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Tech workers want to leave Silicon Valley


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2016 Feb 29, 8:45pm   34,586 views  133 comments

by tovarichpeter   ➕follow (6)   💰tip   ignore  

http://qz.com/627414/tech-workers-are-increasingly-looking-to-leave-silicon-valley/

A growing number of engineers and tech workers from the San Francisco Bay Area are looking to leave Silicon Valley for burgeoning tech hubs such as Austin, Texas, and Seattle, Washington, according to a job-search site’s data. Indeed.com found that the share of searches from within the Bay Area for tech jobs outside of it is on the rise.

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1   Patrick   2016 Mar 1, 8:10am  

yes, i myself am considering leaving the bay area, mostly because of real estate prices.

2   missing   2016 Mar 1, 9:28am  

rando says

yes, i myself am considering leaving the bay area, mostly because of real estate prices.

Wow! You are ditching your chance to become an aristocrat?

3   joshuatrio   2016 Mar 1, 10:10am  

rando says

yes, i myself am considering leaving the bay area, mostly because of real estate prices

Patrick, you'll probably be asking yourself why you didn't move sooner IF you decide to make the move. I've been in Atlanta for 3 months and wish I'd done it several years ago.

If you have kids, you'll really appreciate it. Solid, affordable, clean neighborhoods are easy to find. We've found a much stronger sense of community - and parents who actually care about their children as well.

People are people, but the ones we've met down here have been pretty outgoing and "what you see is what you get." Where as there were a lot more assholes and liberal "support my agenda or I'll hate you" type pricks out west. Don't get me wrong, we have good friends out west, but in 3 months of being here, we already have the same number of friends, and the number of children our kids interact with has tripled. Plus, the schools here are solid, and not run down pieces of shit, like we had to deal with out west. We still do private education though.

4   Rin   2016 Mar 1, 10:58am  

News flash ... Silicon Valley has no culture.

In other words, aside from the ppl you meet at work, chances are, you'll be a loner for life there. The region is designed for one reason, for ppl to live in their offices or nearby strip malls for their food stuffs.

With the above stated, I can't think of a worse place to live in. I know of numerous New Englanders, who'd moved to the Bay Area, only wanting to move back home for retirement. The idea that no one makes new friends and that the environment is anti-social, unlike the Burlington VT-Portland ME-Boston-Providence-Hartford zone, makes it a lousy place to live in, despite the mild weather.

I recall my trips to the region where engineers there, looked forward to meeting outsiders on business trips, because it gave 'em a chance to socialize and mingle with ppl who had lives back east. That's pretty sad.

5   man   2016 Mar 1, 11:26am  

After living in Santa Clara for 15 years, we moved out to Dallas last August. We are so much happy here, excellent family life. Daughter (6th grade) is much happier here as she likes the school, house, friendlier kids etc. The only complaint (of others) is the lack of tourist attractions. Beaches and other tourist attractions in bay area are always over crowded and gets much longer to get to, so we are not missing them. Wish we had done that before, instead of bidding on foreclosures/upper fixers in Fremont (CA) for around 2 years. In each bidding, we found 100 other people like us wanting to buy and in some cases we even had the highest bid but did not get the home.

6   Patrick   2016 Mar 1, 11:28am  

I was thinking north. I burn easily (it's an Irish thing) and have some relatives near Seattle. Not that it's cheap there, but it's more sane than here.

7   man   2016 Mar 1, 11:48am  

North is good place and more techie than Dallas. Dallas is good for consultants, financial, retail, sales and marketing.

8   Heraclitusstudent   2016 Mar 1, 12:09pm  

Some people leave after making a lot of money over some years.
New entrants are just sooooo screwed.

9   lostand confused   2016 Mar 1, 12:09pm  

rando says

I was thinking north. I burn easily (it's an Irish thing) and have some relatives near Seattle. Not that it's cheap there, but it's more sane than here

Plus no state taxes.

10   NDrLoR   2016 Mar 1, 1:08pm  

joshuatrio says

Plus, the schools here are solid, and not run down pieces of shit

And I'll just bet a philosophy of much less public spending like in California where they try to solve every problem of human existence with programs.

Rin says

The region is designed for one reason

Hasn't California traditionally been a destination for those who saw themselves as loners or somewhat anti-social? The first stop before Portland and finally Alaska?

man says

Beaches and other tourist attractions in bay area are always over crowded and gets much longer to get to, so we are not missing them

This as much as anything typifies for me a "California" mentality:

http://www.staradvertiser.com/sports/sports-breaking/new-police-chief-says-harassment-assaults-by-surfers-must-stop/

"Krell put his surfboard in the water and paddled out, leaving a bag of belongings on the shore. The Bay Boys emptied it into the ocean. They began throwing rocks."

11   EBGuy   2016 Mar 1, 1:28pm  

Our Beloved Leader says

yes, i myself am considering leaving the bay area, mostly because of real estate prices.

What happened? Did your Prop 13 protected rent go up?

12   Ceffer   2016 Mar 1, 1:36pm  

California is a place for solipsistic warriors who want to engage in materialistic blood sport, gangs, cliques, and foreign enclaves, not well socialized weenies.

I am actually convinced that the ghosts of the Pacific induce a kind of isolating madness around here, beautiful but crazeeeeeee.

There is no life after SFBA! The rest of the nation is a flaming hell compared the paradise of the SF Bay Area!

13   Patrick   2016 Mar 1, 1:39pm  

EBGuy says

What happened? Did your Prop 13 protected rent go up?

no, rent is still good, but it just seems insane to sink so much money into a house around here. getting tired of the treadmill.

i could retire if i want to go back to the midwest where i came from. but i don't want to go back there either.

14   EBGuy   2016 Mar 1, 2:44pm  

@Patrick, Glad to hear your rent is still okay. As your doppelganger (the one who bought in the PRoB), I can attest that I occasionally have thoughts about cashing out. Interestingly, I went native a year or two ago (that is, more than half my life in CA). Hard to imagine living anywhere else, though, so maybe it'll take a big one along the Hayward Fault to reconsider. Hang in there, you'll be eligible for Rossmoor in less than a decade.

15   MMR   2016 Mar 1, 4:33pm  

joshuatrio says

I've been in Atlanta for 3 months and wish I'd done it several years ago.

Atlanta is good value relatively speaking but to be in a good school district, it will be between 150-200/sq ft, not 68. The places at 68/sq ft do not have good schools. Still a good market for software engineers to find a good job and live in a neighborhood with good schools joshuatrio says

People are people, but the ones we've met down here have been pretty outgoing and "what you see is what you get.

Try living in a neighborhood with a high percentage of black professionals and or Indian/Asian professionals like my neighborhood in North Decatur

joshuatrio says

We've found a much stronger sense of community - and parents who actually care about their children as well.

People in Cupertino spending 1.4 million on crapshacks for their children's school don't care. Interesting, I'd say; if anything, they care a bit too much.....I could say the same thing as most people living below Memorial Dr. in Atlanta within I-285 in the neighborhoods that haven't gentrified

joshuatrio says

Plus, the schools here are solid, and not run down pieces of shit, like we had to deal with out west. We still do private education though.

Not in places that are 68/sq ft. Not the least bit surprising that your kids are in private school if you are paying anything near that for a home. Places like Douglasville and Kennesaw still suck balls. The sucking of balls gets progressively harder the further out you go.

Lot of the schools have tracks made of asphalt and padlocked for taxpayers trying to do a sprint workout when there is no school related activity. Real certified shitholes by any definition. Maybe the schools in Kennesaw have been updated, but that certainly isn't close to being the norm for the overwhelming majority of Atlanta Public Schools.

16   MMR   2016 Mar 1, 4:36pm  

man says

After living in Santa Clara for 15 years, we moved out to Dallas last August

Dallas is as good, if not better value than Atlanta. The infrastructure is far superior, that's for damn sure.

17   MMR   2016 Mar 1, 4:39pm  

man says

instead of bidding on foreclosures/upper fixers in Fremont (CA) for around 2 years

If I go back to the East Bay, won't be living in a 50% Indian community like Fremont. Would much rather pick Danville or Lamorinda. Mission San Jose High School, no thank you. Slightly bigger houses up North on the East Bay, but how much difference is there in price per square foot.

Having said that, I regret not buying a home in Fremont during the downturn when the mean was 380K

19   B.A.C.A.H.   2016 Mar 1, 6:09pm  

Rin says

News flash ... Silicon Valley has no culture.

Rin,

I think there many cultures in The Bay Area, like the one in the NYT photo essay. Just not your kind of culture.
Been to an Oakland Raiders' home game? At least for another year, it's a distinct culture.

20   B.A.C.A.H.   2016 Mar 1, 6:12pm  

rando says

yes, i myself am considering leaving the bay area, mostly because of real estate prices.

Patrick, nothing personal. You've added a lot to our region with your insights and your generosity hosting this site.
But… we need more people like you to leave. Rents are too high here because of the tech workers. Regular ol' folks are struggling. A stampede of techies will make things less unreasonable for those Left Behind.

21   curious2   2016 Mar 1, 7:14pm  

B.A.C.A.H. says

we need more people like you to leave. Rents are too high here because of the tech workers.

No, that's backwards and illustrates the insane irrationality of the RSFBA housing market. We need tech companies to build enough housing for their workers. AAPL has a giant spaceship for its office, FB has a campus for its offices, GOOG and countless others build offices, but they don't build housing for the people who work in them. What sort of "campus" has no housing?!? Where are the dorms for recent CS grads to move into while they intern or work at a tech company? Where are the deluxe apartment towers for them to aspire to and move into? These companies have the resources to move local politics and change the planning and zoning laws, but choose to defer to entrenched RE interests (landlords) instead. It's as if the most valuable companies in the history of the world (AAPL, GOOG) don't even realize that they have grown bigger than local Realtors (TM). Most municipalities can only wish they had the tax base of AAPL and GOOG et al. It makes no sense to drive away the goose that lays the golden eggs. Only the local political dysfunction, and frankly the ironic failure of tech companies to engineer a solution to that dysfunction, explain this bizarre irrationality.

My question is, why don't the tech companies insist on building housing for their workers? They have the $$$ and are already paying indirectly, via the higher salaries necessary to enable workers to subsist in the RSFBA. Do they lack the imagination? I do find tech people seem to see the world in binary terms and sometimes they lack the social and political skills to bend policy their way, but they're in a position to hire people who should be able to do that for them. Why does it not happen? Do the tech CEOs really want to overpay for a shack in SF? Do they not care so long as they can buy a mansion in Atherton? What is the problem that prevents them from seeing the opportunity, or am I wrong in believing they have an opportunity to build a real campus including housing? Do they not want to get involved in housing? Is it a turnover issue? Even if they outsource the housing, they could still get involved in planning & zoning. Or do they think all the residents are hopelessly brainwashed, which many are really, and that the problem is impossible to solve even with AI and expert systems. Are they right? Are people too intent on overpaying for everything?

You wrote earlier a great insight about the problem of the greater fool theory, i.e. the region becomes ever more foolish due to being populated with ever greater fools. Is that why the tech companies don't address the housing issue?

22   FortWayne   2016 Mar 1, 7:18pm  

B.A.C.A.H. says

Patrick, nothing personal. You've added a lot to our region with your insights and your generosity hosting this site.

But… we need more people like you to leave. Rents are too high here because of the tech workers. Regular ol' folks are struggling. A stampede of techies will make things less unreasonable for those Left Behind.

Patrick isn't making your life difficult or more expensive. You frustration is misdirected. Try the HB1 guys who are willing to pay a ton and shack 5 people to a room.

23   tovarichpeter   2016 Mar 1, 9:00pm  

The shortage of affordable housing in the Bay Area is caused by the shortage of housing in the Bay Area which is caused by building and zoning restrictions that limit the supply of housing in the Bay Area. Increase density and limit building and zoning restrictions to health and safety and housing in the Bay Area will become affordable, again. In the meanwhile check out New Mexico.

24   Patrick   2016 Mar 1, 9:12pm  

tovarichpeter says

The shortage of affordable housing in the Bay Area is caused by the shortage of housing in the Bay Area which is caused by building and zoning restrictions that limit the supply of housing in the Bay Area. Increase density and limit building and zoning restrictions to health and safety and housing in the Bay Area will become affordable, again. In the meanwhile check out New Mexico.

yes, this.

except i can't live in new mexico.

25   curious2   2016 Mar 1, 9:50pm  

tovarichpeter says

limit building and zoning restrictions to health and safety...

The only thing I would add to this list is to specify health and safety include ventilation and noise reduction. Densely populated areas require building codes with substantial noise reduction to prevent people from driving each other crazy, which can sometimes erupt in violence. NYS required cities to promulgate noise reduction standards for floor/ceiling constructions, and NYC's notorious DOB responded with a standard of 0dB, i.e. no reduction. Consequently, neighbor disputes have erupted in gunfire. Badly designed ventilation can cause cigarette smoke from one unit to waft into another, e.g. if vent stacks have a pressure mismatch. Density requires habitable multi-family housing, which does increase somewhat the cost of construction, but 10% can make the difference between habitable and uninhabitable. Much of the demand for SFH and suburban sprawl results from poorly regulated design choices by commercial developers and landlords who have no intention of living in the buildings that they are designing, and may even be looking to drive turnover by embedding latent defects that residents won't discover until they've lived there awhile.

26   joshuatrio   2016 Mar 2, 5:14am  

MMR says

Not the least bit surprising that your kids are in private school if you are paying anything near that for a home.

My kids are in private because my wife and I refuse to let the gov't educate our kids. We live in a great area with great schools, but I'll still go private, until high school/college.

MMR says

Atlanta is good value relatively speaking but to be in a good school district, it will be between 150-200/sq ft, not 68. The places at 68/sq ft do not have good schools. Still a good market for software engineers to find a good job and live in a neighborhood with good schools

Kennesaw, Acworth, Alpharetta, Cumming etc.. in the $90-150 sq. ft. range. Plenty of area's with schools rated 8-10 down the board.

Point is, you can spend $400-500 sq. ft. for shitty school districts our West ranked less than 5. Those same shitty districts in ATL metro would be in that $60 sq. ft. range that you are talking about.

27   mmmarvel   2016 Mar 2, 9:40am  

curious2 says

My question is, why don't the tech companies insist on building housing for their workers?

The bottom line reason is because. Because if they built barrack style housing for single workers, most single workers wouldn't be satisfied with it. If they built housing like on-post housing that the military provides to military families ... most folks wouldn't be satisfied with it (let alone the issue of where would they find vacant land large enough to do this). Buying corporate houses (which companies in other industries have done for workers when they entice them to go to another city for a period of time) it would only help to keep prices up there and far too many wouldn't be satisfied with the housing. So the only real choice is to do what they are doing, pay a small boatload of money to the worker and let him or her deal with the prices of housing in the chosen city.

28   Rin   2016 Mar 2, 9:52am  

The answer is simple ... sleep in an RV on your SV company's parking lot or bring a mattress to the office. Since you won't have a life anyways, why not just live at work.

29   SFace   2016 Mar 2, 10:53am  

Patrick, after 25 years, what the heck happened to renting and buying the Menlo park place with CASH from all the monies that will get you ahead. Your theory, calculators are broken.

30   SFace   2016 Mar 2, 10:56am  

rando says

i could retire if i want to go back to the midwest where i came from. but i don't want to go back there either.

A Menlo Park owner can retire in Hawaii or pretty much anywhere in this green earth.

31   Ceffer   2016 Mar 2, 10:57am  

Can I sell my 3/2 crap shack in Fremont and retire to Monaco?

32   lalalala   2016 Mar 2, 11:01am  

curious2 says

My question is, why don't the tech companies insist on building housing for their workers?

Because they are not in building/rental business, duh.

33   curious2   2016 Mar 2, 11:05am  

joshuatrio says

My kids are in private because my wife and I refuse to let the gov't educate our kids. We live in a great area with great schools, but I'll still go private, until high school/college... Plenty of area's with schools rated 8-10 down the board.

Methinks you may have put privatization ideology ahead of results, if you are paying extra for schools that don't even teach you how to spell "areas" correctly. It reminds me of people who insist on prayer in schools, and "intelligent design" alongside evolution: paying extra for worse results.

34   zzyzzx   2016 Mar 2, 11:16am  

rando says

i could retire if i want to go back to the midwest where i came from. but i don't want to go back there either.

Why not?

35   curious2   2016 Mar 2, 11:17am  

lalalala says

curious2 says

My question is, why don't the tech companies insist on building housing for their workers?

Because they are not in building/rental business, duh.

But why? GOOG is building cars and phones and Nest "smart home" stuff, while FB is building headsets and launching dirigibles and Mark Zuckerberg and his wife reportedly spent more than a year renovating a single house. The executives are spending a lot of time on their own housing, which is needlessly complicated with stress and strife. Can anybody even calculate the opportunity cost of that time? These companies provide employees with cafeteria meals, free snacks, all sorts of services from daycare to dental to medical to laundry. What makes housing so different that they cannot cope with it, even though they must live somewhere?

mmmarvel says

curious2 says

My question is, why don't the tech companies insist on building housing for their workers?

The bottom line reason is because.

Again, why? If some employees aren't satisfied with a dorm, or an apartment tower, they could venture out on their own, but most (especially the new ones) might prefer to slot in with peers in a place where everything is already set up and managed for them. Even if you can't satisfy 100% of the people 100% of the time, why is the only alternative to provide 0%, nothing ever? It seems to reflect techies' tendency towards binary thinking, as I had observed previously. Life isn't all-or-nothing. An iphone or nexus phone doesn't satisfy everyone either, but each succeeds well enough in its target market.

Maybe I should use a more familiar logic syllogism, and the transitive law.
1) Companies need people;
2) People need food, clothing, and shelter (a place to live);
Therefore, companies need food, clothing, and shelter.
GOOG provides food and laundry, but not shelter, unless you want to live in a microbus in their parking lot. Theoretically, as between an office building and a dorm or apartment building, the office building is the one the company could do without. At universities worldwide, including many where the CS grads attended, people can live in dormitories, and work from their rooms, and meet in common rooms or a shared cafeteria or library. In cities worldwide, people can live in apartment buildings, and work from home offices, and meet at restaurants. In contrast, it would be rather awkward for everyone to sleep at their desks and shower at the gym. I suppose if the company limits its binary focus to minimizing rentable square feet per employee, the solution is cube farms and open office floor plans, but the company continues to pay the cost of housing one way or another.

36   lalalala   2016 Mar 2, 11:39am  

curious2 says

But why? GOOG is building cars and phones and Nest "smart home" stuff, while FB is building headsets and launching dirigibles and Mark Zuckerberg and his wife reportedly spent more than a year renovating a single house. The executives are spending a lot of time on their own housing, which is needlessly complicated with stress and strife.

C'mon "renovating a house" is not work - it's what wives of rich folks do for fun.

As for "why not do housing" - because it's not as profitable as selling ads and not as sexy as "moonshots". Besides, salaries in tech companies are not THAT different between BA and, say, Texas, so the idea that googlebook or faceber is grossly overpaying their employees because of high costs of housing is not exactly true.

37   B.A.C.A.H.   2016 Mar 2, 11:57am  

SFace says

Patrick, after 25 years, what the heck happened to renting and buying the Menlo park place with CASH from all the monies that will get you ahead. Your theory, calculators are broken.

Here's a Larger Reason to leave the region. We're collecting a growing population of gotcha! Snarkers.
Patrick probably don't want his kids to grow up in an environment like that.

38   JasonM   2016 Mar 2, 6:32pm  

rando says

i myself am considering leaving the bay area, mostly because of real estate prices.

This thread is the ultimate of ironies. Most here dismissed the "priced out forever" meme of years ago as nothing more than realtard(tm) scare tactics. Yet, here we all are, a decade later realizing how very real the "priced out forever" mantra is as we are now being systematically being picked off one by one.

Renters win again!

39   Patrick   2016 Mar 2, 7:38pm  

nah, it's not quite priced out forever. it's that the ratios never changed.

it was expensive before, and it's expensive now. but in terms of multiple of salary, it's no different than 20 years ago.

it was easier to save money as a renter before, and it's still easier as a renter now -- in the bay area.

i've gone over it many times, and my conclusion is that it's all about the same around here. i have a bundle of stock, but if i'd bough a house, it would be about the same in terms of equity. at least i have the flexibility to do what i want now.

but this is just the bay area, which is weird. other places really got clobbered.

40   SFace   2016 Mar 2, 8:03pm  

Homeowners in menlo park owns a shit load more stocks as well

If you fixed your living expensed long time ago, owners are raking it with your discipline. You'll have both homes and just as much stocks.

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