Hacker News Reader

Comment by pottersbasilisk | Hacker News Reader

I hope not. The pay of developers is horrible compared to silicon valley.

The cost of living is also a fraction of the one in silicon valley. I stayed in Silicon Valley for a few months and compared to Munich, the quality of living is complete horse shit, to be honest.

And Munich is the most expensive city in Germany.

What part of Silicon Valley? I am curious where the quality of living is horseshit.

No I wouldn't call it horseshit. What I said was, that compared to Munich, it's horseshit. But that's totally just an opinion. I lived in Mountain View.

Eh, I love it in Mountain View, but it isn't for everyone. I run a lot with friends, and there are a lot of great areas to run nearby (and in the Bay Area in general).

Everywhere? Once you get used to functioning public services (transit especially), density of services (groceries, cafes), and a decent return on your tax dollars for things like retirement savings and health care, even the Bay starts to pale.

That's not to say that all parts of Europe are better to live in than all parts of the US; but rich, central urban areas of the kind that techies can afford to live in are fantastic in Western Europe.

Public transit is crappy, but it's the US for you - outside of large cities, everybody's driving. I suppose in rural Europe the situation is the same, but there's not much to do in rural Europe if you're working in high tech. OTOH, San Jose - The Capital of Silicon Valley as it calls itself - is quite rural despite its large population, especially compared to cities like Munich. Thus crappy public transport.

Once you get past that - i.e. accept that you'd have to drive - the density of services is fine, they are pretty much same distance (measured in time) you'd find them in the city, except that you're driving there.

As for return on your tax dollars, can't compare to Europe due to lack of information. Healthcare is fine, retirement savings don't have much to do with tax dollars anyway.

European state pensions (the equivalent of social security in the US - also covers unemployment and (like SS) disability insurance) are much more generous than their US equivalents. The amount of your income that needs to go into private retirement savings erodes the value of higher US salaries.

How much more generous, compared to taxes paid?

But Sillicon Valley has higher vegan food for dogs density.

Yes in Munich it's hard to get good vegan food, but in Berlin it's as easy. I don't agree on dogs however. There are a ton of those in Germany.

and every supermarket has vegan food now.

runn1ng was being tongue-in-cheek and talking about vegan dogfood.

Oh shit that went right past my head lol.

Well first time I saw it was in SV, and couldn't believe that at first. But it apparently exists.

I bet you don't mean at central locations, because 10-20 miles further to your workplace, as most of Londoners or Berliners can afford to live, you have affordable housing in SV as well.

That's an interesting aspect I didn't consider.

Another issue though is traffic during rush hour in Silicon Valley. I can see myself traveling 20 miles in/around Munich in half an hour, while in Silicon Valley, that would probably take me 1.5 hours, because of the pretty much non existent public transportation.

London is not much better. E.g. from Hammersmith (a posh, well connected area) to Old Street (aka “Tech City”), this 14km journey is 46 mins from underground station to underground station, both are north to the river. https://tfl.gov.uk/plan-a-journey/results?IsAsync=true&JpTyp... Sure, you can move around to carve down 10 mins, but then you give up to live in realitvely nice, convenient area populated middle class people and yet not as expensive as Chelsea or Chiswick. If you live further, your journey time from station to station is not much longer, but only if you are lucky and there is no delay in the service, which happens almost daily.

Berlin isn't anywhere near as expensive as you seem to think. Housing costs seems to be at around half of London's level.

https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/london

https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/berlin

1000 to 1250 EUR for a 900 Sqft apartment.

Can you please elaborate ?

SV seems like the place to be, but I lived in a cheap french city for the past 5 years, and I'm sure living in SV has its downsides in terms of quality of life. Bonus: please include numbers :).

I wonder: Would this argument still be true if you counted in the cost of living (which varies massively across Europe and also within countries and even cities). Europe is not only Paris and Berlin, in Germany actually the economic powerhorses often are based in the countryside (or close to larger cities) and cost of living is very okay.

They probably don't pay 1.5k/month to live in a RV.

Is that scaled to cost of living?

No, not by a long shot.

This. I moved from SF to Berlin accepting a 40% paycut. My standard of living in Germany was probably 2.5x compared to California.

However, I decided to go back to San Francisco. There is definitely much more interesting work in Silicon Valley, at least in my field. This may change over time but I am not holding my breath.

Makes you reconsider what quality of living really means.

Different people have different priorities. EU may be a better fit for some, while SV is for others.

Here's the thing with pay scaled to cost of living, it means things like pension contributions, ability to save, any property you purchase, are also scaled. There's a reason so many people flock to expensive cities early in their careers.

Very early stage startups might be able to move around Europe for a short period for cheap rents, you're going to be much less able to recruit staff (i.e. non-founders) to move from the West to Slovakia (as mentioned) to work for Slovakian wages.

Staff should be compensate based on the value of they provide rather than their living standard needs.

So, based on having -1 points on my comment, I can summarise your thoughts: employee compensation should be based on the living standard they needs, rather than the value they create. In sarcastic way: to max out your next a payrise, move to the most expensive city and buy a Pagani. That's an odd thought.

Maybe pay in startups is not good, but if you need a kick of money, go contracting in big business and get wealthy... there is more than startups to tech.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com