Startups Ditching Silicon Valley For New Cities (economist.com) 123
The rising cost of living in Silicon Valley is pushing startups out, the Economist reports, and re-focusing innovation in new cities around the country [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]. From the story: More Americans are leaving the Valley than moving to it. In 2017 several counties in the area saw their largest combined domestic outward migrations in around a decade. In a recent survey by the Bay Area Council, a think-tank, 46% of Bay Area residents said they planned to leave in "the next few years," up from 34% in 2016. This is not just a case of people of more modest means being pushed out by carpet-bagging techies. At this year's "FOO camp," a freewheeling annual gathering of hackers and others, a session called "Should I/you leave the Bay Area?" saw a strong turnout. Participants shared their gripes about the high cost of living, bad traffic and a "toxic" culture obsessed with money.
Makes perfect sense (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, it's a little bit more than pure vanity. The night life game there, where admittedly vanity is key, is seen as an end of it's own to a lot of locals. If you've never lived in a town with 24-hour commerce and more than 2 million people your own age you don't really know what you're missing out on.
Re:Makes perfect sense (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds like hell. Which I think is the point. If you have an environment filled with like minded people then how do you expect to innovate?
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There are many hells. For me, the worst one is a company located in a remote industrial estate on the edge of a city with a two hourly morning and evening commuter bus service. Just to rub salt in the wound, a local railway line runs right past the offices while the nearest two train stations are three miles away in either direction. If the urban planners had any common sense, they could have insisted on building a train station there. But no, you have to wait two hours for the next bus.
Another one is a cit
Re:Makes perfect sense (Score:5, Interesting)
The night life game there, where admittedly vanity is key, is seen as an end of it's own to a lot of locals.
Young locals, certainly - But once you're 35, the 'night life game' starts to become pretty unimportant (and for many 35-year-olds it's likely been unimportant for a half-decade already). You'd rather be at a pub with your friends, sharing stories and nachos.
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Yes. There are no pubs in Silicon Valley.
Another reason not to live there.
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Go south to Santa Monica, and you get real British pubs.
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Like the Regal Beagle. (est 1977)
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Like the Regal Beagle. (est 1977)
Come and knock on my door.
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Thank you.
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Is the King's Head still around? Another fave was around the corner from the main library and opened onto the street.
Re:Makes perfect sense (Score:5, Funny)
That's true. For me, wild nightlife means putting a few drops of cannabis oil in my CPAP machine.
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I don't go to Paso. Too warm up there.
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Don't be silly. I was just joking. I actually put the cannabis oil in my Preparation H.
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--Dammit, now I want nachos...
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I miss being young with my single and active friends. Now, we're all old farts with our own families, being too busy, having a hard time getting new jobs after being let go, more health issues (avoiding junk food like nachos), etc. Stupid life. :(
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Actually, the night life in SV sucks. But San Francisco is only an hour away. SF is great: Plenty of chicks and a large percentage of the guys are gay, meaning less competition.
Re:Makes perfect sense (Score:4, Funny)
Plenty of "chicks".
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Looked at /b/ a few times too many. Went away scared.
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With sticks.
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Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant.
You have no duty to pay more than the absolute minimum the law demands, and if you can legally lower it by locating your business elsewhere, then there is nothing wrong with doing so.
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That, in fact, NO ONE is taxing you against your will?
Good to know you acknowledge it.
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Re: Makes perfect sense (Score:4, Interesting)
Lolwut?
Every club I've been in in the bay area is nothing more than a sausage party with techies who lack social skills who then gawk and talk tech with the few girls that do go out.
I almost feel bad for single women in that city. Hoards of techies with unipolar interests. For goodness sake people, get hobbies that reside outside of tech and start ups.
Re: Makes perfect sense (Score:1)
Like one woman in the engineering department once said to the only other woman: the odds are good but the goods are odd.
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and more than 2 million people your own age
All working 80 hour weeks. And spending the rest of their lives commuting.
Hint: If you want an interesting social life, think college towns. Small enough where the students and faculty drive the social scene. SF/SV may have some decent universities. But the area is so large, the college atmosphere just dissolves into the general city life.
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SFO actually shuts down dead as a graveyard every night around 8 o'clock except for a few scattered clubs. It's actually pretty boring that way, I rate SFO nightlife as below average for a major city. Mind you there are a lot of private parties if that floats your boat.
Re:Makes perfect sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Having just left the Bay area and starting to look for work hard I have this observation.
The Bay moves exponentially faster in the hiring process. It is really hard to not go back simply due to the fact companies outside the bay want to take 3 - 4 weeks to hire you.
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The Bay moves exponentially faster in the hiring process.
Indeed. My company is in SV (San Jose) and if a candidate interviews well, we try to make a job offer before they leave the premises. If we wait, many of them, especially the best of them, will already be working somewhere else by the time we call them back.
We rarely bother calling references, or doing background checks, because both are mostly a waste of time. Good references don't mean much, and having a criminal record is not correlated with job performance [economist.com].
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Hush your mouth, Rooster. We don't want them here. Let them move to goddamn Fresno.
Anyway, it's horrible here on the Central Coast. It's congested and polluted and there's something called "valley fever" that will kill you dead, and there's red tide and earthquakes and the entire coast is on fire. The communists have created a living hell of high-quality affordable health care for everyo
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Hush your mouth, Rooster. We don't want them here. Let them move to goddamn Fresno.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Yeah. Let that sink in.
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Oh, you're welcome on my lawn, Rooster, just not those Silicon Valley knuckleheads. I'll even bring you a nice cold drink and a slab of whatever I'm grilling.
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So Fresno won't fix that.
But I agree with you about the rest.
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The world is small, thanks to communications and travel systems.
Do you mean telecommute? That will only last as long as your CEO has the balls to stand up to the local business roundtable and answer why he (she) isn't dragging all the employees back to the headquarters. Where they will spend their money on members' overpriced businesses.
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...since 1849 (Score:2)
The Bay Area (and California as a whole really) needs to wake up and take a cold, hard look at a number of things that will have a huge impact on their future. I'm in SoCal now, but many of the same issues are really going to come to a head here very shortly. I could live many other places with lower costs and avoid much of the stupid metropolitan planning debacle... and still have nice weather.
But, people have been bitching ever since they first got here, so take it all with a grain of salt. Money talks
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I practically work remotely already, although my commute is just a few miles on a bike.
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I live in Upstate NY. Back in its time, it was considered the Center of the Industrial Revolution, the Silicon Valley of its time. It rode the train for as long as it could, and did little to expand its economy so a hundred years later, they are rundown cities and towns, which show the reminiscence of its glory days, slowly decaying.
When we moved away from industry as our primary economic driver the Cities were full with people unable to adapt to the changing economy, The workers were trained to be facto
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That used to be my neck of the woods too. I'm really happy to have moved to a lovely, vibrant little midwest college town which is growing and has a lot of tech and biotech money flowing into it.
I love to visit upstate NY, but I don't see myself ever going back to live. Watching the place you live in grow is exciting and interesting. Watching it rust and fall apart is horrifically depressing.
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The problem is that the people with power, and the people harmed are DIFFERENT PEOPLE. The voters are the people that own property and want to see it climb in value even more as the housing market is squeezed. The people that want to live in SV, but can't afford to, don't get a vote.
Disclaimer: I bought a house in San Jose 25 years ago, and have benefitted big time from all the NIMBY building restrictions and wildly skewed property taxes, but I still think it is stupid policy.
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It's going to be popcorn time when the bubble bursts and the million dollar 2 bedroom broom closets start selling for under 100K.
There is a lot of talent elsewhere as well. (Score:4, Interesting)
You can go to some of the remote areas of the US. And be able to find talent which is just as good if not better then what you can find in SV.
It isn't like it was 40 years ago, where talent had to be localized to particular areas. People are interconnected and talent can be anywhere.
Why work in an expensive, high tax state... (Score:1)
...when you can work in a low tax, low cost state for some 75-90% of the salary?
"Gee, I can make the mortgage payment on a 3,000 square foot house in Austin for what it would cost me to rent a one bedroom apartment in Silicon Valley..."
Anti-growth policies keep more housing from being built, and extreme regulation drives companies away.
California is killing its own golden goose.
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Anti-growth policies keep more housing from being built, and extreme regulation drives companies away.
Google plans to build a new downtown San Jose campus [santacruzsentinel.com] for 20K employees. Apple is buying up land [siliconvalley.com] for a new campus in North San Jose. Adobe bought a lot [siliconvalley.com] across the street from their current San Jose headquarters to build a new tower. So much for "extreme regulation" driving away companies.
Re:Why work in an expensive, high tax state... (Score:4, Informative)
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Which are more reasons that the startups are leaving. Their best employees will just get sucked up by the big boys. And the demand will just drive up prices for the talent.
Pretty soon, it will be like Microsoft and the Seattle area. Where MS can afford to buy your business and/or hire your best employees. And then hide them in a basement, twiddling their thumbs. Just to keep the competition out of the market.
Why didn't this happen 10 years ago? (Score:3, Interesting)
15 years ago I had an ex-GF who's sister worked in the Bay Area. She worked as a project manager, and couldn't afford a house, and was still renting at 35 years old. It just boggled my mind why she stayed.
Flash forward 15 years and it's gotten worse. Plus add in the nutty narrow beliefs over there (They freaking banned selling fur for gods sake!), and I just don't understand why anyone would want to live there. Haven't ya'll heard there's a whole other country out here? Everything I've heard about Silicone Valley is utter shit.
Excellent (Score:2)
This will bring relief to their insane real estate market and reduce geographic income concentration. The only major reason to be in SV is for the venture capital anyway.
so what's new? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is old news. I've been hearing this story (and it's true about out-migration) my whole life. I remember when I first saw a big article about the "Hollowing Out of Silicon Valley" or something similar in the early/mid 1980s. The article was about how semiconductor and electronics manufacturing was the main employment driver in the San Jose area and the offshoring of manufacturing to Asia, coupled with high housing prices, was going to turn San Jose into Detroit by 1990. Didn't happen.
Interestingly, the article was mostly true. There aren't many (just a few) fabs left in Silicon Valley, and Silicon Valley has mostly turned into Software Valley (and swallowed up San Francisco). What the article didn't anticipate was the combined strength of an innovative culture and importing the best of the best in the world to contribute. I think the cliched term is "Creative Destruction".
Every since the early 1990s I think more Americans leave California than move here. However, at least in the town I grew up in, it was mostly low-skilled Americans moving out and high-skilled moving in (which has led to SERIOUS gentrification). This effect, coupled with a lot of high-skilled foreign immigration, had made my area more dynamic than I've ever seen it.
When I was a kid, we had no ethnic food beyond Mexican and Chinese in my town. Now we just opened a Burmese restaurant to go along with the 20 other cultural restaurants. I think that's a sign of progress.
My whole life (and I'm in my 40s) California was a "Liberal Cesspool of Business-Hating Over-Regulation, one step away from a spectacular collapse". And yet, here we are, doing better than ever.
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My whole life (and I'm in my 40s) California was a "Liberal Cesspool of Business-Hating Over-Regulation, one step away from a spectacular collapse". And yet, here we are, doing better than ever.
Exactly.
I grew up in the Bay Area. I left about 10 years ago for flyover country. I now live in a place that is constantly trying to woo tech companies with low taxes, cheap labor, cheap houses, etc.
I went back to the Bay Area last year for the first time in about 10 and the place is freaking booming. I was actually a bit blown away.
Every time they open s new office Park here on the so-called “silicon slopes”, local media and politicians gush about all he growth. These yocals have no idea.
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> Nope. Please note, crgrace doesn't even try to argue why SV is moving, ensuring he's just regurgitating what he's believed since he was younger. Unsurprisingly, he's both created the idea that SV tech migration myths existed since before the Gopher protocol was finalized and then concludes with his own red herring about how well SV is doing (which he claims to live in).
I'm not sure I fully understand your comment. I'll ignore the rude aspects and respond to your substantive points.
I have read multiple
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I grew up in the Bay Area. I left about 10 years ago for flyover country. I now live in a place that is constantly trying to woo tech companies with low taxes, cheap labor, cheap houses, etc.
I hear about these places a lot. I wonder how many of them actually acknowledge what I consider to be the two most important factors in keeping SV attractive:
- Critical mass of big *and* small employers ensuring that you have opportunity beyond the job that you originally moved there for.
- Lack of non-compete agreements ensuring mobility amongst said jobs.
(okay, there's also the bit about VC presence, which feeds into the first point)
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As far as I can tell they are banking primarily on low taxes, low wages and low cost of living.
The takers tend to be large corporations looking for cheap places to park their tech support staff and other lower profile depts. I have every expectation that once the tax breaks dry up they will pull up stakes and move to the latest “up and coming area” willing to throw free money at employers.
Start ups tend to be home grown. If they get traction they head for greener pastures where they can get the
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Interestingly, the article was mostly true. There aren't many (just a few) fabs left in Silicon Valley, and Silicon Valley has mostly turned into Software Valley
Sure, and in the 1980s the money shifted from hardware to software. So so did SV. It's different now. There's no "new thing" to shift to.
When I was a kid, we had no ethnic food beyond Mexican and Chinese in my town. Now we just opened a Burmese restaurant to go along with the 20 other cultural restaurants. I think that's a sign of progress.
That h
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My whole life (and I'm in my 40s) California was a "Liberal Cesspool of Business-Hating Over-Regulation, one step away from a spectacular collapse". And yet, here we are, doing better than ever.
Before I moved to Silicon Valley, I'd constantly hear variations on this from my (often conservative) friends. That, and the usual comments about it being way too expensive. Well, after moving here, I simply don't see how these complaints have actually led to any sort of collapse.
Tech jobs pay *way* more than anywhere else in the country, practically putting engineers on-par with what you'd need to be a doctor or lawyer to get elsewhere. There are also a lot more opportunities. Before I lived here, I felt l
Western ny mansion 500k (Score:1)
In western ny you can have a freaking mansion for 500k.
No wildfires, no earth quakes, plenty of water, beautiful area with depressed economy. Hidden little gem.
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I wonder why ? (Score:1)
Insane government, out of control cost of living, street conditions that are driving conventions and tourists away https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.... [cbslocal.com] https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/a... [vice.com]
Yeah, I think I'll look for someplace else with a pleasant climate and craft housing.
East Bay SF (Score:1)
I've a house in Concord, about 35 miles east of SF. I can scuba, surf, water ski, snow ski, hit a club in SF, San Jose, go to a farmers market or ranch. I work for company that has offices in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Illinois, Texas, Alaska, and Hawaii, as well as internationally in numerous countries. One thing I will say is I can go outside for lunch and grab a random stranger who is more qualified than many of the 'specialists' we hire to work in our remote sites. I spend about 4 months of the
TFA was embarrassing for the economist (Score:1)
This was a poorly researched fluff piece. Showing no reasons for folks leaving, and tossing in a few anecdotes, leaves the reader with more of a hypothesis than any facts. Sure, San Francisco is a sewer, sure land is insanely expensive, sure bay area isn't, IMO a great place to raise a family, but I don't see info other than a list of possible reasons, and then attempting to call correlation causality.
Fake news, indeed.
Move to Slab City (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Yep Yep Yep (Score:1)
Toxic culture obsessed with money? (Score:2)
Hell, if the "toxic culture obsessed with money" bothers you, you might as well look at emigrating from the country, not the Bay Area. Actually, you should probably find someplace off-planet from our own little slice if Ferringinar.
How many really do move? (Score:2)
46% of Bay Area residents said they planned to leave in "the next few years,"
I'd like to see some followup to see how many actually did leave. Moving is hard, staying is easy.
I've been "going to move out of the bay area in the next few years" for about 15 years. I finally did move out of the area earlier this year, but kept my house so I can move back if I want to.
Discover the much better parts of the USA (Score:2)
The streets are clean. No trash. No drugs. No waste on the streets.
Workers want to work.
No crime. Police enforce laws.
No tent cities.
No extra new taxes.
The company you work gets to pay less for power. The investors get more for their investment. Fast internet.
The workers enjoy more pay and the lower housing prices.
Governments allow that employee cafeterias..
Win. Win. Win for workers and investors.
Hardly surprising (Score:2)
It's about time! (Score:2)
The Bay Area has a reputation for being a great place for startups to find talented developers. Now that the frenzy of the dot-com boom is simmering down, companies are finding out that there are talented people everywhere. Often, in other parts of the country, those talented people can be hired for a lot less than in California because the cost of living is lower. For companies that want to create new software-based businesses deliberately instead of frantically, there are lots of great cities around the c
I live in one of the places they are going (Score:2)