> Many of those who lost their jobs worked in technical fields in an industry that pays an average wage of $180,000 a year. Those were great jobs and helped buoy the whole state, but most won’t find similar work locally.
This is the big risk we all took when we moved away from the Bay Area to work remotely. You arbitrage the COL difference and come out ahead big time, but it might be very hard to make the same salary locally if you can't find a remote job.
IBM left my once prosperous hometown as a kid. Others followed suit. Since then it's been in a sad state economically, just some rust belt town. Corporations abandoning communities is hardly anything new. Capital acts with 0 empathy, or rather, the people who direct it do.
I've heard on this forum of a tactic Intel employed where they broke off some people into a subsidiary, dissolved the subsidiary, and then offered to rehire them with the caveat: Oops, the pension you were promised is now gone. Then Intel's foundry business started failing. Oops!!
> “I don’t feel good today,” Gelsinger said told employees Thursday. “I’ve agonized over today for the last three, four weeks. Many nights waking up at 2 a.m. because I know that what we do, and how we’re affecting you and your families, it matters.”
Sounds pretty empathetic to me. I’m guessing he also has empathy for Wall St and his shareholders. Ultimately Intel has no choice but to either grow or downsize and the former hasn’t materialized. They’re losing market share and revenue and if they keep that up they will be empathizing with their creditors and the bank.
If there is one thing I have learned it's that most people who make it to the top in business or politics are great actors and storytellers who can express empathy in a very convincing way when needed. They may even believe it at the moment. But if it benefits them, they will still make brutal decisions without any regard towards the lives of people who are affected by the decisions.
Krzanich and Swan were catastrophically bad. Both of them are among the worst bigcorp CEOs ever, with asleep-at-the-wheel Krzanich in the running for the worst of all time. Intel's board tried to right the ship with Gelsinger, but it was too little and too late, especially given slow development cycles in the semiconductor industry.
It's arguably a challenge to supplant Jack Welch as "worst of all time" after he not only ran GE into the ground, but also started the whole "celebrity CEO" fad and spewed a bunch of toxic crap that poisoned scads of other companies. Rank-and-yank being first among those.
I'd argue it's not a choice of "let's open a campus in flyover country," but a reflection of how the industry has changed.
The "older" companies were manufacturers. Even places like Mountain View and San Jose were the working-class towns with HP factories and semiconductor plants. The concentration of engineering talent (HP/Intel/Apple/Atari) is what created the affluence, especially after manufacturing itself was outsourced globally.
The newer Web 2.0 companies don't make physical things; they make software. Their most critical infrastructure isn't a factory but a dense network of developers. They go to the Bay Area, Seattle, etc., because that's where the network is. For the parts of their business that don't require that network, like customer service, they locate in less expensive regions, just as PayPal did with Nebraska. They were even the second largest employer in Nebraska iirc.
If only one company offers jobs in your profession or skill set, that company has a labor monopsony. Back when companies provided lifetime job security and pensions, moving to a remote corporate campus might have been a reasonable tradeoff to consider -- your reduced negotiating leverage would depress your wages but that might have been offset by the lower cost of living (e.g. housing).
But modern skilled workers know how risky it is to put down roots in a place where they only have a couple employment options. So companies struggle to attract talent to remote areas and end up needing to hire in places that already have an established pool of skilled labor, which is typically in the cities and more affluent areas of the state or country.
In this case, the lack of employment options means many of the engineers laid off by Intel will end up needing to uproot their families' lives and move to a new city or state to find a new employer who can to pay for their skills.
There's a significant overlap between well educated technical minds who you want to do information work and people who want to live in a vibrant city. This isn't new and it shouldn't be shocking.
But Silicon Valley isn't made up of vibrant cities. Most of it is small towns and suburbs between SF and SJ.
I remember the first time I was sent to the Bay Area for training. I was excited to see this City of Mountain View I'd heard so much about; to explore its city nightlife and enjoy the view of the mountain. My boss had to let me down gently :) "Mountain View in Europe would be called a village", he said.
That’s kind of the big failure of post-WWII 20th century American urban planning. People, especially young ones, want to live in the fun cities they saw on TV where you can live in fun neighborhoods and walk to cool restaurants on the way to a show, so they move to places like SF, LA, NY, etc. but unless you bought in the 90s anyone without family wealth has the abrupt disappointment that they’re actually in some suburb 45 minutes away and spending a couple hours a day driving and trying not to think about how much they’re paying for even that.
I don’t know how quickly we’ll find the political will to break that since everyone who owns property in a city has a financial incentive to keep prices artificially high. Removing density restrictions helps by making redevelopment financially advantageous for individuals but the degree of uncertainty we have now is going to slow that down, too.
If you want to live in a house, then yes, you will have to commute potentially far distances. But if you're willing to live in an apartment then you can still live in the core of the cities mentioned. This just makes sense, if everyone got to live in a house then it'd hardly have the density required to be considered a city anymore. And actually the existence of 45min away suburbs from the heart of the city is exactly the problem with post-WWII development, if anything you should pay a much heavier premium or live even further.
> Removing density restrictions helps by making redevelopment financially advantageous for individuals
The big problem with changes like this (which I support, btw) is that the changes get immediately reflected in land prices, which means that you basically can only put the maximum number of units on the land, which tends to increase prices.
If you build enough, this doesn't happen but I don't think any western urban area is anywhere close to that point.
Along the 101/El Camino more like a series of small towns that blend into each other. Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View at least have walkable streets with restaraubts, shops, etc, clustered around a “Main Street”, and residential areas laid out on a grid that mostly blend in to this area not sealed off in some way. Yes it is mostly single family homes and smaller apartments, with almost no high rises.
But when I think of “suburbia” I think of a series of housing developments, strip malls p, golf courses just off all major highways/roads. Cul de sacs as opposed to grid pattern. Generally hostile to pedestrians getting fro residential to commercial and business areas. On,y part of the Valley is like this, mostly the richer areas more towards 280, such as Los Altos, Portola Valley, Cupertino.
> But when I think of “suburbia” I think of a series of housing developments, strip malls p, golf courses just off all major highways/roads. Cul de sacs as opposed to grid pattern. Generally hostile to pedestrians getting fro residential to commercial and business areas. On,y part of the Valley is like this, mostly the richer areas more towards 280, such as Los Altos, Portola Valley, Cupertino.
I guess this is reflective of US/Europe suburbia. From my (Irish) perspective, the valley is clearly suburbia given the density. I'll never forget taking the caltrain from Palo Alto to SF and seeing basically low-density housing with sporadic strips of shops. That would be clearly suburban to me (but obviously other people's opinions will differ).
Sure, the South Bay is hell, but that's why plenty of startups are in SF proper.
Plenty of large corporations have headquarters in suburbs (where the rich execs want mansions) but in a close enough commute to a major city where more of the employees want to live.
Metropolises are not soulless, as a rule. They are dynamic and exciting, with an influx of ambitious young people every year trying their best to start something.
You don't need a big home space when any cafe can become your living room, any restaurant your kitchen, dining room and wait staff, and any park your professionally tended garden.
Your choice of entertainment, especially live entertainment, is mainly limited by your willingness to keep up with what's going on, and not by the sparse calendar of touring acts.
Metropolises are fantastic places to live, especially when you are comfortable spending money to expand your space on demand.
“[W]hen you are comfortable spending money” is the kicker, though. Unfortunately, the Bay Area is oppressively expensive, and the same can be said about places like New York City. High housing prices puts a major strain on the ability to enjoy restaurants and paid entertainment. Also, because the restaurant owners and workers need to pay high rents, the food prices are very high. It’s hard to enjoy $3000 studio apartments, $12 burritos that used to only cost $8 before the pandemic, and other high costs when you’re not rich. I make a low six-figure salary as a professor in the Bay Area and I’ve had to cut back on eating out in the past year since the prices have gotten obscenely expensive.
It doesn’t have to be this way, though. Tokyo is a vibrant metropolis that is also relatively affordable by global standards. The key to this is sensible housing policy that doesn’t inflate the cost of living to oppressive levels.
What keeps me in the Bay Area besides being tenure-track are proximity to family, the acceptance of multiculturalism, and (as an academic) California’s support for academia in a national political climate that has become hostile to academia. But financially I wish the price of rent, food, and other necessities weren’t so oppressive.
> Metropolises are fantastic places to live, especially when you are comfortable spending money to expand your space on demand.
That's a very optimistic perspective, which I somewhat envy. It makes sense in a way, assuming your rent is negligible, but when you're paying out the ass for an apartment, having the privilege of being able to pay short-term rent in the form of coffees and brezels for a shared proper living room doesn't sound great...
I don't think you get what living in a busy city is. The "pod" is where you sleep, the city is your home. You don't need half an acre to sleep.
Maybe it is not the lifestyle for you, but I don't find it "insane" to want to have plenty of stuff available at walking distance. And you can't have that without high population density and yeah "pods".
You are certainly correct that it's a matter of lifestyle preference.
> You don't need half an acre to sleep.
Where do I put my vegetable garden and fruit trees?
How can I relax on my back porch listening to the birds and creek?
How do I get away from all the hustle and bustle of dense city living?
> plenty of stuff available at walking distance. And you can't have that without high population density and yeah "pods".
Exhaust, brake dust, sirens, litter, concrete jungle, noisy neighbors with thin walls, massive crowds/traffic... there are tradeoffs to living in a dense city.
I think the Pareto optimal living conditions in the US today are the suburbs bordering the rural outskirts. Especially now with WFH prevalence.
> Where do I put my vegetable garden and fruit trees?
Some cities provide shared gardens, but it is a niche thing.
> How can I relax on my back porch listening to the birds and creek?
Most cities have parks.
> How do I get away from all the hustle and bustle of dense city living?
You go to the countryside.
But sure, if you like these things, maybe living in a city is not the best. The thing is that there are solutions. In the same way that if you live in the countryside, you can still go to cultural and sport events, fancy restaurants and bars, but it will take a trip, and you also have to consider that driving and drinking is not great. If you love these things, maybe you should live in a city instead.
I am not a fan of suburbs as there is essentially nothing you can do without driving. For me, it would be my last choice, as it tends to be expensive compared to the countryside, and not as calm. An intermediate choice that can make sense, but not a Pareto optimal.
It reminds me of an ad campaign for a travel agency a while ago, I can't remember the details. But one of them depicted a large city labeled "hell" and next to it, some place in the middle of nowhere labeled "heaven". Under it, the same pictures with the labels swapped.
Half an acre in the middle of nowhere, where you need to drive everywhere or a pod in walkable distance to everything you need, all services and entertainment?
Are you really not understanding that there are people who have different preferences than you do?
I grew up in a rural area, with a decent-sized house and garden, surrounded by nature. It had its pros and cons. I’ve now spent a couple of decades living in large cities, and I love it. I personally don’t need all that private space, I enjoy having many people from all over the world around me and the endless options for culture, food and entertainment. When I get older still, my priorities may change again, or maybe they won’t.
I don’t think you’re insane for making other choices than I have, but you seem to lack both imagination and empathy if you can’t wrap your head around why not everyone feels the way you do.
I do have empathy, thats why I can honestly say you are wrong.
HN is largely comprised of people who are disproportionate beneficiaries of modern society, so its not a surprise that people here develop a pathological ideology that goes as far as valuing the trappings of modern society. It is like in Huxley, the purpose of soma and orgy porgies are to keep people from noticing how fucked up their world is. It is fucked up to live inside pods stacked and crammed up to the clouds - so what is the soma?
All the "vibrant" amenities available in the city. But why would you want to work on a laptop in a cafe when you can work on a quad monitor in underwear looking out over your own literal fiefdom? The amenities are substitutes not the real thing. You shouldn't be fooled.
I think suburbia is this uncanny valley between the convenience of true urban living and the peace and simplicity of true rural living. You still have to subject yourself to traffic and driving everywhere, can’t grow enough food to sustain yourself, have to spray your lawn with carcinogens to satisfy the HOA, etc etc etc.
I will say that Canadian suburbia (at least Vancouver area) is subtly different from US suburbia in a way that makes it vastly more livable. My parents house is right next to a river trail with mostly ungroomed foliage, still somewhat walkable for groceries and restaurants, and has passable public transit.
Half an acre that you have to care about, mind you. And work is not the only place people go to in a city. Add all those other amenities other commenters already spoke about, and your half-acre would have to be in the middle of at least a mid-size town.
Obviously that would be nice, but not even HNers are rich enough to build rural villas in city centres.
> Half an acre that you have to care about, mind you.
I have an acre and maintaining it's quite a nice alternative to computers and screen based entertainment. It's just another form of exercise basically.
The fact that different people have different preferences is why its great that we have options for where to live. People like you can have space in the countryside and people who prefer to spend their time at cafes/restaurants/other city activities can live in apartments. Why is the pissing match necessary?
You simply do not know what you are talking about. I live in an urban city. I have a yard, fruit trees, a vegetable garden, and birds singing. Don't have a creek running behind my house, but there is one a half mile away, plus there is the whole SF Bay, and Redwood parks accessible on bus routes _within_ the city.
Mate why do you assume I haven't experienced it myself? I've done city living, I moved out thanks to wfh.
Yes there are people who live in houses in or near the city. Most people live in pods. We're talking about the "influx of young ambitious people" remember?
At the very least, even if you can afford it, to own a home in the city for most people means putting off FIRE which I think is poor decision making.
Econ 101: people aren’t paying $3,000 a month because everyone in business has failed to think about opening an office in the suburbs. Walkable neighborhoods are expensive because they’re so desirable that Americans pay a premium to live there. The answer should be removing the barriers preventing builders from supplying that demand.
I don't think this is actually quite the case when you look historically. What seems to be the case is that cities have a sort of S-shaped demand curve, where a fraction of people are willing pay a huge premium to be near their job and their entertainment, and many others need housing to be dirt cheap to live in the metaphorical pod. In other words, it's not that the demand curve is just higher than the suburbs: the demand curve is more sloped. Cities then constrain their housing supply so that landlords end up only serving high-premium customers, ensuring that the surplus here goes to landlords and not to renters.
People often talk about supply and demand until this subject comes up. “How can you stand to live somewhere so expensive?” “Because it’s so nice that many people want to live here.” “Impossible!”
The high COL is proof that people enjoy it and are voting with their wallets. It’s not as though everyone here is ignorant of the existence of Oklahoma. I’ve lived there-ish. I pay extra not to have to anymore.
So the open market voted and decided that the area can support a high COL, but we'll choose every explanation other than that people want to live here.
Now, why are the jobs there? Is it because everyone wants to pay tons more for housing, or is it because people with higher incomes are willing to pay for better living conditions and everyone else is pulled along? Tech didn’t used to be anywhere near this concentrated but over the decades people moved out of declining cities and that produced the current hyper-concentration. That cycle is brutal - you have cities like Rochester which have a lot of comparatively cheap real estate but until the senior management want to live there, they won’t have enough businesses for any skilled workers not to think they’d be screwed if their current employment changes because there aren’t many alternatives.
Doesn’t that suggest that there is so much demand that successive waves of people have settled for the closest in they can afford? I remember people talking about being priced into a hefty commute during the dotcom bubble and only the top tech workers saw income growth keeping pace with real estate prices since then.
They are working on a different planning time horizon. The older established companies would have a 10-20 year plan which is enough time for diffusion and growth of talent. Startups (unless really well-financed) think more in terms of the next 1-2 years, not enough time for the local community to grow around the company.
This is what I never understood about Americans. In my country people want to live in civilization- you can't just move your company to redneck land out in the boonies! These are highly educated liberals for crying out they want a hipster Uyghur restaurant not a McDrive.
As a business you get to pick and choose your battles. There’s only so much empathy you can have and stay afloat. What most people forget is at the point they’re doing layoffs, that time has probably passed.
Hillsboro is pretty much a company town (well, there are some datacenters now, but those don't need a lot of employees). Actually the whole of Washington County is heavily dependent on Intel. There's also Nike, but it's also heading for significantly lower headcount than it's had in a while. So it's kind of a double-whammy here (Triple if you count federal government funding cuts hitting places like OHSU (Oregon Health Sciences University)).
I was contracting out at Intel Jones Farm campus in Hillsboro in 2004 and I'd walk around the (then) new neighborhood there by the campus and I distinctly recall thinking "What if something were to happen to Intel in, say 25 or 30 years? What would happen to these neighborhoods?" It was just kind of a thought experiment at the time, but now it seems like we're going to find out.
Not unlike what happened to Finland when Nokia went down. That took a long time to recover from, and some would say we're still trying to overcome, though it's hard to say what could have been post-Coved with the current state of the world economy.
There are hundreds of new homes being built in/near Hillsboro -- probably planned a few years ago when Intel "promised" it was expanding its Oregon facilities. Can't see them selling now. The local economy's going to take a major hit.
Maybe, but Oregon as a whole is far behind on housing, and prices are inflated in the area especially relative to the available jobs. I think more likely it just drives home prices downward. There's plenty of holdouts (myself included) that would happily move sooner if prices came down.
I think it’s interest rates that are keeping that from happening , not housing prices, which have been flat for the past 2-3 years. Since these are new homes not sure how much it will drive prices down as developers expect a certain profit. But you may be right!
Hillsboro real estate has slowed down and prices have come down a bit but the whole metro is short on housing, and Hillsboro is on the light rail lines.
Saw the same thing happen 20 years ago with DEC in Colorado Springs. Lots of people assumed it would last forever until it didn't.
They were getting paid "California salaries in Colorado" (well, really Massachusetts salaries but popular sayings don't have to be completely accurate) and lots of people had virtual mansions on senior tech salaries (plus probably stock options?).
Then DEC imploded and there were almost no other options for hundreds of storage engineers. Knew a lot of people who had their houses foreclosed because so many were flooding the market at the same time.
Yea, Intel has been in Hillsboro since the 70's. People moved from all over the world to work for Intel in office in Oregon. This has nothing to do with remote.
This is the big risk we all took when we moved away from the Bay Area to work remotely. You arbitrage the COL difference and come out ahead big time, but it might be very hard to make the same salary locally if you can't find a remote job.
Best to make some hay while the sun is shining.