its a youthful thinking mistake to think overly binary; either everyone gotta
decentralize or everyone gotta centralize and either extreme tend to get owned
in the competitive market by folks who compromise in the middle.

The main reason pay averages out more than people would think, is there is NO
averaging of management demands for results. Its not like management is only
going to demand 38% of the results and productivity from the new Milwaukee
workers vs the SF workers regardless what they pay them.

------
whatsmyusername
If you're going for VC capital you have two choices. The bay area and NYC.

I live in Pittsburgh. I like Pittsburgh. But I'm also realistic. There's no VC
money here.

If I wanted to work on something that capital N Needed VC money I'd move. But
I don't so I'm good.

------
generalpass
I wonder how the numbers will shake out for the McKesson Corporation move from
San Francisco to Irving, Texas.

------
sjg007
It's kinda cool that the blog itself is aggregating FB and HN comments for the
article.

------
m0zg
For most of us here, there's no reason to move anywhere at all. Programmers
can work from anywhere in the world. We need to let go of the idea that "work"
means 2 hours of commute and sitting in an open plan under constant barrage of
interruptions for 40 hours a week. We need to let go of _all_ the components
of this definition, from "40 hours" to "office" to "commute". There are jobs
which have to be done in the office only. Programming is not one of those
jobs.

~~~
titanomachy
Maybe it's because I'm relatively young, but I actually like working in an
office. I bike 15 minutes to work rather than commuting 2 hours, because my
work pays me enough to live close by. I spend some of my time collaborating
closely with smart people who are a lot more experienced than me, which seems
to be the fastest way to learn. I spend then rest of the time with headphones
on facing the corner of the open office, hopefully getting absorbed in my work
to the point where I'm not too distracted by the people around me. I eat free
food that's better than anything I could make at home.

I've had periods of working from home in my life and they've been lonely and
unproductive in comparison.

My only point is that there _are_ some people who genuinely prefer working at
an office.

~~~
m0zg
And those people can come to the office. But it should really not be a
requirement, and work should be structured in such a way as to not penalize
people who are remote: around written communication, with infrequent
teleconferencing.

~~~
rocqua
So all employers should reorganize to meet your preferences to be left alone?

It might work great for you, it would probably help your productivity. But
that doesn't mean it wouldn't have downsides for many others!

~~~
m0zg
This is a good example of the "so" tell for cognitive dissonance, whereby the
sufferer tries to put words in my mouth and starts their diatribe with a "so".

It's a free country, "all employers" can do as they please. I just won't work
for them if they are not in close proximity, and very few of them are. I'm not
going to "move" for a job that I can do from anywhere in the world.

~~~
majos
The bit about “so” seems wrong. You said

> it should really not be a requirement, and work should be structured in such
> a way as to not penalize people who are remote: around written
> communication, with infrequent teleconferencing

which _is_ reasonably summarized as

> all employers should reorganize to meet your preferences to be left alone

------
mnm1
> People expected telecommuting to change this, but even though we have many
> technical tools that make remote work far more practical than it was even
> ten years ago, physically being in the same place as your coworkers remains
> extremely valuable.

Not for software development. I'm sure there are plenty of industries where
this is true. Software just isn't one of them. In fact, I'd argue the opposite
for most software companies. They suffer from poor work and poor working
conditions due to locating everyone in one location.

~~~
eropple
I'm happy to work for a company that embraces remote work, but it's undeniably
more efficient and, for most people, fulfilling on a personal level to have a
high-bandwidth face-to-face conversation--and "the wifi hiccuped, what did you
say?", as happens here and without exception everywhere else I've been, isn't
that.

~~~
thatcat
That's just an argument for government subsidized fiber internet, repeating
your self a few times a day is a minor inconvenience compared to commuting.

~~~
igammarays
Some of the best work happens not during scheduled meetings, but in
spontaneous conversations with coworkers at random times during the day. Fiber
internet doesn't solve that.

~~~
pkalinowski
You know, you can send a message to your coworker: "5 min call?" and BAM! One
click of a button and you are talking live.

