
Y Combinator Opens A Satellite Office In SF - BIackSwan
http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/10/yc-sf/
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gphil
I grew up in the Bay Area (and currently live on the East Coast) and I was not
sure whether "The City" would refer to SF or NY. I guess it goes to show how
myopic TechCrunch is that they didn't recognize that as being ambiguous for a
national audience.

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thurn
For an _international_ audience, "The City" means London's financial district.
This is the only use of the term sufficiently common to be mentioned on
Wikipedia's article.

~~~
chad_oliver
Of course, if you study a lot of medieval history, "The City" always means
Constantinople (later Istanbul).

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ovi256
Except that was not in English.

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pg
Incidentally, if this article were accurate, it would have been short and
boring. We opened an office in SF because a lot of the people who work for YC
live there.

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grinich
The title of the article is literally the entire story.

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auggierose
When I read, "In The City", I thought they opened a branch in NYC :-)

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nextstep
People in SF (and really all around the bay) refuse to let San Francisco's
obvious shortcomings and relatively insignificant size stop them from
considering it the center of the entire universe. It's one of the most
frustrating things about living in San Francisco, especially if you're moving
from somewhere bigger or more interesting. However, NYC transplants to SF are
rare; instead, you'll find hundreds of people from small towns across the
country and world who must assume all "big" cities (something SF barely
qualifies as) are flush with urine smells, mentally ill homeless, an
embarrassing public transportation system which barely runs and a terrible
male-to-female ratio that reinforces the awkward social climate.

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tomsaffell
>flush with urine smells, mentally ill homeless, an embarrassing public
transportation system

    
    
      urine: no worse than London, where I moved form.
      mentally-ill: more than London, and it doesnt bother me
      transportation: bad enough that (as in London) I ride a bike everywhere
      weather: better
      start-up friendliness: much better (than when i left in '06)
      

Not liking SF is fine. Besmuding the judgement of its residents to fit your
own tastes: not so fine :p

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paddy_m
The decreasing relevance of suburbia is an important story. Urban living is
popular for very good reasons.

~~~
microb
Why is it popular? Serious question.

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impendia
My impression is that cities are chaotic, unpredictable, and fast-paced, while
suburbs are designed to be predictable and to feel safe.

Working in a startup is also chaotic, unpredictable, and fast-paced, so it
seems natural that people drawn to startups would also be drawn to cities.

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strlen
Historically this isn't true. There's a much less flashy reason for why so
many startups are flocking to SF -- there isn't much space available at
reasonable prices in Palo Alto or Mountain View that that's suitable for
startups. If office space in Palo Alto or Mountain View was not desirable, the
prices would crash.

This isn't new either: there were plenty of SF startups during the old dot-com
boom as well. I'd also predict that if there is a further growth of tech
startups we'll see startups spread to other areas now considered "less
desirable" \-- in dot-com days there were plenty of companies in Santa Clara,
Milpitas, Downtown San Jose, Fremont, and even exurbs like Pleasanton. When
the boom ended, CA-237 was locally called the "dot com graveyard".

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spartango
While you're right about office space becoming wildly expensive in Palo Alto
and Mountain View, I'm unconvinced the data supports the idea that cheap
office space is _the_ driver of growth to the city.

As you mention there is plenty of cheap and large offices as you go south
along the peninsula, but startups seem to consistently choose more expensive
SOMA offices over these. Only startups that need a warehouse or other
specialized facilities start their search in the south bay.

I think the reality is that its a combination of factors driving people to SF,
from 'cool factor'/perception to quality of life issues (employee proximity)
to 'cheaper-than-palo-alto' benchmarking.

By the way, if you're reading this thread and looking for office space, the
south bay is a perfectly good place to look. Yes, it's not as glamorous, but
it's both functional, frugal, and actually quite nice. The graveyard doesn't
consist of dumpy factories, but pleasantly maintained offices with good
facilities. You can even live nearby, as long as calm neighborhood is an
acceptable condition for you.

~~~
strlen
I wouldn't call places south of Mountain View and Palo Alto 'Peninsula'. San
Mateo is an often overlooked option (not as cheap as SOMA, afaik) but in a way
it means a commute _both_ for folks coming from Cupertino/Sunnyvale/Palo
Alto/Mountain View and for folks coming from the city.

I would say significant amount of startups would still prefer Mountain View to
SOMA, but they'd probably prefer SOMA to Santa Clara or San Jose.

There are many positives you've described to places further South, but there
are also issues: fewer other startups, less third places in walking distances,
being rather far from any kind of public transportation. In terms of employees
it's somewhat of a balancing act: there are older employees with family in
South Bay, more infrastructure folks (ex-Google and VMW folks, as well as
various infra startups), _and_ there are also younger employees, front-end
developers, designers, and people with finance/consulting who live in SF. It
would be more far more difficult for SF set to commute to, e.g., an office
park in Santa Clara than for folks in South Bay to commute to SOMA (fairly
easy trip by either car or Caltrain).

That said, Peninsula is exactly what its name implies, and SF is at very end
(with hills in between). There will be greater pressure for startups to go
further South again, as well as East (if Berkeley/Oakland adopt more startup
friendly laws), elsewhere in SF (already happening), and so on.

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rocky1138
Can we get this title updated to reflect that they mean San Francisco? As it
stands, it's too ambiguous for HN standards.

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aray
Will be a lot easier for tech workers to get to, though this might be less of
a good thing if it brings more distractions to the entrepreneurs and engineers
there.

On the other hand, it's more convenient for hosting e.g. hackathons.

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CalRobert
Wow, you're not making people live in unsustainable bike-hostile urban sprawl!
About time!

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brackin
Makes sense, lots of companies and founders are based in the city.

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mattschmulen
fascinating ... Im also watching Alias reruns ... Im use to being disappointed
in TechCrunch; but it's novel feeling it regarding news.YCom

