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Comment by pfarnsworth | Hacker News Reader

The real solution is for companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, etc to have the COURAGE to create large work epicenters outside of the Bay Area. Create headquarters for tens of thousands of workers in more remote areas with a strong infrastructure, with great benefits for working families. Do what Amazon wants to do with a second HQ, and create demand outside of the Bay Area.

If Google created a new HQ in Kansas City, with it's fiber links, and low cost of living, and added really great benefits like free day care, etc, then won't software engineers move there, especially those that are ready to start a family? I bet you they would. I definitely would. Then it would create a new ecosystem of economic prosperity there, and then it would take a lot of pressure off the Bay Area.

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IMO a better (or at least positive) solution would be for these huge bay area companies - especially those on the peninsula - to spread out there offices along the south peninsula and into south bay. We should be adding commercial into these residential areas so that everyone (in tech) is not traveling to the same region from all over the south bay or SF. Live where you work! This IMO would alleviate the traffic exodus that occurs in basically 2 directions every day. Put more companies in Los Gatos, Saratoga, Campbell, San Jose downtown (especially since it is fed by light rail). Stop putting offices in these "office/commercial zones" where there is NO public transportation. Why does everyone need to be in one small section of the bay area?

Optionally if we are committed to this current "everything must be in one region" mentality lets get together as communities (Mtn View, San jose, campbell, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, etc) and get the rail built now. One of the biggest stressors in this area (outside housing costs) is the traffic and aged infrastructure. Frankly its easily solved - if this supposed "progressive" area would do what needs to be done. Yes it would cost, but it would make daily life so much better for everyone.

Yes, I know its more complex than this (one issue is NIMBYs and those that bought in early to housing and need/want it to go up), but how can our children live in this area and make it home in its current state? Humans seem very short sighted.

(sorry for the overuse of quotes and my possibly incoherent rant :) )

> If Google created a new HQ in Kansas City, with it's fiber links, and low cost of living, and added really great benefits like free day care, etc, then won't software engineers move there, especially those that are ready to start a family? I bet you they would. I definitely would.

Maybe some, but I'd be really surprised if you get substantial numbers of your top people to move - which effectively blocks the overall team moving.

A Google Staff engineer makes $400k+. On such a salary, the high cost of living in the Bay Area really isn't a problem; sure in Kansas you could afford a mansion on that salary, but a lot of folks (myself included) prefer "paying" for the Bay Area's weather, scenery, and culture over larger living.

Aren't there attractive places in California where tech companies could set up offices to accommodate those who want to leave the valley, while still making sure everyone is still just a few hours drive away if they should be required in a meeting at main HQ?

Attractive enough to pull the top talent? No

The underlying problem here is the same problem you have with remote work - it's vastly harder to get complex tasks done when people are remote. For all sorts of reasons (including project expediency), you ideally want the front-line programmers in the same office as the technical leaders.

So how do you think most open source software development, for example, happens? Or does that not qualify as a complex task? Because a huge amount of open source development happens through distributed individuals and groups many of which don't even work for the same company.

Tbf, Open source is as complex but it would be VERY hard in most open source OSS to coordinate things that must happen quickly. Email a maintainer or submit a pull request? Might be merged tomorrow. Or next week. When he gets around to it. That model just doesn't work in business.

Although I'll note that many businesses use/incorporate/sell software based on open source projects. The trick here is that you have expertise in and connections with the community so you're not just emailing a maintainer.

Quite a lot of open source development is much less distributed as you think.

Well, some projects are small and some are pretty concentrated in a specific co-located company team. But I'm aware of many that are pretty spread out geographically either because a company is distributed, there are contributors from many different organizations, or a combination of the two.

I meant, as an option to people already in the valley. There must be tons of talent that join these companies when they don't have kids, and would like to work some place where they have more space, more nature etc, when they get older and have kids.

I mean I moved out of a city to a distance of about an hour. I have the benefit of being able to work from home so I don't have to go to the office, but I'd very much appreciate if the company set up a satellite office closer to where I'm at. The alternative to having to work full time in the city isn't really an option. Either I work from home, or somewhere close. And these tech cos right now have to be losing people to rural companies, if they don't allow them to work from home and don't set up alternatives to SV offices.

One standard "alternative" to the Bay Area these days to be Seattle, which also is a culturally interesting metropolis.

There's always huge cost in fragmentation with adding an additional office; I'd imagine far more people would rather move to Seattle than a rural area.

None of them are cheap...just cheaper

At some point though, if Bay area housing prices continue to rise because of all the people who must must must live there, the Googles and Apples of the world aren't going to keep raising salary levels accordingly. And startups/smaller companies (to say nothing of many non-tech jobs) certainly won't/can't. Something's got to give and even if housing supply increases somewhat (as it's slowly doing) there's inevitably going to be some equilibrium where enough potential employees and employers go enough is enough and move elsewhere.

After all, there are plenty of successful, non-startup companies that are quite distributed.

In its heyday HP did this. Look at places like Roseville and Fort Collins. Essentially company towns. And while the going is good, and the quarterly numbers keep going up, everything is great.

But eventually the bad times come, and the employees living in these places are cast off like so many worn shoes, along with their families.

I've seen this. I'm never moving out of the SF Bay Area until well after retirement (and maybe not even then :-). Going to a Kansas City HQ is a gamble that whatever company will always do well. Do you want to gamble your future on that ? Do you want to gamble your family on that ?

Risk vs return. That's okay that you prefer the Bay Area. I would have no problems if I knew that Google were committing to a permanent HQ in Kansas City. If they close down, they close down. I have no control over that, but I do have control over saving money and still maintaining a high quality of life because I'm not obsessing over property prices, private school for my kids because the public schools are so terrible, etc.

You don't think Google moving to KC would have a huge effect on property prices?

Not to mention, if they close down, you'll likely have a harder time finding another job than you would somewhere with a lot of tech places.

I think the hope of such a move (ditto Amazon building HQ2 somewhere outside of the usual SF/ATX/NYC tech hubs) is that if one giant did it, other companies would follow, tech workers who leave the giant go and build startups, wealth and talent attract VCs, etc. The hub self-reinforces itself, much like how SF and Seattle have done it. It would be a very interesting economic experiment to see if a cycle can be created in new areas.

The tradeoff is that if you make anything resembling Bay Area wages in Kansas City, you can pay off a lovely older house in a walkable neighborhood in two years or so.

The first wave might. However, I'm guessing housing prices would adjust.

Depends on the geography of the region. Probably easier to expand and densify the KC metro area vs. the Bay Area or SeaTac.

A midsized city, when willing to sprawl, build upward, or both, will have housing prices that max out around the cost of construction. Have you ever looked at real estate listings in Houston?

Plus the supply of cheap walkable neighborhoods in the Midwest is very high.

Amazon seems intent on attempting this. It's incredibly doubtful that they'll build HQ2 in the Bay Area (though the backlash from such a decision would be incredibly hilarious).

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