
Bay Area Startups Find Low-Cost Outposts in Arizona - adrianmacneil
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/22/business/economy/bay-area-start-ups-find-low-cost-outposts-in-arizona.html
======
pyre
To all of the start-ups that want to base themselves out of Phoenix:

How do you plan on wooing applicants that may fall victim to racial profiling
because they are within 100 miles of the border, or that might end up in one
of Sheriff Joe's tent camps just due to being accused of something (or looking
at one of his deputies the wrong way).

Do you not think that this limits your talent pool because many people of
different ethnicities might not want to take the risk of relocating to such a
hostile environment for them?

~~~
leereeves
I've heard conservatives say similar things about the Bay Area, where they
might be assaulted for supporting Trump and would probably be arrested for
owning a gun.

And to focus on something that _will_ affect everyone, not partisan fears, in
Phoenix mere mortals can actually afford to buy a home.

~~~
aphextron
I'd be interested to see the intersection of quality software engineers and
Trump supporters. My guess is near zero.

~~~
ladytron
Really, only Hillary voters can be quality engineers? Because at this point
it's Hill vs. Don, and I have a feeling a great portion of us will not be
voting for Hill in 2016.

~~~
aphistic
Yeah because only Hillary supporters are intelligent, duh. I'm not sure why
that comment hasn't been downvoted into oblivion yet for being WAAAAAY off
topic.

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rrdharan
I generally avoid travelling to Arizona because I'm likely to be racially
profiled and I don't feel like carrying my proof of residency around with me
at all times. I've had plenty enough of that in my life already and don't feel
the need to reward a state that seems to actively encourage it with my tax
dollars.

~~~
kondor6c
Do you mean a drivers license? That should be sufficient. But you should go,
if you get racially profiled, you have a lawsuit!

~~~
kingryan
In California you can get a DL without proof of legal residency.

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mark_l_watson
I have lived in the mountains, about a two hour drive north of Phoenix, for 18
years. I love it here. My wife and I used to live near the beach in San Diego
and the overcrowding and traffic made us want to leave. There is a lot to be
said for low cost of living and beautiful and low population areas of the
country. Travel is easy enough since I take a shuttle to the airport, I can
work in transit.

We lived in Mountain View in 2013 when I consulted at Google, and I admit that
was fun living there for a while, but life is very good in inexpensive low
population areas. BTW, the mountains in Central Arizona are significantly
cooler than Phoenix and we get a little snow in the winter which is fun.

~~~
downut
I live in Prescott. The weather is fantastic, all four seasons.
Weatherunderground zip 86301 for the next week :-) I've been here 22 years.
The outdoors activities are world class: hiking, mt and road cycling. I live
in-town and Federal wilderness is literally 5 miles away.

My wife and I are both post-graduate STEM evacuees from the BA (Mt. View, 2nd
and Townsend in SF, Santa Clara). We miss a lot about the BA, but as mentioned
in the article, once you have a kid, two 1 hr commutes, possibly in opposite
directions, are a non-starter. The thing we miss most about the BA are the
people associated things because... the retrograde politics and essentially
fascist outlook of the politically powerful has become suffocating. It is
_quite_ common to be in a restaurant and have some ragged beat down old white
fellow packing a large gun. I have a youngish couple who walk an infant in a
stroller by my house in the evening and the otherwise normal looking man-boy
carries a giant pistol. I had words with the typical sort in _Trader Joes_
because he felt he needed to pack a gun _while shopping for groceries_.
Prescott has essentially no crime, nor much in the way of minorities, for that
matter. It's not about safety.

This never happened 10 years ago, and earlier. Something happened around 2008,
and things have been going downhill ever since.

~~~
dikaiosune
I live in Flagstaff, and while going to Prescott for In-n-Out is nice, I have
a hard time imagining living there vs. Flagstaff for the exact reasons you
mention.

~~~
jhayward
We looked very closely at moving from Austin to Flagstaff 3 years ago when my
wife had a job offer there. Although we absolutely love the locale we
concluded that there were very few job opportunities in the area, particularly
in tech, and it wouldn't be a great move from an economic standpoint.

What's your view of the Flag area economy?

~~~
dikaiosune
It's a lot like many places without significant industry and nice quality of
life. Less expensive than more "hot spot" areas, but wages are out of whack
with the cost of living for most people. You definitely pay a premium relative
to general wages to live in a nice place like this.

That said, there are many people who do quite well for themselves here, and
they seem to love it. But it's not really a place where you can advance
quickly by moving between companies. Most employees here seem to be lifers.

In terms of tech, there's not much to report. I got my current job through a
personal recommendation, but was preparing to move away right before that
happened. There are a couple of smaller tech companies, but otherwise
developers pretty much work for the university, the hospital, W.L. Gore,
Deckers Outdoor, or they work remotely (last year I met a principal architect
from Blackboard who apparently lives here and works remotely for them). There
are no meetups that I know of, and almost all of the jobs are .NET/JVM
enterprise-y integrations and IT stuff. I'm sure there are little pockets that
I'm not aware of, but there's only like 70k people who live here anyway.

So, uh, I guess my view of the economy is rather dim :). But that's not why
one moves to this area -- it's the urban trail system, the backyard national
forest, the easy access to the entire southwest, the low crime rates, the
fresh air, the friendly people, the liberal mountain town vibe, the
microbreweries, etc.

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clumsysmurf
I lived in Phoenix area for almost 20 years.

As Andrew Ross writes, Phoenix is one of the least sustainable cities in the
world (1).

Flowing from its corrupt politics and supply-side economics, I suspect AZ will
go the same way (for some of the same reasons) as Sam Browback's Kansas /
Bobby Jindal's Louisiana with huge structural revenue deficits.

(1) [https://www.amazon.com/Bird-Fire-Lessons-Worlds-
Sustainable/...](https://www.amazon.com/Bird-Fire-Lessons-Worlds-
Sustainable/dp/0199975523)

~~~
niftich
One remarkable thing about Phoenix is that it's actually a very, very populous
metro (currently the 12th most populous Metropolitan Statistical Area, just
shy of the northern two-thirds of the Bay Area in 11th place [1]) in what's
essentially the middle of nowhere -- and I'm not using this term as
facetiously as you may suspect.

Phoenix has poor connectivity to just about everywhere else, is on a detour
(I-10) from the straight-line Tucson to San Diego road (I-8) and is skipped by
Union Pacific's main railroad line between Yuma and El Paso. It's bypassed
completely by I-40, the successor to the famous Route 66 as the road from the
midwest to the California coast, and by BNSF's southern transcon that follows
that route closely. The road linking it with its nearest big neighbor, Las
Vegas, despite recently having been expanded to a divided highway, is still
vastly short of an interstate [2]. To get towards Flagstaff or Prescott (or
towards Vegas) you have to climb out of the Gila basin.

And yet, despite these odds and the oppressive summer heat, the desert floor
is covered in Phoenix' rectangular sprawl for nearly 50 consecutive miles.
More so than perhaps any other large city, it creates it own demand just by
the virtue of existing.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistic...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas#United_States)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_11#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_11#History)

~~~
leereeves
The sprawling Phoenix area reaches four rivers in Arizona: the Salt, Verde,
Gila, and Agua Fria rivers.

And it's mostly flat land that's easy to build on and farm.

That geography made it valuable to the Hohokam people, and I've heard that
their irrigation systems supported the largest population in the Southwest by
1300. [1]

It was a good place to build a city, until it outgrew its water supply.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohokam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohokam)

------
niftich
Some highlighted quotes:

"This year, the company opened a downtown Phoenix office with sales and
customer service jobs. “San Francisco is a terrible place for entry-level
people,” Mr. Coburn said, because the infrastructure and housing are
“failing.”"

"But as the latest exodus gathers steam, these outlying cities hope some of
the higher-paying engineering jobs will start moving as well.

“We don’t want to be San Francisco’s back office — we need more creators
here,”"

This pretty much summarizes the article. Phoenix isn't yet seeing a mass
influx of developer jobs, but it's hoping that because some companies already
have offices there for other positions, they'll be able to lure some high-end
talent as well.

------
ladytron
Phoenix Startup Founder here. Central Phoenix is one of the best kept secrets
in America - but after articles like this one the secret needs to get out.
Central/downtown Phoenix, where many tech startups are located, allows a
lifestyle and work environment that is unparalleled anywhere else in the
country.

Cutting edge/super cheap hacker space incubator wet/dry labs-
[http://www.ceigateway.com](http://www.ceigateway.com),
[http://www.seedspot.com](http://www.seedspot.com),
[http://www.cohoots.com](http://www.cohoots.com)

Great coffee/art/music/community-
[http://www.luxcoffee.com](http://www.luxcoffee.com),
[http://www.artlinkphoenix.com](http://www.artlinkphoenix.com),
[http://www.rooseveltrow.org](http://www.rooseveltrow.org),
[http://www.valleybarphx.com](http://www.valleybarphx.com),
[http://www.crescentphx.com](http://www.crescentphx.com)

Gorgeous, walk-able, affordable historic districts-
[http://www.willohistoricdistrict.com](http://www.willohistoricdistrict.com),
[http://www.windsorsquarephoenix.com](http://www.windsorsquarephoenix.com),
[http://www.rooseveltneighborhood.org](http://www.rooseveltneighborhood.org)

July and August are the only months with truly hot weather, but San Francisco
is a 90 minute flight away, and its a quick weekend trip to San Diego and LA,
and a day trip to Flagstaff where its 30 degrees cooler. June and September
bring cooler pleasant mornings and evenings, you are generally in your office
midday anyway. October until May is truly gorgeous, the best weather in the
country.

Central Phoenix is one of the most liberal, inclusive, and open minded places
in the country. Many from Phoenix are from someplace else originally so there
is less of a nepotistic, "who you know" culture here than the Coasts. People
here are extremely independent and very friendly.

Comparing urban Central Phoenix, where most startups are located, to to other
towns an hour or more away in more suburban/rural areas is similar to
comparing Palo Alto to a small agricultural town outside Silicon Valley. Its
apples and oranges.

~~~
btkramer9
Hi Ladytron, would you care to share what your startup is?

~~~
ladytron
Stealth at the moment :-)

Software, on the very nerdy side.

------
__derek__
This reminds me of Tuft & Needle's pitch to set up shop in Phoenix rather than
in Silicon Valley.[1]

[1] [https://m.tuftandneedle.com/if-you-re-building-a-startup-
you...](https://m.tuftandneedle.com/if-you-re-building-a-startup-you-need-to-
move-to-phoenix-not-silicon-valley-a7505318cd45)

------
jakerockland
We're excited to be building our startup here in Phoenix. 8 months out of the
year, the weather is fantastic. Burn rate is much lower than it would be
in/around SF, our money goes much farther here. Great large public research
institutions at ASU/UA is a great outlet for finding talent.

~~~
akarpur1
We think Phoenix is a great place to start a company, and we're dedicated to
building our business here. Here's why: [https://blog.somaticlabs.io/scrappy-
startup-turn-up-the-heat...](https://blog.somaticlabs.io/scrappy-startup-turn-
up-the-heat-in-phoenix/)

------
mce1123
I hear a lot of talk about regressive politics in AZ.

What I see on the ground here is that people from all economic backgrounds can
afford to work, live, and have a family. What I see up there is a set of NIMBY
policies that restrict prosperity to the 1%.

PHX adopts policies welcoming middle-skill, middle-income people and families;
fauxgressives in SF Bay give them the middle finger.

------
skpeck
While yes, PHX metro is a more affordable option, no brand ever wants to be
known as the low cost leader (we know this is never sustainable). Instead, my
viewpoint as CEO of a young healthcare company is that PHX is ideal for us
because of the industry experts in our space (aging) such as Banner
Alzheimer's Institute and Barrow Neuro, access to our customer base (50+) and
a theme of generosity of support for all startup founders. Then there's the
development of new dev minds via our coding high schools, Galvanize, and UAT
(as a few examples). Not to mention that this is the most livable place I've
ever been.

~~~
electrum
> no brand ever wants to be known as the low cost leader (we know this is
> never sustainable)

I think Walmart would disagree with you on both.

------
fernly
There are so many economical, livable cities in the West within a 2-4 hour
flight of SFO or SJC. Seattle is already too expensive, and I find Phoenix
quite unpleasant, but Portland, Eugene (go Ducks!), Corvallis (go Beavs!),
Spokane/Pullman (go Cougs!), Boise, Reno are all civilized, attractive, and
relatively economical places.

~~~
bran-dog
Phoenix is a miserably hot place 7-8 months out of the year with cuckoo
politics.

~~~
x0x0
I just looked and it's 86.9F at 10:35pm. Ugh.

Max temps for the 10 day forecast: 102, 100, 101, 103, 103, 98 (cool!), 101,
105, 107, 109 (!!!).

You better like being indoors all the time.

~~~
rblatz
Yeah summer gets hot, but 86.9 at night isn't really hot. I wouldn't open my
windows, but if you are outside it feels good. Yesterday my wife and I were
walking around (in the shade) after getting coffee, and commented how nice out
it felt. Turns out it was over 100 out. Desert heat feels different than any
other heat I've felt.

~~~
niftich
Night desert heat is a... unique experience that I too find enjoyable, but
your air conditioner is running 24/7 to keep the house below 80. And in
Phoenix, there is not enough night activities and/or legit nightlife to take
advantage of pleasant nights as opposed to oppressive days.

Scottsdale or Tempe may be a different story, but then you're driving anyway.
Or you do live within walking distance, but then you're no longer paying
Phoenix rents.

~~~
rblatz
I live in south Scottsdale, I work in Phoenix roughly a 7 minute drive or
maybe 20 minutes by bike on the canals. I'm not as familiar with downtown as I
am Arcadia/South Scottsdale/Tempe. But I do love getting downtown for a change
of pace.

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dmode
I lived 3 years in Phoenix. Absolutely hated it. Won't ever move there and I
actually avoid it for vacations as well. The weather is atrocious. The weather
is only bad for 3 months is a nice sales pitch. But let me tell you that it
gets to 100 early to mid May and lasts till September. So that's 5 months.
Also, April and October remains hot during the day. In addition, as the
article points out, most jobs are entry level jobs with low pay. Phoenix has
very few fortune 500 companies, so if you are looking for strategic and
interesting roles and moving up the corporate ladder, it is non existent. And
the pay is laughable. Other things I didn't like - in your face politics,
extremd bro culture, few places to visit, no interesting startup roles etc
etc, but you get the point

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Ericson2314
This makes me sad we don't do high density + low cost in the US.

~~~
muzz
I always wonder what would have happened if the New York of the 1970s and
1980s turned out differently than it did

