Comment by cperciva | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cperciva | Hacker News Reader

Figure out a way to reduce the not-in-San-Francisco penalty for startups.

There are some very good reasons why startups flock to the bay area, including "lots of available talent" and "that's where the VCs are", but there are also problems with being in the bay area -- talent is considerably more expensive (due in part to the cost of housing) and visa issues (particularly under the current presidency) being the first two which come to mind.

If you can find some way to give non-San-Francisco startups the same advantages that San Francisco startups have -- better tools for remote workers, for example, so that companies can easily hire from anywhere rather than needing to be where the largest number of potential employees are found; or something to make VCs interested in investing in companies which aren't within a narrow radius of Sand Hill (since I've never dealt with VCs, I have no idea what such a solution would look like) -- then you'll create a huge amount of value for companies around the world and it should be easy to transfer some of that value into your pockets.

I wonder if this is really solvable by technology and tools?

In my opinion, tools for effective remote working are there. Github, Slack style communication, collaborative project management tools, CI tools in cloud. Design tools could be more collaborative, but it ain't a showstopper. Video conferencing still sucks now and then, but 50 years after the Mother of All Demos, it starts to be usable enough :)

I feel that it is something else, culture issue, that still makes teams that are physically in the same location, to perform more effectively. Fixing work culture to support remote work better is likely the key instead of tech and tools.

And money will follow: when VCs believe that remote teams and remote networking are as effective, they will invest everywhere.

There's nothing quite like sitting next to someone to facilitate the rapid course-corrections that maximize the chances for early-stage startups to thrive. That said, places like New York are growing as hubs of talent where it's possible to assemble talented in-person teams. And niche investors who understand i.e. the advertising/media/fintech spaces can mitigate the lack of Silicon Valley VCs for companies focused there. Silicon Alley is very much a thing on 23rd Street!

That's exactly the opportunity for startups: to create something that is quite like sitting next to someone.

Holograms? Even a half-assed hologram, but with excellent voice would do the trick.

I wonder if this is really solvable by technology and tools?

I have no idea. The answer might turn out to be a social question of redefining the concept of a "job", for all I know. If the answer was obvious, I'm sure it wouldn't be an untapped opportunity. ;-)

Yep, video conferencing still very much sucks. For starters, we need a video chat app that enables eye contact. I think it would be a big deal.

You should take a look at https://catch-eye.com It's a plug-in on top of Skype that let's you make eye contact with the other person

Nice, thanks for the link, will definitely check this out.

If the cameras are above the screen, and the subject is far enough, the eye's angle doesn't matter much.

Why do you say that? It's quite easy to see that the person on the other end isn't making eye contact, even when they think they are, looking straight in your eyes. To me, it seems like they are looking at my tits or something. It matters quite a lot. Also, FPS and resolution.

There's a long, long way to go before video conferencing feels more like an actual face-to-face conversation, and it hasn't really changed much in the past 10 years.

I mean, the main complaint against remote work seems to be that there's still no substitute for an actual face-to-face conversation. That IS a tech problem that CAN be solved with tech. The current tech is woefully inadequate.

I say that because: depending on those factors (and some others like lense type, focus etc) the difference between the angle eye/screen and eye/camera is insignificant...

You just have to draw a schema to understand.

3 to 5 meters is a good distance for a video conference.

It's not insignificant. Humans are pretty good in determining whether someone is making eye contact or not. At 5 meters, we can easily detect a 10cm deviation in gaze direction [1].

Also, I'd like to be (or feel like I am) much closer than 5 meters when talking with someone.

[1] http://tachilab.org/content/files/publication/tp/imai200604P...

Interesting that you think it's insignificant. A lot of group photos are taken at 3 to 5 meters away and it's immediately obvious who's looking directly into the camera and who isn't...

> Fixing work culture to support remote work better is likely the key instead of tech and tools.

To take it even further, is work culture even broken? It seems to me like there's already quite a lot of remote work (at least in tech) for those who make it a top priority. I wonder if the fact that it isn't the default is because most people would rather not work that way? Aside from the obvious social benefit of face to face contact with your coworkers, I find the second order effects very valuable as well - the energy in the office helps keep my excitement about the projects we're working on so I enjoy my work more (and conversely the shared commiseration when the company hits a pitfall is nice too).

Plus the scalability of remote work is dependent on living somewhere where a lot fewer people want to live - if you live in, say, Manhattan and work remotely for an SF company, you're still taking up housing someone at a NY company could be living in. Some people value being near family or nature or something above all else, but generally (by definition) most people want to live where a lot of other people want to live.

So I wonder if the underlying solution is improving cities - something like the city project YC is running, or beating the NIMBYs in places like SF so the city can actually grow to support the startups it has and more, or maybe improving transit so people from further out can commute at least some of the time into cities, etc.

This argument always comes from an non coding managers. I personally think that managers are afraid of their jobs and hence insist to come to office.

:) It is true that many managers are afraid of remote working. Because to make it effective as a manager you have to know how to evaluate the tasks and subtasks and that requires also technical skills. However the modern manager has these skills, remote working is here and it will stay. I believe the ideal teams will have both type of workers.

Having worked with mostly remote Devs for the past 5 years as a designer I have some thoughts on this.

1) bandwidth in many parts of the world is still not nearly good enough for high quality video

2) need good inexpensive remote whiteboarding tech. The MS surface TV looks good but too expensive to fit in everyone's remote office

3) initiating remote video should (either for screen sharing or video chat) be immediate, like 3 secs max, zero friction, not something you have to schedule or spend minutes setting up - just like turning your chair to talk to someone sitting next to you in an office

Remote whiteboarding is definitely a pain.

There are a ton of online whiteboard apps, but it's hard to find a good one (know of any?).

Then there's the problem that drawing with a mouse is difficult. It's hard to quickly express ideas as boxes-and-lines without something like a drawing tablet. Wacom makes some low-end ones that are pretty affordable though (like this one[0] for ~$80). Maybe that'd be a good solution, though it does require some practice to get proficient.

[0] http://a.co/du45rQr

Figma is pretty good although for all types of design. It has real-time collaboration and perf is pretty good.

Whiteboarding specifically - don't know of any good ones. It should ideally be a collaborative multi user real time web app (websockets?), support drawing on top of uploaded images, have very large canvases you can zoom/pan, and run together with hangouts/Skype or have VoIP built in. Want to collab on building one? :)

I've used many Wacom tablets - even the cheap ones are good and pretty intuitive - no real learning curve after setup.

A related market for some of this tech: remote interviews. I've seen lots of solutions for this: collaborative code editors, hangouts, Skype etc. There are frequently problems with bandwidth and friction with coordination (handoff to other interviewers).

Solution to "frictionless" remote work / collaboration among teams (not just engineers) seems similar to interview problem. The target market may also be distinct (teams don't remote work, but remote interviews are common).

moocs might benefit too?

Part of the San Francisco premium seems to be the concentration of M&A dollars from local incumbents who constantly acquire more local talent. I'm an investor in half a dozen startups that would have already been acquired if they were in the Bay Area, but instead struggle to build viable standalone businesses since they are located elsewhere. Perhaps this is part of the reason YC focuses most of its time, money, and effort on local teams. Besides the concentration of resources for those fortunate few who become rocketships, the downside protection on the rest of the portfolio seems much better (in human, not just dollar terms).

In a similar vein as dirtyaura's comment, it's not a technology or tools problem. It's a people and relationships problem.

Successful businesses are built on the backs of relationships. Your product is important, your tech is somewhat important, but THE most important part of a building what many would call a "successful" business is the relationships you create.

It doesn't matter what you're trying to achieve -- convince people to buy your product, convince people to work for your company, convince VCs to give you money, convince Google to buy you -- all of these things may begin on the premise of merit, price, features, value, but they end up based on the relationships built between the people involved.

Deals are closed over drinks. People work for people they enjoy spending time with. VCs invest money in people they trust. Yes, all things in life have exceptions, but the longer you stay in business, the more you realize that businesses are run by people -- they are not opaque fact-driven entities -- and people are social creatures. The actual reason that people in San Francisco still cling to an age-old culture of doing business together in person instead of over Slack is because humans enjoy spending physical time around other humans. Maybe it's communication bandwidth, maybe it's something else, but until VR replaces physical intimacy, there is no perfect substitute.

If you want to succeed outside of San Francisco, begin building the relationships you need to do so. People can claim that Slack, Hangouts, and the phone match the effectiveness of physical presence, but try switching to a permanent long-distance relationship with your significant other. Good luck.

>then you'll create a huge amount of value for companies around the world and it should be easy to transfer some of that value into your pockets.

Corollary: It's probably time for a much wider adoption of bitcoin in tech. To transfer that value from halfway around the world to personal pockets capitalism style, we need crypto to become a primitive member of apps, markets and tech deals, and no longer a big deal.

I'll stick with an in person Paul Graham meeting any day over Go To Meeting or Hololens.

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