
Tech workers are increasingly looking to leave Silicon Valley - prostoalex
http://qz.com/627414/tech-workers-are-increasingly-looking-to-leave-silicon-valley/
======
jackcosgrove
I left the Bay Area, not Silicon Valley, 6 years ago and since then I've been
able to realize a 40% salary increase (this has more to do with experience and
seniority than locale - just making the point that good salaries are possible
outside SV) and I've purchased a house and a rental property. The latter would
have been unthinkable in the Bay Area. Plus the gender ratio is much better
for men almost anywhere else.

I don't even think SF and SV are good places to start out anymore. You can
learn skills anywhere with the internet, and you miss out on early investments
due to the opportunity cost of rent. If you want to live in the Bay Area, it's
better to hunker down someplace cheaper for a decade or more, save up a down
payment, and then lateral into a midlevel or senior role at a tech company,
whose salaries are high enough to service a mortgage but not high enough to
save a down payment and pay rent at the same time.

~~~
thearn4
> I've purchased a house and a rental property. The latter would have been
> unthinkable in the Bay Area.

I purchased a house with my wife here in northern OH, and while we don't have
a rental, we do have around 4 acres of land to use and for our son to play on,
in an area with an excellent public school district. I know this would be very
hard to come by near most tech-centered hubs in the country, and would be very
difficult for me to give up now. The more I think about it, the less certain I
am that even doubling my salary would convince me to do it.

~~~
vasilipupkin
But, it's cold and rainy 7-8 months out of the year. A family of 3 doesn't
need 4 acres. You have to admit that most people are willing to pay up for
good weather

~~~
rubbingalcohol
The weather isn't even that good in Silicon Valley. I'd take rain and snow vs.
dry and concrete.

~~~
rconti
By any objective measure, it IS good.

Concrete is not a weather condition.

~~~
freehunter
Concrete is most certainly a weather condition [1]. And better weather doesn't
always make for a better environment.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island)

~~~
macNchz
The urban heat island is my single biggest point of displeasure living in
NYC–I so love sleeping the windows open and a cool night breeze in the summer,
which would be very possible in my quiet neighborhood of Brooklyn if it were
to actually cool off at night.

Instead we have hot days followed by slightly less hot nights, and I run the
A/C all night lest I get no sleep at all.

------
zellyn
For anyone interested… We just moved back to Atlanta in September after five
years in the Bay Area, to be closer to family, and to be able to afford a
house, ever.

I was well paid at Google, and loved working at YouTube. I also severely miss
our many friends, as well as beautiful San Francisco: I used to walk up Bernal
Hill one or two days a week with my toddler. Pictures of oceans and hills and
everything else make me sad…

That said, we could _never_ afford a house in San Francisco. And to get
affordable, we'd have had to have gone _way_ out, and the commute would have
been terrible.

I was lucky enough to find out that Square has an Atlanta office, full of
_very_ smart people, so I was able to keep doing Silicon-Valley-style
programming, which is a big win.

~~~
throwaway_xx9
Google's HQ is in Mountain View. Why did you have to live or buy a house in
SF?

~~~
cbhl
Housing prices in Mountain View are just as bad as those in SF.

Also, YouTube's head office is closer to the SF airport.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Also, YouTube's head office is closer to the SF airport.

Which is _also_ not in SF.

~~~
artmageddon
It's geographically close enough.

~~~
dragonwriter
It isn't geographically close enough to make the claim that living in SF is
necessary because you work there.

Of course, even if the office was _in_ SF that wouldn't be justified. It's
hardly unusual for people to commute into SF from places with lower living
costs.

------
kzhahou
[http://www.trulia.com/property/3223512589-714-Douglass-St-
Sa...](http://www.trulia.com/property/3223512589-714-Douglass-St-San-
Francisco-CA-94114)

[http://www.trulia.com/property/3224704811-407-Loreto-St-
Moun...](http://www.trulia.com/property/3224704811-407-Loreto-St-Mountain-
View-CA-94041)

[http://www.trulia.com/property/3164651301-1625-NE-Marine-
Dr-...](http://www.trulia.com/property/3164651301-1625-NE-Marine-Dr-Portland-
OR-97211)

[http://www.trulia.com/property/3152279353-109-Syrah-Cir-
Aust...](http://www.trulia.com/property/3152279353-109-Syrah-Cir-Austin-
TX-78738)

Of course, life isn't about how big/nice your house is. But at some point you
realize you've just been working on a CRUD app the last few years (and not
changing the world with a self-driving AI satellite hyperloop), you can't
cross your apartment without stubbing your toe, and you have enough money for
whatever you want but no time or room for anything, and maybe (just maybe)
there's delicious food outside silicon valley, too.

~~~
muzz
Markets reveal preferences

~~~
toomuchtodo
They also stay irrational longer than you'd expect.

~~~
muzz
So how many decades now?

------
rdl
I've been wanting to leave the Bay Area for at least 3 years -- Seattle,
Austin, or Berlin. I don't love California, but really dislike virtually
everything about San Francisco. Of course, I've been working in San Francisco
for 21 months now, but that's because of a specific company -- otherwise I'd
be gone, at least to the South Bay.

SFBA is not a good place to hire engineers, unless you're heavily funded AND a
clear winner and need to hire a bunch of diverse types. For anything else, I
could find other places which are far superior.

It's a great place to hire professional services to support startups, and the
best place in the world, hands down, to raise money. YC being here makes it
great early on, too. I think investors become less location-sensitive as you
get to later stages, if you're winning.

The biggest problem is if you're selling b2b to tech companies at all, you can
literally bump into your customers here.

With my next startup, I plan to do Seattle (probably) or Austin for a US
office, with a small SFBA presence, and then Berlin, and run EU and US
companies as separate entities with separate officers, so people can choose if
they want to be customers of a US or EU company. Maybe add other location in
the future.

(I'd obviously be doing something in the infosec space, which is becoming
increasingly jurisdiction sensitive.)

I absolutely encourage people to work in SFBA for a while to build a network,
but after that, GTFO unless you really want to be here.

~~~
rudolf0
Out of curiosity, why would you prefer other US cities over a Californian
city? (That is, why don't you love California. Also excluding European
alternatives.)

~~~
rdl
CA laws (guns, primarily; taxes, secondarily, and a bunch of other stuff. Guns
are a personal thing for me, but the rest has business impact.). I'd also like
to actually be involved in my community somewhere, but everything about SF
(and CA) is repellent to doing that. (In Bellevue/Issaquah/etc., I'd happily
be a volunteer EMT or even reserve PD officer; might get involved in local
non-partisan politics. There is no way I'd ever want to do anything like that
in SF.)

There are also no non-SFBA cities in CA that I'd actually want to do an
infosec startup in. The set of places I'd personally consider (in no real
order) is: Seattle, Portland, SFBA, Austin, DC-Metro, Boston, Boulder/Denver,
SLC, Raleigh/Durham. I dislike NYC and Chicago but those are also viable (also
dislike Atlanta; might be ok). I actually like Las Vegas, Nashville, and
Louisville, but they would be challenging. I think Houston, Dallas, Miami,
Phoenix, LA, San Diego, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh could work, but not sure.
Some other big university places (Ann Arbor being the canonical example) could
be fine if you're from there.)

~~~
mylons
so you're going to move to Europe due to it's liberal gun laws?

~~~
rdl
I'm willing to sacrifice for ~5-10y due to all the other benefits Berlin has.
(And German gun laws aren't UK/Japan level)

------
erickhill
I moved my family (wife, 2 kids) from SF/Bay Area to Seattle in 2011 after
living down there for a decade (and loved most of it). Worked in downtown SF,
lived in the East Bay. For a while there, we could drive our Prius over the
bridge in the HOV lane - and bypass tolls - and I could get to work from my
house in 18 minutes. We owned a home in El Cerrito near Albany with some
initial d/p help from family. It was a very nice neighborhood, walkable, and
close to BART (which we also used regularly). The house was small, but we made
it work. But the school situation was horrific. Either go to so-so schools
which lacked financial support at the time, or pay upwards of 20K for private
school kindergarten. Nope! In Seattle, with as much public angst as there is
for the schools here, they are light years ahead of the public options we had
before us down there. Everything up here just feels easier. Stress reduced,
larger house for kids to grow up in, neighborhood where everyone knows
everyone else no matter where you go - I've never experienced this type of
community my whole life. And the tech sector has plenty of opps here, too.

We love it.

To be fair, my wife has to commute to SF at least twice a month for her job,
so she still gets her SF fix. I, on the other hand, have gone pure North West.
I've got my Subaru to prove it. ;)

------
cwilson
Made the transition from SV to Brooklyn. Wages are basically the same, housing
is much more affordable (our apartment would be at least 2k more per month in
San Francisco), and there are people here who do things that are not tech!
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of startups and great companies with
offices in Brooklyn and Manhattan, but it's SO refreshing to be around people
who don't just want to pitch their startup or talking about growth hacking.

I'm very happy with the change. I do miss the beauty of the pacific northwest,
but otherwise it's been great.

~~~
brooklyndavs
Wow, your housing in Brooklyn is MORE affordable vs SV? What neighborhood are
you in? Brooklyn has some of the highest housing costs in the country and is
on par with Manhattan at times depending on the neighborhood.

~~~
Greenisus
Brooklyn is expensive, but it's quite a bit cheaper than the Bay Area at this
point.

------
jonathankoren
It's just so fucking expensive to live here, and coupled with the constant
drumbeat of money money money, and seeing the vast differences in wealth, it's
just so so depressing.

~~~
ryandrake
Glad you pointed out the vast differences in wealth as a negative of the Bay
Area. Even if you're not an envious person by nature, it's really depressing
and grates on you when you see it day in and day out. A 15 minute drive can
take you from "bullets whizzing over your head crime and poverty" to filthy,
shameful mega-wealth. Parking my Toyota between a Tesla and a Maserati when I
go downtown with the family. People at work talking about paying [my salary *
0.5] for their kid's private school. Sheesh...

I come from a small town where the best off made maybe 3X the worst off. The
Bay Area is total culture shock.

~~~
danans
> People at work talking about paying [my salary * 0.5] for their kid's
> private school. Sheesh...

Before you judge too much, consider that some (not all) of those folks might
be paying that because they live in an area that has failing public schools,
and they may be living in that area because they can't afford housing in an
area with better public schools. Many middle to upper-middle class people find
themselves faced with that choice.

In California overall, aside from anomalies like San Francisco itself,
wealthier cities correlate with better public schools, and the correlation is
> linear.

~~~
Tempest1981
And where public schools are good, it feeds back on itself, esp in Cupertino
and Palo Alto. Good schools draw in tech millionaires, who supplement their
kids' public education with private tutors and summer school booster classes.
Scores go up, house prices follow. Seems like there is an infinite supply of
newly minted tech millionaires to consume all available housing. And to be
fair, who wouldn't want what's best for their kids? It's a culture of being
the best.

~~~
ryandrake
I'd love to know where all these "tech millionaires" are coming from, because
there are only so many companies in the Valley, and they each only have a
handful of top execs. Yet there are thousands upon thousands of $1MM+ houses
and people are buying them left and right...

------
ryandrake
A question I have for you folks who left SF for a smaller town: Aren't you
worried about what you'll do if/when you lose your job or have to leave? In
the Bay Area, you walk across the street resume in hand to one of the 5 tech
companies in that office park and you're all set (in the best times), or you
tough it out through a 3-6 month job search (in not so great times). In small
town America, you may be working for the only tech company in 200 miles. What
happens when the recession comes? I moved from small-town tech to SF tech for
the employment security.

~~~
timr
Talk to someone who lived through the first dot-com crash. A lot of good folks
were moving _from_ the bay area, because they couldn't find jobs. Living here
is no guarantee of anything, except (possibly) of a higher cost of living.

Tech is such a weirdly age-distorted industry that there seems to be no
historical memory. They forget that as recently as 2009, a lot of highly
qualified people around here were struggling to get work.

------
nlh
Ok, counterpoint:

I moved to SF from NYC about 3 years ago and, yes, it's now definitely more
expensive than NYC.

But I've built a friend network here that's absolutely unsurpassed in my short
37 years on this earth. I feel more at home in SF than I ever did in NYC - I
see friendly faces all around the city, I run into people when out for a walk,
I've got a group of people I cycle with regularly.

So - for that reason - even if you offered me 2x what I earn and a
home/apartment 3x the size - I wouldn't even give leaving a minute's thought.

How does that play into the thinking for other folks? Do the folks who are
thinking of just picking up and leaving not have friends they care about?
There's got to be more to where you live than whether or not you own a home
(and how big it is)....

~~~
taurath
I lived in the bay for 10 years - 2004-2014. Half of my friends from there are
now up in Seattle where I am. Wait until you stop seeing all those friendly
familiar faces around the city because their landlord decided to sell the
place. I don't think I have any friends left in the bay that are in an
industry other than tech.

------
ig1
I'm at a London based startup (MarketInvoice) that's open to sponsoring work
visas and we've seen an increasing number of candidates from SF, not only for
tech roles but across the board.

London isn't exactly known for cheap housing so there's likely other factors
at play.

------
brightball
Shameless plug:
[http://www.visitgreenvillesc.com/](http://www.visitgreenvillesc.com/)

Greenville and Charleston, SC are working pretty hard to become tech hubs.
Charleston is booming to a degree that housing is starting to go the way of SF
(which is nuts in this area) but Greenville and it's surrounding cities have
virtually no risk of that degree of price inflation. There's just too much
land and space.

I live in Easley, which is about 10 minutes from downtown Greenville and you
can get a decent 1100 square foot, 2 BR/2BTH apartment with washer/drier for
about $500 / month.

Houses tend to run between 80-110 / sqft.

Also, food is awesome:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73GcUAb2HO0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73GcUAb2HO0)

~~~
lukeqsee
I grew up in Greenville and am moving back in a month. I would love to
connect. You didn't have anything in your profile, so feel free to drop me a
line to the email in my profile, if you want.

~~~
harryh
Oh hi Greenville people! I don't have a ton to add really but since the city
almost never comes up on Hacker News I just wanted to chime in. Was born there
and lived there until I went to college. Mom still lives there so I visit once
or twice a year. Great lil' town.

------
michaelvkpdx
If your mindset is $$$ first it doesn't matter where you live. We have a ton
of valley expats here in Portland. The ones who are really artists and
creatives at heart and work to subsidize their outside lives tend to thrive
here. The ones who just want to live more cheaply end up miserable because
this is not California North.

Wanna move to Portland? By all means come on up! But leave your dot-com
privilege and your "live to impress VC's" mentality back home. Come to Oregon
and be an Oregonian.

Also- if you're attached to your car, Portland is not for you. The commutes
from the 'burbs are as nasty as the Bay Area, and the inner city is made for
biking and walking. Your car is good for the weekends- getting to the Coast
and the Mountains- but not for your work week. Change your perspective on
commuting. This ain't CAr-ifornia

Note- I said "weekends", meaning Saturday and Sunday when you are not working.
If that is a foreign concept to you, Oregon is not for you.

~~~
swang
Holy cow are you a character from Portlandia?

I mean I was fine with most of what you said until you literally wrote, CAr-
ifornia. What? People actually use that word and expect to be taken seriously?

I mean maybe there are people who talk too much about VCs, but your post
didn't make you sound any better than those people. Talk about exclusionary.

------
iamleppert
I came to the bay area five years ago from Ohio where I was working a soul-
sucking job. I have two roommates and a SO, and my rent is $800 (my cost) for
a two bedroom loft in Potrero hill.

I get the opportunity to work at an amazing startup and have been able to
build a specialization in mapping technologies. On the weekends, I can hike or
take a day trip or go to Sausalito, Angel Island, or just hang out and get
high at Delores Park. Sometimes it feels like life isn't real we are so
privileged around here, despite all the negativity.

I've made lifelong friends and connections here who "get me" more any other
place I've lived. The gay community here is also especially strong...and
weird! ;-P

It makes me sad that people are struggling, but I think the key is to value
your experiences and spend the best part of your life less consumed with
strict acquisition of wealth, and more with the depth and richness of
experience. Of course that's a trade off.

Here's my advice on the bay area:

Don't rent an apartment in SOMA. Don't be consumed with trying to buy a house.
Learn to accept living with roommates even though you make 6-figures and your
friends back home are buying huge houses on far less. Forget about trying to
save a lot of money. Be creative in your living situation if you want to save
money. Enjoy your life and all that SF has to offer. I've lived all over the
world and there's no place like it.

I guess for most people they are consumed with having kids and feel pressure
to own a home and save for retirement. I've been able to save money and keep
my living expenses down by having roommates, but I know owning a home here is
probably out of my reach and that's OK. If you're unhappy here and really want
to live a different lifestyle, and SF isn't able to provide you what you need
to be happy, I would say you should move so you can give someone else the
chance to be happy and thrive here.

~~~
massysett
> Learn to accept living with roommates even though you make 6-figures and
> your friends back home are buying huge houses on far less.

I'm glad you like the Bay Area and this is a great post. If this is what it
takes to love the Bay Area it's no wonder people would want to leave. But you
are right. The extraordinary expense of living there will chase a lot of
privileged people away because they don't want to pay the price.
(Unfortunately some of the less privileged cannot be so flexible.)

------
nnnnnn
After leaving the YC startup I co-founded, then doing consulting in SF for
about 6 months after, I decided to leave the valley at the end of 2015.

Where did I move to? Medellin, Colombia. While I'm not sure I'll stay here
forever and may move back to SF at some point, I'm definitely enjoying living
down here for the moment. I'm doing remote software consulting, so I am
geographically agnostic.

I definitely miss friends, the hustle, and being surrounded by smart people in
SF. However, there are a lot of things I do not miss about SF. For example:

Prices: SF <> Medellin

Rent: $2000 (mediocre) <> $300 (nice, best part of town)

Nice restaurant dinner: $30-40 <> $10-15

Uber (20 mins): $25 <> $3

------
kin
As a happy engineer in LA, I'm pretty sad to see we're not in the top 8. I
just wanted it say that the tech industry here is pretty great and you should
all check it out. Actually, talent is pretty hard to come by down here and
plenty of companies are hiring.

~~~
SilasX
What about the traffic and commute?

~~~
kvcrawford
I got a job in Santa Monica, while living in Long Beach. Commute was painful
at 45-60 min, and I only had to be at work by 10:30.

I moved into a 1BR for $1500 in nearby Culver City, which cut my commute down
to 20-25 minutes. Not so bad. I'm across the street from a little downtown
area with bars, restaurants, a movie theatre, 3 yoga studios, and a grocery
store. Fairly walkable.

The job market is pretty hot. The problem in my job search was lining up
interviews to get as many offers as possible at once so I could have my pick
of the litter.

And even nicer weather than the Bay Area to boot.

------
bobstobener
I always thought it was incredibly ironic that an industry that's responsible
for creating the virtual world would require all those working to create it to
live in the same physical neighborhood.

------
dismal2
Don't worry, it will happen naturally when the current tide recedes. I think a
lot of older people underestimate how flexible young people, especially ones
who graduated into the financial crisis, are.

~~~
mabbo
Interestingly, the opposite is true: young people are actually _less_ willing
to relocate for work than previous generations.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/the-go-
nowh...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/the-go-nowhere-
generation.html)

~~~
Xcelerate
That's really interesting; I wonder why that's the case. My girlfriend and I
are split on this particular issue. I have no problem moving around to
wherever the best job offers are (even if they're in a different country),
whereas she wants to stay in the town she grew up in — or at least within a
few hours drive of it.

The difference may come down to how we grew up; my father traveled quite a bit
when we were younger, so I lived in France from ages 3-6. I thought those few
years added to my life experience and gave me a unique cultural perspective.
My girlfriend never moved growing up though, and she believes that moving
hurts the friendships that young children develop. To be honest, I'm not sure
who's right. I was always kind of introverted, so I didn't have particularly
strong attachments, but she is very outgoing and extroverted and still keeps
in touch with friends from elementary school.

~~~
mabbo
I suspect the root cause is related to women's rights (and that's mostly a
good thing).

50 years ago, if your girlfriend said she didn't want to move but you got a
job across the country you would probably both move across the country. In
part that's because you would likely be the primary income for the two of you
and partly because women's wants were not often considered as equally
important as men's wants.

Would that have been true in every case two generations ago? Maybe not. And
would it still be true in some cases today? Probably. But the odds have
changed over time quite dramatically. My wife earns nearly the same salary
that I do (and made waaay more back when I was a student). We can't move
somewhere unless we both have job offers lined up.

Also, our culture now has a rather unhealthy (imho) obsession with trying to
make life perfect for our children that previous generations were less
inclined towards.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
There are concrete reasons to choose a place to raise children, unrelated to
obsessive parenting. I moved to a rural community. The kids could go out the
door with a backpack and sandwiches on a summer day, wander all morning
exploring, and still be at home. Harder to do in the city. Not so many frogs,
salamanders, redwing blackbirds and creeks to explore there.

------
jameslk
I've been wondering, as someone who has been observing the Bay Area on the
outside, is it really the cost of living that's so high or just the cost of
housing?

I've been looking at some of the stats here:

[http://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/city/california/pal...](http://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/city/california/palo_alto)

[http://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/city/california/san...](http://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/city/california/san_francisco)

It seems that aside from housing, everything else is just moderately higher.

Compare that to NYC, which is also on the list:

[http://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/city/new_york/new_y...](http://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/city/new_york/new_york)

If it's just housing that's insanely expensive, I could see why some have been
trying to arbitrage the situation by living in alternate housing arrangements
(think RVs), such as some notorious cases with Google employees.

~~~
grimmdude
My opinion is it's the cost of housing that people mainly talk about here, but
often call it "cost of living". Don't get me wrong; housing is definitely part
of cost of living, but if you own or are have been renting in a rent
controlled situation then you don't have much to complain about really.

------
Negative1
This article is strange to me. The conclusion it tries to get you to draw is
that the Bay Area is expensive to live at so techies are now starting to
leave. The data they draw this conclusion from is search data for jobs. The
number 1 place on that list; New York City. So people are leaving SF Bay Area
to go to NYC, because it is cheaper?

~~~
inmyunix
I'm guessing NYC is at the top simply because it hosts the greatest number of
opportunities. it's the rest of the list that's telling. the article also
points out that the age 30-40 cohort represents the greatest portion of
searches, which could indicate a natural course of settling down with family
etc.

[which further proves to me that suburbs are not dead. it's merely been the
vocal majority (millennials) blabbering on about big city living and how
they'll never do this or that, only to hit the family creation stage in life
and realize they were naive to think in such extreme absolutes]

~~~
jiaweihli
I don't think this is a millenial problem, this is true of the young adult
population in every generation. One trend I've noticed is that those who grow
up in suburbs tend to prefer cities in their 20s, and those who grew up in
cities tend to prefer urbanized suburbs.

------
xlayn
I can mention one reason why it could happen and would:

    
    
      Price
    

Taking your IT out of SF and SV means you could spend the money you save on
offices and increase developers salary.

On the other side for developers it could mean better earnings with less being
spent on paying rent and other services which could lead to more savings for
you.

At industry level this would translate to a competitive advantage as you can
build a service cheaper.

~~~
maxxxxx
Salary increases will certainly not happen. Most likely the opposite.

~~~
ryanSrich
That seems counter to other professions. You typically have to pay people more
to live in the less desirable areas. Everyone wants to live in <insert cool
city here>, so you can pay them less.

~~~
maxxxxx
That's not my experience. My company transfers people to India to be point
person with an outsourcing company. After a year they get a huge pay cut
"because India is so cheap". I highly doubt any computer company will pay
people in Kansas City more than in SF. Other industries or the government
might but not high tech.

~~~
walshemj
Does any one stay more than a year then? I looked it going ex pat with a big
uk company and it was quite a nice package.

~~~
maxxxxx
They don't. That may be by design.

------
jghoman
After eight years in Silicon Valley, we returned home to Seattle last year.
Bought a huge house on an acre with awesome schools. Now that I'm a parent, it
just wasn't worth the cognitive dissonance of doing very well financially, but
not being able to buy my family a good home. There are definitely things I
miss, but overall, it was absolutely the right move to make.

The job market, while 1/10th what is was back in the valley, is still great.
Now that Microsoft is embracing open source, the vast pool of talent that was
previously locked away in msft's proprietary tech will be free to leave and
spin off many new start ups over the next few years.

SF in your 20s, South Bay in your early 30s and Seattle when you have a
family.

~~~
rconti
I moved the opposite direction. Granted, I'm only in my mid-30s, but I have no
plans to move back to the Northwest. I love it when I visit, but I realize
what you see of an area when you visit is very different from when you live
there. I always visit when weather is nice, I don't mind the traffic as much
when I'm on vacation..

Granted, the traffic on the Peninsula has gotten really bad in the past few
years, it's ALMOST as bad as Seattle!

------
simonebrunozzi
TL;DR:

Indeed.com, a job search site, published stats that show how tech workers in
the Bay Area, and especially those from age 31 to 40, are increasingly looking
for job opportunities outside, mostly in New York, Austin, Seattle.

This might be attributed to the search for a balance between happiness and
opportunity.

Also, this type of migration is common in other parts of the world, and tech
companies are willing to follow these trends, such as Facebook opening offices
in Austin and Seattle, or Google in Portland.

Shameless plug: I started posting summaries of HN stories here:
[https://github.com/simonebrunozzi/MNMN](https://github.com/simonebrunozzi/MNMN)

------
inmyunix
surprised Denver/Boulder isn't on this list.

I've gone from lusting over migrating my career to the Bay Area, to becoming
almost completely averse to the idea over the last two years.

~~~
willholloway
How are/how many dev jobs are in Boulder?

~~~
mooreds
Lots of stuff happening in the metro area.

Boulder is more startupy and small to medium size companies, but just
southwest of Boulder is Interlocken, which has some biggish tech companies
(Oracle and Level3 being the largest). Downtown Denver has all manners of
software companies, from startups to big telcos. And then in south Denver
(about 1-1.5 hours of commuting from Boulder) are a bunch of larger
corporations (it's called the Denver Tech Center).

------
cyanbane
Come to Alpharetta, Ga (or Atlanta in general). It's great. Home prices are
not terrible, taxes are not bad, great schools & people are friendly. Only
real problem is traffic - staggered commutes and working from home can
mitigate that.

~~~
cyanbane
Surprised at how many upvotes this has. If you honestly are looking for a
coding position around here (Alpharetta), feel free to DM me (shoot me a tweet
asking for refollow). I don't mind sending your info to my local contacts. I
love building the local IT community. Great community, awesome local gov't
support and large companies moving in daily. Honestly, it gets no better.

------
hwstar
If I weren't in San Diego and in SV or SF instead, I'd move to another city
like Los Angeles, or where I am now. Most other US states allow noncompetes. I
won't sign a noncompete so unless they'll let me work without one, I won't be
working outside of California.

Additionally, California labor laws are more employee friendly when compared
to other states.

I know this limits my choices as businesses are leaving California due to the
employee-friendly labor laws and the high cost of housing, but I'm semi-
retired anyway so it doesn't matter to me. I can be choosy when it comes to
taking a job.

------
igorgue
The tech industry needs to be more global, why is it, that we build global
communities on the internet, take pride of them, yet, we cannot make it work
if we're more than 100 cm away from each other.

~~~
gdilla
People keep asking this, along with why people love the bay area with it's
high cost of living. It has to be obvious that a great swath of people are
willing to pay high rent/housing costs to have access to: lots of sunshine,
bright people everywhere, top notch arts, culture, food scenes, good
universities. And that should be enough of an answer. Silicon Valley isn't
more international because they don't have to be.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Yet there are so many other places with almost all of that. And not the high
cost of living.

~~~
gdilla
well, i forgot the most important part: be in a cluster of a jobs, opportunity
and entrepreneurship. Where else is going to match all that? Taken together,
NorCal leads the world in spades,

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I've worked for Silicon Valley startups all my life. From Iowa. Remotely.

~~~
gdilla
Sure. But you live in Iowa. You may like it, but many people don't. It's great
that it works for you. As a visible minority, I wouldn't be too comfortable
myself in any of the flyover states. The lack of diversity and general
ignorance (But where are you FROM?) is not worth $200/month rent to me.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I live in Iowa City (well, near it). Its got the University of Iowa, with a
population of faculty, staff and students from 100 countries. Its hard to
stand out here. And in the top 10 cities in America for PhD's per-capita.

But thanks for the vote of confidence!

Joe Flyover

~~~
gdilla
Per capita. That's great. I went to school in a place similar to that
(Waterloo). Extremely diverse, smart people abound, blah blah. Still once you
move on from campus life, it's about as boring and whitewashed as one would
expect. There's cool stuff going on, but it's like 1 or 2 things. Not many.
The stimulation dies off. fast.

------
heezo
I pay $6/sq ft for my office in Braddock, right outside of Pittsburgh, PA.

...that's $6/sq ft for a year.

So two months paying for my two bedroom apartment, in Mountain View, can get
me more than a year of rent for my office.

~~~
theandrewbailey
Pittsburgh is rather cheap, and it has CMU. It might be because I live here
that see it in tech news every so often.

There's a lot more places up for rent lately, because the fracking bubble
popped.

------
waimbes
_D’Arcy said this type of migration—from big to smaller cities—is common
around the world. The same patterns can be found in the UK and Germany, for
example, with people moving from London to Cambridge and Berlin to Munich._

This is a strange comment, given that 5 of the 8 cities listed as top
destinations outside of San Francisco are larger cities/metro areas.

------
jmspring
Bay Area native here. Born basically at 17 and 85, aside from some months
living in Europe, I've lived in the Bay Area my whole life. With my current
role, I work at home full time unless traveling -- I do go up to SF now and
then to hang out with other team mates who do go into the office. I like the
flexibility, the lack of time spent in a car, etc.

That said, we will likely relocated for a period of time later this year/early
next north of Seattle for a bit of a change (ties there). That may dictate the
overall plans we have.

Honestly, while having strong ties here (and owning a house) I'm not wedded to
this area. Cost for the quality of life (I live in Santa Cruz) is ridiculous
-- crime, drugs, etc. -- surfing and biking are great though.

I suspect the balance we will end up finding is part time in CA, part time in
WA, and part time in Europe -- we both currently have location independent
jobs.

------
wambotron
I never went to SV or the Bay Area for work, instead opting for NYC since I
lived nearby anyway (nearby being within 3 hours). It's a similar issue,
though. Housing is way too much. Taxes are horrendous. You make a good salary,
but the cost to live there is rough, especially if you have a family.

I still work for a NYC-based company, I just work remotely from Richmond, VA.
I like it better this way. I may not always work for a NYC co, but I will stay
here. I bought a house last year that would be well into the millions in NYC's
commutable suburbs. My kids go to just as good of a school as they did in NJ.
There is no traffic to speak of.

If you have a dream of being in one of those cities, one of those scenes, then
by all means, go for it. It's just not for me (and from what I can see, a lot
of other folks on here).

------
fit2rule
I 'grew up' in the Valley, 80's and 90's, lucky enough to wise up and leave it
by way of a move to Europe. Never looked back.

My personal, subjective reality is that the reason to leave the valley is
this: culture. Which is to say, by way of corollary, a reason to _Be_ in the
Valley is this: the lack of culture.

Let me explain what I mean by culture: If you have to drive and park, its not
culture.

After 15 years of success in the Valley as a relatively content systems
software developer, what it boiled down to was this: can I take a bus where I
need to go? No?

Well, go where the buses are. Go where the train, is.

Too many long days spent in dread of the ride home, the inevitable gear-
grinding maelstrom of disaster that starts on the onramp and doesn't end until
you get to your generic hide-away.

Cars: a reason to move.

~~~
beachstartup
why don't you just say you don't like cars, instead of redefining what human
culture means? that would be a lot easier.

~~~
HelloMcFly
While I find the comment you replied to poorly stated, I think I can buy the
point if modified slightly. No matter how great any city's culture is, cities
that require one to spend a significant amount of time commuting inherently
limit the culture that can be experienced in any given day. I don't see how an
hour car ride vs. an hour bus/train/bike ride operates any differently in this
regard though inasmuch as the time spent is non-optional for traversing the
city.

~~~
acchow
You were describing life in the valley, not the city. People in the city walk
and bike and ride muni and uber.

~~~
HelloMcFly
Well, I wasn't describing anything, just thinking a little bit about a post I
really didn't care for at first. I've never thought about the impact of travel
on culture much, so I found it interesting.

------
joeax
I've been working from home of the past four years. About once or twice a
month I get an email from a recruiter from the Bay Area. I in turn reply that
I'd be interested if I didn't have to relocate and can continue working from
home, to which they usually reply no.

At what point in this tech worker shortage/drastic expensive economy do I
convince one of these companies that I'd be a better value working remotely,
even willing to work for less salary? The tooling is so good now it almost
seems like I'm in an office anyway. And the irony is many of these companies
already have distributed teams that use these tools.

What am I missing?

~~~
tedmiston
It seems like we have some fully remote startups (Buffer) and SMBs (Basecamp)
that embrace this culture.

But I think the problem is that you're being contacted by recruiters in the
bay at big tech cos. The small cos. might not have a recruiter, and the big
cos. grew big without a remote-first culture.

~~~
joeax
Those companies are definitely on the bleeding edge of remote work culture,
but there seem to be many others who would hire someone remote if it were the
right fit (my company for example). I've been contacted by outside recruiters
and corporate recruiters big and small, but when in comes to bay area they
always seem to be hellbent on you being on site.

Then again, maybe it's because I'm not really looking, and I'm being contacted
by those who are just grasping at straws at that point.

~~~
tedmiston
That's a good point -- not willing to relocate can certainly be interpreted
ambiguously.

My company is a mid-stage startup of ~30 distributed across Cincinnati (75%),
NYC (20%), and SF (5%). I would say we're semi-remote: most of our tech team
works from home 1-4 days per week. I've personally done a few trips working
remotely in another U.S. city one week at a time. In our case the culture
isn't quite ready to accommodate a person being _fully remote_ , though I'm
hoping to be the guinea pig.

For anyone reading this and looking for fully remote, there's a nice
"database" of remote jobs in this GitHub repo.

[https://github.com/jessicard/remote-
jobs](https://github.com/jessicard/remote-jobs)

------
ashwinaj
I guess it depends on what you want. I think it's fair to say that most work
places outside of SV have less innovation (with some exceptions of course).
I'm saying this as someone who moved from Texas to SV.

For me personally, there are tons of activities to do and not enough time in
SV, which wasn't the case in Texas. It's a fast paced life and it took a while
to get used to.

Yes there are negatives: cost of living, taxes, commute etc. but I'm okay with
this trade off. IMO, I don't need 4 acres of land in the middle of suburbia or
nowhere with nothing to do.

------
jorgecurio
and here I am thinking, surely Silicon Valley will be nothing like Vancouver,
we are all leaving Vancouver for better paying jobs and housing we can afford.

~~~
sterl
Seattle and SF are way beyond Vancouver's unaffordability ratio. Vancouver is
cheap.

~~~
aianus
Software Engineers in Vancouver make ~US$45,000 a year...

It's much, much less affordable there than Seattle or SF, trust me.

~~~
sterl
Where in Vancouver are you making $45K? I have dozens of companies on file
that are seeking engineers in the 80-110K range.

~~~
jorgecurio
pay is shit in Vancouver especially now due to USDCAD rates.

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18UwaThgGikSXzinnLNHx...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18UwaThgGikSXzinnLNHx7P3_HQSenggWbV262_UmuTk)

~~~
sterl
Your table is conveniently lacking the salary ranges I've been offered from
over a dozen higher paying companies in the city...

    
    
      In fact, not a single company that pays well whom I've talked to is on your list other than Amazon and Microsoft  (Whom will pay a whole lot more if you point the spread out to them).

~~~
neptunespear
I am the original creator of the spreadsheet.

Proof:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18UwaThgGikSXzinnLNHx...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18UwaThgGikSXzinnLNHx7P3_HQSenggWbV262_UmuTk/edit?usp=sharing)

I am planning on converting this data to website that will keep track of what
tech employers are in the city. Kind of like HackerBatch but just listing
companies, not delivering job postings. (Also, it will be available to the
public, not just UBC/SFU students. You won't have to get 50 students from your
school to sign up like with HackerBatch, either.)

For the moment, I'm protecting the sheet so I have a stable source from which
to work. Stay tuned...

------
sxcurry
As Yogi Berra said, "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."

------
s3nnyy
If you look for a coding job in Europe, Zurich is a great place to live and is
the only place where net-salaries are on par with the Bay Area.

Salaries are in the range of 7000 - 12000 CHF / month after taxes and
apartments can be way cheaper than in San Francisco.

I am a technical recruiter with a software engineering background and I live
in Zurich. You find my email address in my HN-handle.

~~~
scentoni
Zurich is one of the most expensive cities in the world to live[1], though I
have fond memories of when I did my postdoc there. I lived downtown a block
from the Hell's Angels, 4 blocks from where the junkies and hookers hung out,
and it was still cleaner than most parts of San Francisco. [1]
[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=cost+of+living+index+z...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=cost+of+living+index+zurich+vs+san+francisco)

~~~
s3nnyy
That is right but Zurich is tiny and almost everyone lives "in the suburbs"
where the rents are half as much and which only means a 10-15 min commute[1]
to town (using the superb public transport).

[1]"Living in the suburbs" anywhere else in the world but Switzerland means a
>1h commute...

------
princetontiger
Boston fell off the map. Whatever happened?

It seems like New York, Bay Area, and Austin, TX have become the three large
Internet/App tech hubs.

~~~
MicroBerto
The latest complaints in Austin is the lack of access to large VC money.
Personally I see that as a good thing. Go be profitable and bootstrap a bit
before looking for money.

~~~
princetontiger
VC money is stupid. Mark Cuban took VC money at the very last minute.

The latest incarnation of VC-backed tech companies leave very little for the
founding members.

------
Swizec
So here's a question: _why_ do you absolutely need to __own __a house? I 'm
28, still haven't figured out why people are so obsessed with the idea of
owning.

What practical benefits does it give you? All I can see are many many
downsides.

edit: I can see it making more sense if you can pay the whole sum in full on
the day of purchase.

~~~
niccaluim
The money you spend on your mortgage (minus interest) is still yours, in the
form of equity. If/when you sell, you get that money back, modulo market
fluctuations. Or your kids get it via inheritance.

When you rent, you might as well be lighting that money on fire.

There are a few other terms in the equation (property taxes in particular) but
that's it in a nutshell.

~~~
Swizec
I've heard that argument a lot. Then I calculate how much a mortgage costs for
an apartment in a place I'd like to live in. And the mortgage payments are
literally _more_ than for rent.

Take SF for example. I'd need $1mil to buy an apartment. At 30 years, that
gives me a mortgage payment of $4700.

Rent for a similar apartment is $3400. And I don't have to pay for upkeep.

So if my rent stays the same, I will have saved almost $40,000 in the next 30
years.

I can do a lot with an extra $1300 per month.

Not to mention I can maintain my desired lifestyle of moving every 2 years or
so.

~~~
taurath
You realize at the end of those 30 years, you're happy to have $40,000 over
$1,000,000 (in the form of a property you can now sell) right?

~~~
Swizec
I don't.

My grandparents have a "property they can now sell". They never will. They've
been investing in it and adding to it for so long that it has become useless
to any potential buyer, and parts of it are now so old they really really need
repairs.

They cannot afford to sell because the investment to make it sellable for a
good price is too high. Nobody would want to buy because the investment to
turn it into a useable large house, is too high.

So instead they turned a tiny part of the house into an apartment for
themselves because the costs of living in the whole thing are too high. They
turn on the heating in the rest of the house just enough during winter to keep
the pipes from freezing.

None of the kids want to inherit the property. None of the grandkids want it
either.

The location isn't that great either because the economic activity the
location was great for (wine) is now in tatters and the government is paying
people to please for the love of god stop making wine and cut down their
vineyards.

My mum has a nice flat in a downtown area. She recently had to go into debt to
afford to fix it up. She could potentially sell, but then she'd have nowhere
to live. She's too young to buy a rural house (same price) because she still
goes to work. She's too entrenched to deal with finding a new apartment
somewhere else. And she'd have to pay more for a new apartment than she'd get
for her current flat. At 50-ish, she also doesn't really want to go into
another 10+ year mortgage.

So ... no, I don't see the value in owning.

Basically: Having all your wealth tied up in an illiquid asset is twoplus not
good.

~~~
taurath
If the land and property aren't worth anything, thats an awful investment I'll
grant you.

Regarding your mum - I assume there are rent controls in her area - in mine
(Western US) there aren't necessarily those. If she rented she'd have been
priced out of her flat years ago as the landlord ups the rent to market rates
or "renovate".

------
sixQuarks
Moved to Portland recently. If you move here, don't tell people you're from
the Bay Area. They don't like your kind around here.

The quality of life is 500% better here in Portland than the Bay Area. Even if
housing prices were the same, I would still prefer living in Portland.

~~~
steveax
Naw, us stumptowners don't mind y'all moving up here. Just don't be spreading
lies about how great life in Portland is. Sucks up here, rains all the time,
can't find a good cup of joe or pint of beer to save your life. Did I mention
the rain?

~~~
sixQuarks
oh, actually you're right. I forgot about all that. It does suck here, you all
don't want to come here, too wet. Beer sucks so bad, no good food anywhere.
Nothing to see here, carry on.

~~~
ngokevin
I'm natively from Portland and moved to the Bay Area. Portland is
comparatively boring, even in terms of nature.

I am serious, but my thoughts have the added benefit of deterring people from
moving to Portland :)

~~~
sixQuarks
There's always an exception to the rule.

------
biztos
I moved to Europe a few years ago, though entirely for personal reasons and
not because of the cost of living in the SF Bay Area. I'm sure I'd be making
more money if I'd stayed, but I'm also pretty sure I wouldn't have the same
quality of life.

I know others who did the same thing, and are doing fine over here ("here"
being mostly Berlin but also further afield). I think the trick is to know
what you're moving for, as opposed to what you're moving away from.

In most cases you will make less money, at least over time, and miss out on
career opportunities. But there are other opportunities people in SF are
missing out on. And as others have said, the income difference can easily be
balanced out by a cost-of-living difference.

------
mathattack
My 2 cents as someone who left the Bay Area in 2003 and came back in 2014...

If you want to be at the core of a game changing software company that's got a
decent shot of being a rocket ship, you're most likely to do it in the Bay
Area. It isn't about getting rich, or cost of living or any of that. If you
want a good stable technology job with a large house in a good school
district, you can get it anywhere. If you want to maximize the likelihood of
earning cash, hold your nose and go to Wall Street. If you want to work at
Google or Facebook, you can live very well outside the Bay Area.

But... The best chance at grabbing onto the next Google or Facebook, it's best
to go where these companies are sprouting from.

------
rjurney
If you don't do R&D, if you don't aspire to founding a successful startup, if
you don't need to work with the smartest people on the latest tech... the Bay
Area does not make sense. But if you check yes to any of those, you get what
you pay for.

~~~
emirozer
i am sorry but this is a very elitist comment, please consider all the
successful startups that are born outside of Bay Area/US and really smart
people who work on them...

~~~
rjurney
I'm not disparaging those people. However, the fact is that the best and
brightest give up a lot to move to the bay area and build the things that
change the world.

------
pj_mukh
I'm not convinced this is a zero sum game. There will be a lot of small
Silicon Valleys popping up. And as companies in these little valleys grow
and/or die (germinating other companies), they will grow to be the size of SV
and maybe support the capital costs of some of the moonshots that take place
in SV. SV will always be there to welcome new entrants into the tech industry
and foster old ones :).

Source: Proud Waterloo-ite surrounded by Ex-Blackberries. Possibly moving to
the Valley soon.

P.S: Every region that wants to grow will face the real-estate crunch SV is.
Look to your municipal laws/stucture to see how your region will weather this
storm.

------
billhendricksjr
Austin is a great city. I went to school there, lived there for 10 years, and
went through Techstars there 10 years later.

But the cynic in me wants to point out that Indeed.com is based in Austin has
a vested interest in bringing more talent to town.

~~~
sevensor
Lived in Austin (Hyde Park), loved it, but it felt like I was constantly
bidding up the price of things that used to be appealing because they were so
fun, simple, and cheap. Barbecue, housing, Mother's, breakfast tacos... When I
left in 2010, the only part of the city that still felt real and vital to me
was Lamar north of Central Market. The part with the stip malls.

------
jxm262
Of all the comments I see stating how happy they were to _leave_ San
Francisco. I'm wondering if there's anyone in the opposite - happy _moving to_
San Francisco.

I live in Mid-Ohio (Columbus), and have been contemplating a move for some
time. I know there's lots of tech companies outside of the Bay Area, but it
seems like there's sooo much concentration there that I want to experience it
at least for a short while. I was planning to try it out for a year or so, but
now I'm not so sure.

FWIW, I make about 100k and but plan a significant increase when I transition
into my own consulting full-time.

~~~
arebop
I was very happy to move to SF from the midwest, because: much better job
(albeit with lower pay and much higher living costs), more walkable city, can-
do/optimistic/accepting culture, better weather, more options in the job
market. But things were much cheaper then and something's gotta give. If not
for rent control, I might have moved away already.

~~~
jxm262
Wow , I wasn't aware of rent control in SF, but a quick google search shows
there's a big debate. Any suggestions on where to best look for apartments?
From my brief visit (1 week trip) I really liked pretty much all over the
downtown area, although it looks crazy expensive. I'll be living with my gf,
so the rent would be split between the 2 of us which makes it easier.

~~~
arebop
The cool part of town where the new billionaires live is The Mission. Note
that it is a transitional area with a more crimey side (east) and a more
gentrified side (west). This is also the area where anti-tech-worker
sentiment, violence, etc. is most common. The Castro is a nice, vibrant
gayborhood in the south. The Tenderloin/Civic Center/Western SOMA are pretty
gritty, but other than that the entire northeast quadrant is nice and
walkable. The western half of the city has a more suburban flavor and worse
weather, but it's cheaper.

In general, I'd recommend you take a short-term rental to explore the city
rather than trying to lockdown a long-term rental from afar. Especially
because the open houses are often open for an hour or two and result in
waiting lists (dozens of would-be tenants) in length.

Also, just be aware of rent control. I think the market prices aren't any
different between older (rent-controlled) and newer buildings, but after a
couple of years of 20% pa price increases for the non-rent-controlled place,
the rent controlled unit will be much relatively cheaper.

~~~
jxm262
Thanks alot arebop :) And yeah, short term rental at first sounds like a good
idea.

------
davidw
There are a ton of people here in Bend who have had their fill of the bay
area, and want a place where they can afford a decent house, have good
schools, and so on.

Feel free to ping me if you're interested in the area.

~~~
mooreds
And feel free to ping me if you'd like to hear me sing the praises of Boulder,
CO.

~~~
joeax
Doesn't Boulder have similar high expense issues? I considered that area for
all the tech opportunities, but found myself realizing I'd need to live 30+
miles away in Longmont for a house with a decent sized yard.

I also have been considering south of Denver but it has similar expense
issues.

~~~
mooreds
It's expensive for Colorado but I don't think it compares to SF or SV.

Houses with decent size yards are 450-600k in Boulder, depending on location
and square footage (7000 SF lots). Low property taxes (CO has a counterpart to
prop 13, TABOR, where every tax increase needs to be voted on by the public),
a flat 4% state income tax, and great schools (in Boulder) add to the
attraction, IMHO.

I haven't looked at the rental market for housing in depth, but I think you
can get a 4br 2br ranch w basement for about 2000-2500/month.

Lived most of my adult life in Boulder so can't really speak to the real
estate situation in south Denver.

~~~
davidw
I think your prices are optimistic:

[http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_rent/Boulder-
CO/house,mobile...](http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_rent/Boulder-
CO/house,mobile_type/30543_rid/3-_beds/1.5-_baths/any_days/40.245205,-104.867592,39.790863,-105.760232_rect/10_zm/)

~~~
mooreds
The numbers I quoted are definitely anecdata, based on homes for rent over the
past year in my south Boulder neighborhood, which is probably one of the more
affordable.

Don't forget that Zillow will have the asking rent price, which is not always
the same as the final rent.

But thanks for injecting some hard data into the discussion!

------
DonHopkins
Bad thing about Silicon Valley: All the burners. [1]

Nice thing about Silicon Valley: The quiet, peaceful time of year during which
all the burners are on the playa. [2]

[1] [http://megagogo.co/](http://megagogo.co/)

[2] [https://www.jwz.org/blog/2014/08/i-wish-you-could-stay-on-
th...](https://www.jwz.org/blog/2014/08/i-wish-you-could-stay-on-the-playa-
forever-too)

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aagha
It's so surprising to me that so many of the posts here are about owning a
house. Why is that so important? Sure, real-estate is a good investment, but
it's a volatile one (especially given the current market in most major US
cities).

I would not sacrifice my quality of life (diversity, food, education, etc.) to
live somewhere else because it was cheaper.

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kabdib
12 years ago we moved from Silly Valley (where I worked for 20 years at places
you've definitely heard of, and some start-ups) to the Seattle area. Great
move, would do it again. With the exception of a little weather and geography
(the motorcycling is definitely poorer up here), I don't miss SV at all.

I _definitely_ don't miss California. Never going back there.

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kazinator
I want to design a system that will be fabricated in China, and sold to
customers in Europe. I expect my engineers will work from home a lot of the
time. Where should I locate the firm? I know! How about the most expensive
fucking are in the USA, so I have to pay the highest possible salaries, which
everyone will blow on basic living costs.

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greggarious
I work for a nonprofit in DC. I have a higher standard of living, lower
stress, shorter commute, and generally am happier than friends in the Bay Area
making 120K, when I make about half that. It says something about my time in
the valley that DC feels cheap.

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mwfunk
Regarding the specific case of working in SV while living in SV vs. commuting
from SF:

I've lived in SV for about 9 years now. I know a lot of people who live up in
SF and commute to SV. I don't know how accurate this is, but my observation is
that SF housing prices are >= SV. The people that live in SF and commute to SV
universally do it because they would prefer to live in SF for one reason or
another, rather than for financial reasons.

When comparing what $x of housing will get you in SF vs. SV, the SF equivalent
for the same price will have very different characteristics. The SV housing
will likely be much newer and less unique than the SF housing, but it will
also likely be in better condition than the SF housing.

Another huge aspect is the length of that commute. It's 60-90 minutes each
way, every day. Some people are much more OK with that than others- I
personally couldn't do it. The big SV companies have generally nice buses with
bathrooms and wifi, where you might be able to get work done and might even be
comfortable, but even so that means 3 hours/day on a bus. A nice bus, but
still- 3 hours/day on a bus is 3 hours/day on a bus.

Now, some people will say that's great, because they use SF public transport
and take the company bus to work and now they don't have to spend money on a
car. In theory that sounds great, but what if you want a car? You're living in
northern California, which I think is one of the most beautiful, varied, and
interesting places in the world. Not owning a car means not being able to take
off on a whim and go drive down Big Sur, or out to the desert, or Tahoe, or
wherever. In theory a non-car-owner could rent a car when they want one and
enjoy that lifestyle, but in practice most people end up sticking to
destinations they can get to via public transit. That might not be a tradeoff
everyone wants to make.

Ah, one might say, but you can have it both ways! You can own a car and live
in SF, and still enjoy the commuter buses. Well, get ready to spend several
hundred dollars a month on a place to store your car that you only use for
weekend jaunts, road trips, and whatever needs pop up. Now the housing that
was $x in SV that included car storage will cost you $(x + y) in SF, where $y
is the cost of a parking space.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that SF and SV cost about the same
but it's very hard to do an apples-to-apples comparison of what $x will get
you in either place. The choice comes down to how an individual assigns
weights to the pros and cons of each locale.

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rdlecler1
It's interesting that almost all the comments are related to housing costs. If
Silicon Valley dies as the premier tech hub it will be because there wasn't
enough done to develop housing for a growing population. That would be such a
shame.

~~~
Tempest1981
What should be done, and by whom? New housing is going up all the time, but
with the economy booming, demand is insatiable.

~~~
rdlecler1
There is too much obstructionism to develop new housing. The pace of
development is actually quite slow.

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blakecallens
I left California (L.A.) for Raleigh three and half years ago and my quality
of life skyrocketed. The pay is the same, the worst N.C. commute is half of
the best California commute, and my mortgage is the same cost as my 650 sq ft
apartment was.

~~~
RomanPushkin
can you explain what exactly have skyrocketed? I'm considering moving to NC

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iblaine
I left SV for Santa Barbara and could not be more happy. My compensation
package took a hit but living expenses decreased proportionally. More
importantly, I got my life back. My commute went from 90 mins to 15 mins and
my family is happier.

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tschellenbach
That's true, we're hiring in Boulder and Amsterdam, angel.co/stream

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anacleto
This is happening. Finally.

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bduerst
Construction of the Salesforce tower has started.

According to the skyscraper theory, there is an economic bubble set to burst
in SF before 2018. Maybe this is one of the signals?

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analog31
What's it like to raise kids in SV? How are the public schools?

~~~
RomanPushkin
it's hard. Prices are really high, and land lords are not friendly. We've been
discriminated two times, we found affordable apartments, but were said that
little one will make noise for downstairs tenants. Complained to department of
housing 2 months ago, no reply.

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kzhahou
What companies in other areas should people be looking at?

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branchless
And then what? All other houses are doubled. Does he cash out his "money for
nothing" and live elsewhere or realise that the gap between his 2 bed and a 3
bed is now also twice as large.

Property speculation is utterly engraved into Western society now and it's
killing it.

EDIT: it's interesting how people upvote this as they can see it's a truism,
but downvote my post attacking land speculators.

NEWSFLASH: buying land and sitting on it to exploit scarcity creates no
wealth. Therefore if you buy lower and sell higher that money comes from
wealth created elsewhere, making you a leech. If you buy somewhere to live in,
fine, but more than one place to speculate: you are leeching off of the labour
of others.

EDIT: don't have time to reply now as i've got a prod issue to debug. Read up
on Henry George or don't.

If you think making money from doing nothing then using the same money to
consume goods is fine, well to hell with you.

~~~
jMyles
I'm largely a believer in private property (and mostly libertarian even), but
I really don't think that this dividing up the earth into tiny little squares
and pushing everyone out of them in order to make money is defensible.

~~~
branchless
You're damn right it's not. We are effectively asking young people to join a
game of monopoly that's been going for 2 hours. Would you play under those
conditions? Well actually you have no choice thanks to the banks and their
landlord foot-soldiers.

As _many_ economists have noted, land is not applicable to the general laws of
economics because it is finite in supply.

We need land value tax to squash speculators who add nothing to the world,
right now.

~~~
fapjacks
This is one of the most astute and coherent metaphors I have ever read about
the subject.

~~~
branchless
It's not me. Read the history of the game monopoly, it's the polar opposite of
the final product.

[http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/11/secret-h...](http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/11/secret-
history-monopoly-capitalist-game-leftwing-origins)

Based on the work of Henry George.

------
branchless
So you lost out due to people exploiting our flawed system which pushes all
productivity gains to land speculators.

Then you went and got a rental.

Christ. People just love rentier activity. What is better than money for
nothing!

~~~
jcoffland
Clearly you've never been a landlord.

~~~
branchless
Many landlords have made a lot of cash for themselves using leverage by
sitting on property which is forcing up land prices. I think that's
undisputed.

I know landlords always harp on about how hard their (chosen) path is but land
prices have rocketed in SF due to this mentality. His post intimates it was a
core reason for leaving. Then off he goes and joins those who let the plebs
work for them once they can get a down-payment together.

~~~
nosuchthing
Our laws facilitate the leaching of labor to land owners (feudalism). If it
were easier to build a surplus of housing, this wouldn't be such an issue but
between NIMBYism, zoning, local municipal red tape, and the near zero
incentive from developers to build inexpensive housing units in mass
quantities near urban centers, than this issue will remain siphoning any
surplus of wealth from labor in cities (Silicon Valley, NYC, etc).

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11158398](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11158398)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10442929](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10442929)

~~~
jackcosgrove
Restrictions on construction and density drive the housing crisis in the Bay
Area more than the desirability of the area or the economic opportunities, in
my opinion. For example, if you can fetch a salary in Austin that is similar
to one in San Jose, then opportunities between the two cities are the same. If
you can live in a cool neighborhood in Brooklyn that has the same amenities as
one in SF, then desirability is the same. The difference is that Austin has
far fewer restrictions on development, geographical and legal, than SV. In the
second case Brooklyn has far more legacy housing units than SF. In both cases
the supply of housing is more in line with demand.

The high cost of housing in the Bay Area is partly due to geographical
limitations, partly due to the attractiveness of the area and its amenities,
partly due to economic opportunities, partly due to speculation, and lastly
partly due to restrictive zoning and development laws. One of these five
factors - which are not exhaustive - is much easier to rectify than the
others. Reforming common law property rights, which is what the land tax
proposes, is much, much harder than reforming local laws against density and
development.

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jonesb6
Duh?

