Tech companies in San Francisco | Hacker News Reader

Tech companies in San Francisco

employbl.com

129 pointsconnor1152857 comments

I think we've reached the point where we need to adjust our concept of what constitutes a tech company. Many of these companies do develop their own technology but it's only a means for improved delivery of their primary product or service, rather than being the product or service itself.

The default definition of a tech company lingering in peoples' minds seems to be any company using in-house software to conduct their business, but that describes most of Wall Street, the entire automotive industry, and so on. Why not be more specific?

Lyft, for example, is a transportation company - providing software and/or hardware is not a primary revenue stream. Similarly, Opendoor is in the real estate business, DoorDash is in the food delivery business, etc.

Hey @longerthoughts,

I pretty much define tech company as companies that hire people that sit in front of a computer all day. I define more subsets of how to identify companies through the tag feature. For instance Lyft has a Transportation tag as well as a tag for San Francisco, cause that's where there office is

https://employbl.com/companies/lyft

I personally believe your definition is somewhat flawed. Computers are ubiquitous; my dentist's receptionist sits in front of a computer all day, using it to manage appointments and electronic communication. Does that make my dentist's office a tech company?

This is only showing companies that are HQ in SF, doesn't show satellite offices, which there are many of them.

Yeah they have Mozilla but not Google which occupies the other 99% of the same building. Amazon also has significant headcount in SF.

Adding Google. I somehow omitted that company even though I walk by Google's SF office all the time. It's on the site now!

https://employbl.com/companies/google

I'm not sure that's true. It is showing Spotify which is not HQd in SF.

It shows some satellite offices but the list is FOR SURE incomplete

> Patagonia is a designer of outdoor clothing and gear for the silent sports: climbing, surfing, skiing and snowboarding, fly fishing, and trail running.

Patagonia is a tech company? Is every company with a web presence considered a tech company now?

Yeah they sell via eCommerce. Patagonia is hella cool and really they're a non-profit. Read their book about going surfing

I pretty much define tech companies as companies that hire people that sit in front of computers. You can view all their IT and tech jobs here: https://www.patagonia.com/careers/

Cool concept, but its a listing with a map....so you can choose a job that you can commute you a little faster

What's the story here? Is anyone who worked on this, able to jump into the comments and give us what's the reason behind building a list of companies hiring this way?

No idea who made it, though funny enough a group I participate in is making a map to try to show people how much nicer their commutes would be if our city built the bike network they've supposedly planned. Maybe this is a start for something similar? Would be curious what people find useful (bart and muni stops would be handy, for one)

I hope it doesn't fall in to self promo, especially since we're not even a business, but if you're in Dublin the idea is at http://www.gaffologist.com/cycling_works/

Their sign-up forms say they want to 'democratize hiring', whatever that means.

haha, right?

Yeah I know I kinda cringe when I wrote that, won't even lie. The idea is to have employers pay $110/month to use the platform. $10 of that would go to https://scripted.org/ which I volunteer with twice a week. It's relevant because the org teaches comp sci in under resourced high schools in the bay area and NYC. (P.S. we need volunteers). The rest is a hella low subscription fee for companies so candidates can have actual companies reach out instead of random as recruiters from India when you upload your resume to Dice.com

You have more questions? Send me email: connor@employbl.com

I'm on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connorleech/

Hey for sure, Connor here, builder of employbl

I worked as a recruiter for a year and a half and now work as a software engineer. Finding jobs in the geographic reason was a challenge. The plan for the site is to have lots of candidates sign up and then have employers pay a flat monthly fee to see and browse all candidates, perhaps with some privacy settings for candidates so their phones don't blow up.

Would be happy to chat more my email is connor@employbl.com

This looks just like my map where I live, I littered with google starred icons everywhere with things like software companies, design agencies, makerspaces, collaborative work environment areas, gyms, event centers, nonprofits, etc

Yup, well you live in the city so happy that at least we reflect reality. If you have suggestions about how to get more value out of the website please email connor@employbl.com

You could add colored flags to differentiate markers. One color for tech companies another for marketing agencies startups etc. Use three.js or d3.js visualization

I wonder if this site is published using: https://github.com/simonw/datasette

It is not. I have not seen that before but it looks cool. The site is built using Laravel 5.5, Vue.js and an Airtable spreadsheet.

This is YC company ! I am probably missing something here but not sure what to make of this. It seems like a map and a list of companies in SF. No description or about page.

Employbl is not YC. I am going through starup school though because YC accidentally let all 15,00 applicants into the program this year.

There's no about page cause isn't too much to say yet. I do blog a shit ton on Medium though: https://medium.com/employbl

I like that you can suggest new ones. This was missing both my companies so nice to be able to fix it.

I see one tech startup that changed addresses about 6 months ago. Is there a correction button?

Hey for sure shit changes pretty fast. For instance Prosperworks changed it's name. Please send me an email: connor@employbl.com and I'll fix it!

apparently there is only one mobile app startup in SF and lots of developers developing developer tools

hahahaha so many companies doing tools for developers to build. Yeah the tagging could be better....

any plans to do austin and new york or should I do that?

DUDE. I'd be so down but as you can already see there is so much going on here in SF. It takes a lot of manual work to grab the company addresses. If you'd like to work together and collaborate on adding companies I'm totally down. Best email to reach me on is connor@employbl.com

I like seeing all the 1-sentence descriptions on a long list!

Also, since when is Macy's a tech company...?

They have a large e-commerce operation.

Yep, I talked to someone years ago who was working in an non-climate-controlled space in the attic above their Union Square store. Hopefully they have a better office now.

But really posting because their name seem to break this site. This looks like a ye olde classic security hole. https://employbl.com/companies/Macy's

65 and foggy every day isn't climate-controlled enough?

Pretty much since the internet. I define tech companies as companies that hire people that sit in front of a computer all day

Nice and simple, I like it

No Cruise Automation?

Good catch. That was an oversight on my part.

https://employbl.com/companies/Cruise-Automation

missing postmates, which is an sf company since inception

How is Postmates a tech company vs a delivery service that happens to use an app? I fully recognize that there are a lot of other companies on this list that should be excluded on that basis, which I've noted elsewhere in the comments.

Thanks for the catch! Added: https://employbl.com/companies/Postmates

What is this?

don't worry bout it bru

Cool site but did someone forget to design mobile first? It looks like shit on my phone, can't read company descriptions

Sorry the developer wasnt thinking of you

…and all the other people who use phones?

Thinking about your users is kind of your job as a developer / entrepreneur...

You might not be there target user. You can't please every user and some sites want to add features that look great / add value when viewed on a larger monitors.

Mobile first sites make the desktop experience bland and simplier than they need to be.

It is still the best solution to the variable screensizes reality but it does make the web a little blander then need be.

You don't have to choose one or the other, you can have a simpler (but usable) interface for mobile and a more feature-ful version for desktop. This isn't rocket surgery.

You are referring to functionality my comment was more related to look / feel.

If you go with a popular framework with the mobile first approach you must design with those limitations on your full desktop site as well. If you go with Bootstrap and use the grid layout both layouts will use grid.

I know this might be shocking but you can make a website without a framework. In fact, it probably would have worked out better for this site as it has such a simple design. HTML plus a handful of custom CSS rules would have sufficed and it wouldn't lock you into any "limitations". This is not a hard problem, not even close.

It at least works enough to show the embedded Google Map, which hints at why it wasn't optimized for mobile. It's difficult to make a complex Google Maps API app work well on a phone.

It looks like it could be made usable on a phone with little work.

Yeah my bad. Some more work required to make this legit on smart phones

Thanks for the heads up. Not something I can do right now but on the short term road map homie.

Any more questions send me a mail @ connor@employbl.com or twotter @employbl_jobs

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