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Comment by csense | Hacker News Reader

I've recently been doing a fair amount of traveling to tech-heavy cities from my base in the Rust Belt.

I see all the money and development going on in places like this, and it amazes me how growing and non-dysfunctional these economies are.

How do we get Google to move, say, 10% of those high-paying jobs to places whose economy really needs them?

Clearly money alone isn't a motivator, I just did a quick check and 3 times that amount of highway adjacent, commercial zoned acreage is available in my zip code for 1% of this price.

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> How do we get Google to move, say, 10% of those high-paying jobs to places whose economy really needs them?

Create the amenities and environment that would be enticing to a large % of affluent, highly skilled tech workers.

This is very much non-trivial, these workers actually can afford bay area/Seattle prices on some level, so just cost of living isn't gonna attract them if there aren't good educational opportunities, no good nature around, no other companies around with good jobs, a less tolerant/accepting culture, no public transportation or biking to speak of, etc.

Hacker News gets a lot of flippant comments suggesting this would be trivial for Google or Facebook or whoever to do, but it wouldn't be, at least not in a way that would actually make sense for their business. Businesses are fairly rational actors, you have to have such an expansion or move work in their interests.

I don't actually know many people who think that access to Bay Area amenities is the highest and best use of a tech salary. I and most people I know would deploy our cash in other ways (international travel, earlier retirement, expensive hobbies, etc). if we could do so while keeping our jobs. That opportunity just isn't on the table.

I've chatted with the few of the people involved in siting our remote engineering offices. They're solidly convinced that there's no point even trying to recruit in the US outside SF/NY/SEA, and are looking directly to the developing world. The satellite office strategy in the era of Trump is to the hire the H1Bs where they don't need visas.

International travel is actually one of the advantages of many of the high cost areas, including the bay area and NYC. One or more major airports with lots of international connections is a big advantage. There are a few cheap metros that have that too (mostly the bigger ones, of course), but not many.

> I don't actually know many people who think that access to Bay Area amenities is the highest and best use of a tech salary.

A lot of things are kind of hidden, they don't become an issue until they're gone. People may not think about the bay area weather or crime rate very much until they're pondering a move to Chicago or Detroit. They may not think about the bay area's cultural diversity or educational opportunities until they're considering moving to a small city in Nebraska. People take the things they already have for granted.

For example, I basically took for granted many American/west coast/bay area-n advantages before I moved to Munich and lost them: amazing restaurant scene (especially Asian/Mexican food), business hours are generally convenient, online selection of goods (especially Amazon) very strong, electronics relatively cheap, robust nerd culture, etc.

> That opportunity just isn't on the table.

At my previous company, it was very easy to move from SF to Seattle, which would save a high income tech employee a lot (no state tax, lower housing costs). Maybe a dozen have moved; the vast majority haven't. These "revealed preferences" say a lot more than what people are claiming.

Honestly, at high enough levels in top tech companies, money isn't that limiting of a factor. e.g. at Google L7 level, an employee supporting a family (say spouse and kid) could have FIREd into a low-COL area after ~5 years of work.

I too have an option to move to Seattle (and New York) that I haven’t taken. The COL differences don’t seem wide enough to be worthwhile.

I talked about this in another post. I'm sure there are many different types of tech worker. But right now (I'm in my twenties) when evaluating a job offer the location is super important. Sure buying power and rent price is a factor. But I'd gladly take a hit there and work in place like Berlin, Amsterdam, New York City, SF as opposed to somewhere less cosmopolitan. In terms of culture and life outside of work it's just that I vastly prefer to stay in such an area. That's a personal perspective.

From the companys' POV they have to consider who would move there (for the reason above and a myriad of others). Are there good schools in the area? How is the regulatory environment. How is the reaction to loads of immigration. There tend to be a lot H-1B workers in the tech sector.

It makes a lot of sense from a business perspective to set up shop in a place where a lot of perspective employees already live.

I get your question is how, the answer is that its not gonna happen

Bezos’ fake contest accurately reflects the coastal mentality. There is a culture that supports this industry which has history that wont be replicated by a random town that wants to call itself Silicon Apalachia/whatever geographic feature is nearby

> How do we get Google to move, say, 10% of those high-paying jobs to places whose economy really needs them?

You'd need to incentivize a critical mass of high-paid workers to be willing to move there. As you note, money won't do it -- you'd need to offer some sort of unique opportunity. Finding such a thing is a very hard problem..

You really do need a critical mass. I moved for my last job search and one option was for LinkedIn in Omaha. Compared to a tech hub, such a job is risky. I'm starting a family and would prefer they don't have to move more than necessary. Jobs don't always work out and living in a city with lots of tech jobs means I don't have to ever move again because of work if I don't want to. Then there's the added bonuses when a certain percentage of your community work in tech. Then the goals of your community align better with your goals for your kids, for entertainment, recreation, shopping, the environment, etc.

> How do we get Google to move, say, 10% of those high-paying jobs to places whose economy really needs them?

You don't.

If you want a future Google (etc.) to be located there, you make the same kind of massive public investments over an extended period that created Silicon Valley, which also provides jobs there — but not from a Google-equivalent — in the interim.

Or, you subsidize people moving to where the jobs are now: geography doesn't need jobs, people do.

Does your ZIP code have the kind of employees that Google needs to succeed?

Does his/her ZIP code have the kind of employers those employees need to succeed?

It's a chicken and egg problem. Personally, I put the onus on the companies, as they have much more power than any individual employee does. It is certainly possible for a company of that size to open a small office, and gradually grow it, whereas an employee is restricted to what jobs are available in that area.

And we need more diversification geographically; too much is centered on the Bay Area, and the Bay Area's housing crisis is proof of it.

The trouble I've personally seen is that the companies believe they can pay less in the lower cost of living areas, and therefore don't tend to attract the sort of talent that they need.

I can think of quite a few qualified people that'd be happy to move to a small town in the middle of nowhere, if they could work in a place like Google, get the same paycheck as their colleagues in California offices, but have a significantly lower cost of living. So I don't think that's really a problem - they would certainly have enough people to kickstart such a thing, and then it would just grow.

This.

It's truly amazing to me how much elitism is oozing in this thread from people who just keep repeating as though it is some well known fact that good people only want to live in big cities, hence suffering cities clearly are only suffering because there is something fundamentally, immutably undesirable about them.

People need to drop these elitist attitudes. A huge number of tech workers would love to leave SF, NYC, etc if only the damn jobs would let them.

If what you say is true, then surely it would be reflected in reality.

It could be, if only large companies would attempt to move to smaller cities, and show any interest in following through with that intention.

I’m saying it must not be to their economic benefit, otherwise it would have happened already.

The market is not perfectly rational. Sometimes companies do things that are against their economic interests due to irrational perceptions to the contrary.

It is reflected in reality. The vast majority of GitLab's exclusively remote workforce does not live in SF or NYC.

If more companies offered such terms, the labor pool would spread out more.

The question is would your highly paid workers (needed to lead the ship) move. I've seen in practice very few who would.. most that have moved because of desires to be near family, but that reason won't create a singular new hot spot for tech.

But that's not gonna happen. They will most likely not get the same paycheck as their colleagues on the coasts. Mostly because the cost of living is much lower.

Edit: In my experience I have more net money if I work in place with high cost of living and high comp compared to the opposite.

> But that's not gonna happen. They will most likely not get the same paycheck as their colleagues on the coasts. Mostly because the cost of living is much lower.

See, there's no logic to it once you unpack it. If the company is willing to pay $X for a given person in one location, they can obviously afford to pay $X to them in another location - they're not any worse for that, since they get the same productivity in return (quite possibly more, because less commute time == happier employees).

But yes, in practice, they will lower the pay - and then complain that they can't hire anyone in those locations...

Technically the truth. But they might not get the same productivity because the team you'd be joining would be in SF or wherever. If remote working were perfect and the norm then no problem.

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