

The San Francisco Safety Net - Rauchg
http://www.futurealoof.com/posts/the-san-francisco-safety-net.html

======
kemiller
Anyone who lived through 2002-2005 might beg to differ. It's a great town,
tons of opportunity, but downturns do happen, and the folks at big companies
did much better than the startup surfers. There's (honestly) a lot that's
different this time. For one thing, many more companies are making actual
money, and the non-coder costs (hardware, marketing blitzes) are much lower.
But that doesn't mean winter won't come again.

Fortunately, when it does, you can probably get a rent decrease.

~~~
rayiner
Do people even remember 1999-2001? Remember "NASDAQ at OVER FIVE THOUSAAAND!"

<http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-10466637-7.html>

~~~
kemiller
Real conversation at at an over-the-top office party:

Me: "This party feels like 1999 all over again." Partygoer: "Yeah, well, I was
10 then, so I wouldn't know."

------
felix
It is adorable that the poster feels like unemployed developers line the
streets of New York, Boston and other non-sf tech hubs. That's really what I
love most about being in NYC - it's so _easy_ to hire developers.

Come on. We get that SF is rightly proud of its startup culture. It was the
first and still the biggest. But really. There are other places too with their
own very distinct advantages over SF for whole swathes of startups. Lets
finally get past this SF is the best mentality and just remember that it is
hard enough running a startup - let's help each other succeed wherever we are.

~~~
jmgao
Have you considered that it might be easy to hire developers because there are
more unemployed developers there? Contrast that to SF, where it's really hard
to hire developers.

~~~
ido
I think he meant that sarcastically.

------
natrius
I enjoyed this article, but it's worth pointing out that this safety net
exists in any tech-heavy city. In fact, that safety net is one of the biggest
advantages of cities to begin with
(<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_agglomeration>). Anyone who knows
one of the web development stacks that are currently in vogue could have a job
in Austin tomorrow (if tomorrow weren't Sunday). Has the author lived in any
of the other cities he mentioned or asked people if the same phenomenon exists
there?

~~~
joejohnson
Exactly. Everyone I meet in SF seems convinced that: 1) San Francisco is an
amazing, modern, international city that is a fantastic place to live; and 2)
anyone would be foolish to not live in SF if they want to work in technology.

They are of course wrong on both accounts. San Francisco is a shitty big city,
and it is basically the most expensive place to live in the country. I never
thought I would say this, but New York is cheap compared to the rent prices in
SF. And for what? Shitty un-walkable neighborhoods? Urine everywhere? And
everyone has to drive a fucking car if you really want to be able to get
around feasibly all the time.

Tech jobs are plentiful in any large city. However, there are plenty of large
cities with working public transit systems, decently-well run city governments
and non-homogenous cultures that aren't overrun with white/asian males with
bad social skills. San Francisco is not one of them.

~~~
kelnos
I of course completely agree with your disdain for people who subscribe to #2.
And I'll be the first to admit that SF is hardly a "modern" city. But the rest
is just bullshit.

SF _is_ a fantastic place to live? Why? Because I live here and I love it. And
that's really the only opinion in that regard that matters. I'm not claiming
it's perfect. I doubt any place is.

It's expensive, sure, but NYC is certainly not cheap by comparison (have you
looked at NYC rents in desirable neighborhoods? really, have you?).
Regardless, my tech-startup salary more than makes up for the cost: >50% of my
take-home pay goes right to my savings account, untouched. Even with eating
out for pretty much every meal, and going out to bars and the like 4-5 days a
week. I do have friends who work more conventional jobs at larger companies,
not in tech, and while some of them don't have the cushion I have, they're
able to pay the bills, have fun, and still save some amount of money.

I walk all over the place (today I walked a little over 6 miles). Anyone who
believes that SF can't be walkable is lazy, unhealthily out of shape, or both.
If you live out in the Sunset or Richmond, sure, you're going to need to take
the bus to places on the other side of the city. When I'm feeling lazy, I take
the bus. If I'm in a hurry, I take a taxi. You do realize that there are tons
of taxis in NYC, right? Far more than in SF, right? And traffic is much worse
there. The public transportation in NYC is far better than in SF, but cars
still have their place in both cities.

I even own a car, but I find I drive it rarely more often than once a week,
and sometimes I will go 3 weeks without taking it out of the garage. The
majority of my SF-dwelling friends (over 75%) do not own cars. And no, not all
(or even the majority) of my friends are programmers. (Logically, I should get
rid of my car, but emotionally, I can't bring myself to do it.)

Honestly, I'm surprised and disappointed that you're being so negative here;
the comments in your history seem pretty reasonable and educated (if a bit
overly snarky at times). Sounds like you have some kind of axe to grind. SF is
a much nicer, more livable city than you make it out to be. It may not be your
cup of tea, but that's for you to decide for yourself, not for you to declare
to others.

Regarding the article, I think it was pretty bad. It reads as pompous and
entitled, and exhibits a lack of awareness of the outside world or any
acknowledgement of perspective. But it's not reflective of SF (or its
inhabitants) as a whole.

~~~
alexpopescu
> It's expensive,

Even if we like it or not, the rent is _ridiculously_ expensive.

(someone new to SF that will probably never get used to the peeing in the
streets)

~~~
geebee
"someone new to SF that will probably never get used to the peeing in the
streets"

just learn to relax, and forget that all those people are watching you. You'll
get used to it.

------
onemorepassword
Written by someone who should really get out in the world more before drawing
conclusions.

There are many, many more places outside SF with a high(er) standard of living
and about zero risk of being unemployed as a developer. Most of theses places
outside the US also have decent social security, public healthcare and other
facilities in case you should fall through the cracks at some point. (No
amount of ninja rockstar tech skills will protect you against getting burned
out or other misfortunes.)

This ignorant exceptionalism is something I really hate about these SF/SV
types. I guess it illustrates why so many stick around: not because it's so
great, but out of uninformed fear.

~~~
khuey
What places outside the US pay salaries comparable to SF/SV salaries? I'm most
familiar with London, where the average developer pay seems to be
substantially below the average here.

~~~
onemorepassword
This was about being gainfully employed and not risking unemployment, not
about earning as much as possible.

You can make a well above average living as a developer in most places in the
world, including London. It's ridiculous to claim that developer pay in London
is "below average".

~~~
khuey
I didn't say it was "below average", I said it was "below the average [in
SF/SV]". <http://www.prospects.ac.uk/applications_developer_salary.htm> claims
the average salary for a senior developer is £50,000. I'm going to assume that
that's the average across the U.K., so lets allow 33% more for being located
in London (33% is what I see commonly thrown around for SF/SV vs. other large
US city). If we assume a generous currency conversion rate of 1.6, that works
out to ~107k USD. That's _extremely_ low for a senior software developer in
the Bay Area. And London isn't any cheaper than SF ...

------
rdouble
I don't agree with any of the points - that you'll necessarily work on
interesting stuff at a startup, that a big company means you'll not work on
interesting stuff, or that startups form a safety net. Glass, Kinect, AWS and
iOS devices are pretty interesting, and they all occurred inside of a large
company.

In contrast, I remember a lot of dealing with server crashes, browser
incompatibilities and other painful and boring stuff when I worked at
startups. It also seems like many of my startup co-workers who were older than
about age 35 seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

~~~
wilfra
"Glass, Kinect, AWS and iOS are pretty interesting, and they all occurred
inside of a large company."

If you are lucky enough to be working on those sorts of projects when they are
still small, secret teams - you'd be an exception. 99% of people working at
BigCorp are not on such projects.

~~~
wallflower
If you've never read the epic Steve Yegge rant on Amazon, the true story of
Amazon as a Platform is quite fascinating.

"That's what Bezos was up to with his edict, of course. He didn't (and
doesn't) care even a tiny bit about the well-being of the teams, nor about
what technologies they use, nor in fact any detail whatsoever about how they
go about their business unless they happen to be screwing up. But Bezos
realized long before the vast majority of Amazonians that Amazon needs to be a
platform."

[https://plus.google.com/112678702228711889851/posts/eVeouesv...](https://plus.google.com/112678702228711889851/posts/eVeouesvaVX)

------
radicaldreamer
Kind of tired of this emo bullshit.

If you can learn something new, you can work in many growing sectors in many
cities. New York and LA have many more opportunities to grow in many more
fields than SF.

And if you're really adventurous, move to the mid-east or northern africa,
where you can be very successful doing an arbitrage play between successful
business models in first world countries and third world developing countries.

If you're bitching about SF and Austin, you're a bozo and are not anywhere
close to being a true risk taker.

------
ChuckMcM
Clearly not written by a semiconductor process engineer in 1986 or a web
designer in 2000 but the basic truth is that when the system is engaged its
pretty effective at consuming available resources and putting them to work.

------
joelrunyon
Aside from the article: I really liked the layout here. First time seeing a
blog laid out more like an actual newspaper. Not sure if this is a trend or
not, but I like it.

~~~
krakensden
I... did not like it. On a 1024x600 screen, with no mouse, it took me quite a
while to figure out how to scroll single-column by single-column.

~~~
kragen
I never did, so I resorted to reducing the text size so it would stop
scrolling to where I could see the left half of the third column to where I
could see the right half of the third column.

~~~
icebraining
I disabled the stylesheet. Ahh, pure text.

------
jordo37
I completely agree with the gist of this article - taking a risk right now as
an engineer is in no way dangerous. Not saying it won't be 12 months or even 6
months from now and taking a risky job can set you up for a bad time later.

That being said, for those of us who are hiring engineers, this should be a
great opportunity to bring in some of the folks who are more risk adverse
because it is safer.

Also, I'm not sure what the author is talking about with regards to murder
rates. Unless I am missing something this map [1] seems to suggest there have
been 7 homicides in SF total this year, which is a pittance for a major city.

[1]
[http://www.crimemapping.com/map.aspx?ll=-13628867.85079543,4...](http://www.crimemapping.com/map.aspx?ll=-13628867.85079543,4547985.268927572&z=12&mc=world-
street&cc=HO&db=1/01/2013&de=4/06/2013)

~~~
blaines
Yes strictly looking at the murders SF has seven, for comparison, my hometown
(150k pop.) in the middle of nowhere has six murders. Chicago has five times
more people than SF and I know without checking sources there's been more
murders in Chicago, probably in January alone, than in San Francisco yet this
year.

People who say San Francisco is unsafe are out of touch. It's no Pepperidge
Farm, and it's not out of control. When was the last time, in San Francisco,
someone saw a gang of sixteen year olds with loaded guns walking the streets a
block away from school? That's daily life for some in Chicago.

------
7Figures2Commas
1\. San Francisco is a tech boom town. That means as a half-decent developer
you're practically guaranteed a job. Until you're not. A lot of people learned
this the hard way in the late 90s.

2\. It's ironic that the author recognizes most startups fail, and suggests
that startups in San Francisco have been particularly blessed with the ability
to spend millions on "crazy" ideas more likely to fail, yet he doesn't at all
question the sustainability of this. His assumption: investors will continue
to pour money into startups indefinitely regardless of the returns, and the
"talent" will continue to be a primary recipient of this investment regardless
of the value it creates.

3\. Personal savings is the only true safety net most people can rely on.
Ironically, the author is "bad at saving money" which explains why he confuses
a "currently hot job market" for a "safety net."

~~~
kelnos
_Personal savings is the only true safety net most people can rely on.
Ironically, the author is "bad at saving money" which explains why he confuses
a "currently hot job market" for a "safety net."_

Indeed. The only way it'd be a true safety net is if one could guarantee that
the job market here would remain hot in perpetuity. As much as I enjoy working
in tech in SF, I'm fully prepared (emotionally and financially) for the
possibility that that could change without much notice.

But I think the -- perhaps accidental -- message is that, as a software
developer, it's a great and fairly safe time to take risks. That could change
quickly, but in the meantime, that sentiment is almost certainly true.

~~~
7Figures2Commas
I think it depends on what "take risks" means. Not all risk is equal, and you
can't fully assess risk without looking at an individual's personal situation.
The bad news is that measuring risk accurately can be difficult. People
overestimate potential returns, and underestimate potential losses. They also
often ignore opportunity cost, and fail to use realistic time frames. So I
think it's hard to make a blanket statement that it's a "safe" time for a
whole group of people to take on risk.

The author of this post is the perfect example of this. He thinks he's
mitigating the risk of joining startups that are likely to fail by living in
San Francisco, where there's a solid job market. Yet he's living in an area
with a very high cost of living and apparently not saving any money, so the
risk he's taking on is almost certainly a lot higher than the risk he
perceives.

------
arbuge
I agree it is trivially easy to jump ship to another startup every month in SF
if you we're so inclined. For entrepreneurs, this culture makes it a challenge
to build a lasting company though... the focus employees have in SF & the
Valley seems much more short term IMHO.

Besides, the safety net alluded to exists in any big city these days. I'm in
Dallas and a good developer or designer showing up here today would have
several job offers in a few days.

------
jes5199
Summary: San Francisco is terrible but, hey, you can get paid a lot without
trying very hard! Of course, you aren't likely to save any money.

------
obviouslygreen
It's amusing to me that this person's idea of a "safety net" is something that
enables him to continue what he knows and acknowledges is irresponsible
behavior. Don't want to put in the time to learn to handle yourself in a
traditional environment? Don't feel like figuring out how to actually manage
your finances like an adult? Come to Silicon Valley!

There are many reasons to move to such a tech hub, and many of them have at
least some basis in real, positive factors. This post doesn't showcase any of
them. All it displays is the author's haughty attitude and an inability to
address his own shortcomings.

------
swang
It is really sad that most of the comments here on HN would rather attack the
author (or I guess SF in this case) than make better arguments against the
author's comments. Not saying I agree with all of it, and honestly not even
sure if the author is shining SF in that great of a light. But I guess the
tone or topic of the article struck a deep chord in a lot of people.

~~~
onemorepassword
Because it is such utter myopic bullshit.

The author might as well have written "SF is better because our water is wet
here".

------
qwerta
I stopped reading at "smell of urine" :-)

------
Apocryphon
I think I speak for both San Franciscans and Silicon Valley denizens when I
say that it's time to stop conflating both regions as if they were the same
thing.

------
geuis
Complete horseshit. Worked at a great startup till January. Company had to
pivot, extend runway, I was laid off. Damn I miss working with those guys. The
team was super helpful, gave me a decent severance and have been trying to
help place me with other companies. I've been unemployed since then. There is
_no_ safety net in this city, nor any other.

------
sfdude
Typical YC type post. Full of BS...

------
thaumasiotes
> Once you spend a month in one company you can, if you like, send a few
> emails and be making more money in a matter of days.

Why wouldn't I like this? Who am I supposed to be emailing?

~~~
twelve40
Because after only a month it's a dick move. And it might give you a bad name.
Right now I happen to be in a position to do that, and I choose to stick with
my current commitment.

~~~
thaumasiotes
As it happens, I've been working for longer than a month, and yet somehow even
this additional time hasn't led me to the fall-into-a-higher-paying-job-
elsewhere position described. I wasn't asking for reasons not to try to
improve my position, I was pointing out that the ease attributed to doing it
is, so far as I can tell, entirely specious.

