8 ms·

It's notable that a lot of people are moving, but I'd wait until at least early 2022 to make judgements about lasting impacts on SV. WFH might not stick widely,

• fossuser 6y ago
  Yeah, I've had some friends leave (to CO and DC), but I'm skeptical of companies and VCs leaving. For a kind of funny example, there was an episode of the all-in podcast (mostly a podcast of successful VCs) where they talked about SV politics and leaving. The irony was while they talked about CA politics to an absurd degree ("worst run state in US", etc.) when they asked each other if they were planning on leaving all of them said no. People complain a lot (and there are good reasons to complain!), but people have been complaining since at least 1993 and it's still an economic hub for startups. I'm skeptical of that leaving. I have seen coworkers and friends leave, but it's mostly a housing issue. As people turn 30 and want to have a family if you haven't cashed out $5M in some exit event then it sucks to live here. $500k can get you a nice place in CO, $750k for outside Seattle. I have had older friends leave to have a family. They went to Santa Cruz, Seattle, Denver, DC, and Austin. It's a shame. The ones that stayed either are very rich where a $5M house is not an issue, or they still live with three roommates and rent without kids. Some other reasons to complain about, but that I don't think are usually deciding factors for people to leave: - Bad policy (AB5), Extra founder Tax, Hostility towards tech in general. - Political monoculture (I don't mean not enough trump people, I mean it can be controversial to be an obama era moderate/neoliberal and 'woke' politics is hard to avoid). - High state taxes that harm capital gains and new money. This is related to housing and prop13. Not only do the people that live in housing they bought decades ago pay almost no property tax compared to new buyers, they then push to restrict new supply while also pushing to increase tax on new money. This comes in the form of higher capital gains tax (there's a bill to raise it to 16.3% this year retroactively, by far the highest in the country). They also push legislation to increase tax on the companies excluding homeowners to fund their services (which indirectly affects the employees again). This kind of thing makes it doubly hard to be able to buy in and live here.
  • TuringNYC 6y ago
    >> Yeah, I've had some friends leave (to CO and DC), but I'm skeptical of companies and VCs leaving. >> I have had older friends leave to have a family. They went to Santa Cruz, Seattle, Denver, DC, and Austin. It's a shame. The ones that stayed either are very rich where a $5M house is not an issue, or they still live with three roommates and rent without kids. Just wait until they look for interesting jobs and get 100 linked in messages from CA and like 1 or 2 from DC. (note: I live in VA just outside DC, speaking from experience.)
    • Apocryphon 6y ago
      The main idea is that those jobs are now moving to remote, because of the pandemic?
    • munaf 6y ago
      Exactly. An anecdote: I got an offer to leave my mid-level FAANG job to return to the Midwest for a VP role at a 200+ person company. The compensation was about 35% of my total comp, and it was maybe one of 3 companies in the area I would consider working for. Not to mention going back to cold winters, McMansions, and chain restaurants. I don't think people fully appreciate the value of unenforceable non-competes + many companies congregated in one area. No where else in the world does the labor have this level of negotiating power and flexibility. Even if it can be replicated (and I hope it is!), it won't be overnight.
      • TuringNYC 6y ago
        Agreed. I think it was all OK when I was single. But the appetite to re-locate a family every 2-3 years with a job change (or employer disappearing) (changing friends, school districts, continuity) is a tall order in my humble opinion. There is an old Russian saying about how every time you move it is like a fire happened (because you lose things.)
    • fossuser 6y ago
      Well, this entire premise is that remote work would make that more possible (I personally don't believe this though). That said, the people I know that left aren't planning to find new work (for the most part). CO does have a lot of FAANG options though and Slack was also there. They're not looking for the most interesting work at that point, they're looking to keep their job and raise a family - it's a tradeoff. Isn't that a risk to move to a place without as many employment options? Yes. The reason for that risk is you can raise kids in a nice house for $500k rather than in a tiny, old, 2 bedroom apartment for 1.5M.
• birdyrooster 6y ago
  Wfh will not stick. Managers hate it. If you are really talented you can work anywhere for whatever price you want, however most people are not like that and can only really function meeting often in person.
  • FpUser 6y ago
    >"Managers hate it" Who ever cares what managers think. It is the owners who matter as they're the ones paying bills. >"however most people are not like that and can only really function meeting often in person" Well, when your ability to make a living is at stake your ability to function independent of location might suddenly improve.
    • x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
      So if people don't care what managers think why would the owners bother having them? It seems shortsighted to think that management won't have a say, explicitly or implicitly, in guiding these orgs back to an office based workspace.
      • FpUser 6y ago
        Managers are nothing but employees. Same as developers and other groups. The owners might consider their opinions along with the opinions of the other groups. There is nothing special about managers. And it is the owners who decide how and what to spend their money on. Not the managers. >"..won't have a say, explicitly or implicitly..." Nice try. What are you implying under "implicitely"? If this is what I think it is, the managers are just as replaceable. Often it is actually easier for the owners to replace/get rid of a manager than from good salesperson/developer/etc.
        • victorronin 6y ago
          "There is nothing special about managers." Managers are very often (especially in a bigger organization) is the only channel how information flows to owners. As a result, managers can paint very different picture of the same situation (as an example, that people working remotely from home are less productive). May be in some abstract world, "managers are just employees and there is nothing special". In reality they wield a lot of power to sway company in one or another direction.
• xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
  I lived in SV for a decade and worked in SF for most of that. > WFH might not stick widely If the vast majority of workers demand it, then I don't think employers will have a choice here. Leaving now is a vote with your feet. > unenforceable non-competes Very few of my peers have ever cared about this in practice. I don't think this is remotely a major benefit compared to e.g. state taxes. > fantastic weather and surroundings The surroundings, I'll give you, but the weather is "fantastic" in a small number of communities only. SF weather is far from fantastic. I don't miss it. Sunnyvale or RWC, on the other hand... But still. The weather is boring. What I don't miss are the fires and smoke-filled skies, and the drought. > an educated and diverse population The "native bay area" population? Or the migrants and immigrants? The vast, vast majority of people I worked with over the years were from elsewhere. We used to joke that it was rare to hear someone was born in the Bay Area. There's not much weighing people from elsewhere down preventing then from leaving, and there is less and less weight each passing month this year. > cultural activities I actually cannot think of anything unique to the Bay here... > very high compensation True, but I know plenty of people who have moved to Seattle and New York who make just as much. And I know of several fully remote (pre-pandemic) workers who are making 90% of what they would earn in the Bay Area -- I know, this isn't common, but it's possible. Honestly, SV has done this to themselves. NIMBYism, insane housing, terrible transit, high taxes. I have no doubt SV will recover, but the rest of the world will prosper at the valley's expense.
  • mdgrech23 6y ago
    Employers really don't care what the workers want or think. I can't see employees having the leverage to make much of a dent here.
    • Apocryphon 6y ago
      Employers aren't a monolithic block. Some companies will switch back to in-person, others will continue WFH policies. If more workers depart for the latter, the former will take notice.
    • whimsicalism 6y ago
      I mean, employers respond to labor market pressure just like employees do.
• cblconfederate 6y ago
  > WFH might not stick widely, The contrary might also be true: For many companies it's currently impossible (due to COVID) to make the big accomodations required for going comlpetely remote, including moving their HQs to other places for reasons having to do with access to capital or taxation.
• freyir 6y ago
  Calling SV compensation “very high” seems short-sighted these days if you don’t already own a house here (and assuming you want to own your own house). The compensation just won’t seem so great when you’re paying off millions on a mortgage and wondering if the industry will still employ you once you’ve got a few gray hairs.
• dcolkitt 6y ago
  > Not to mention that few places can match all the benefits of SV The counterpoint would be how many billionaires, besides those in the tech industry, choose to put down roots in the Bay Area? Not many at all. (The only real exceptions I can think of are Napa/Sonoma/Marin, not SV/SF proper.) We're talking about a class of people who are truly unconstrained in terms of location, so that should be pretty indicative of where local amenities really shine. And it's pretty clear that New York, SoCal, and Southern Florida are the truly attractive locales in America. Many people choose to pay Manhattan, Beverly Hills or Palm Beach prices without a compelling economic draw to those areas. Virtually nobody chooses to pay SF prices just for the lifestyle, amenities and culture. Without the draw of tech employment and investment, there's no way SV/SF can maintain its current level of economic prosperity.
  • foxtr0t 6y ago
    People with means tend to locate in tax havens, not places that have good amenities. Presumably with sufficient resources, you can produce any sort of amenity you'd like.
    • dcolkitt 6y ago
      NYC and LA are taxed just as heavily as the Bay Area.
    • digi59404 6y ago
      No; People with means tend to declare a residence in a Tax Haven. Which they use to observe profits. I.e. Registering their personal corp in WY, NV, or MD. Then recognizing all profits for themselves under a Corp/LLC and being taxed at WY, NV, or MD results. Then they proceed to live wherever they want and buy items using Corp/LLC Funds. When they need to use personal funds or pay income tax - They minimize their tax impact through various methods. Point being - The people live where they want regardless of tax haven status. They recognize revenue in a Corp/LLC in a tax haven.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
• SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
  For years, Intel had a ~+20% geographic compensation adjustment for people who lived in the bay area. Not sure if it still exists, but if you were smart about it, and worked in San Jose, you could pocket quite a bit of bonus $$$ that you wouldn't have access to if you worked in, say, Chandler, AZ or Folsom, CA Intel sites. If you changed sites you lost this compensation.