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Comment by lsllc | Hacker News Reader

A little surprised to see Boston increasing rent activity, but I think Boston has been slowly losing its footing on the tech ladder in favor of Biotech (take a look around Kendall Sq). Can't really WFH in Biotech if you need lab space.

Probably started when DEC was consumed by Compaq ... even YC moved out (maybe it's the weather).

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I think the "lab space" requirement is going to drive a lot of the WFH-or-not office space planning among employers that don't fall into the "come in for no reason other than I said so" category.

In my case, I work in robotics. Somebody working on the perception stack software and going to the occasional zoom meeting has little reason to show up at the office beyond random hallway meetings and free micro-kitchen snacks. A machinist in the prototyping lab, on the other hand, needs to be in front of the giant, expensive CNC machine. For me personally, I have a mix of coding days and lab days, and WFH or go in according to the tasks of the day.

Clued-in companies are going to adjust their real-estate mix. I predict a drop in the fraction of commercial space that consists of carpeted offices.

>> I think the "lab space" requirement is going to drive a lot of the WFH-or-not office space planning among employers that don't fall into the "come in for no reason other than I said so" category.

I wonder if there will be a another push for those jobs to go to lower cost countries.

> I wonder if there will be a another push for those jobs to go to lower cost countries.

They are lower cost for a reason...

There may be a lot of cost savings in labor but there’s a huge risk in technology transfer & following lab protocols. In biotech lab culture and best practices are actually a tighter package than “low” skill factory work. So you get really variable outcomes when you unbundle the lab.

Some of those jobs are already in lower cost countries but some can't be outsourced because they rely on military contracts (can only be worked on by US employees).

I once worked on an offshore company that did staff augmentation for american robotics companies, we did mostly software because the hardware was illegal to export.

I agree. My role is software engineering, but in industrial healthcare automation - so I come in when I need to make stuff move in meatspace. Mostly a few days a week. We don’t really have standard offices though - it’s either a cube or in the lab 50/50 hoping the magic smoke doesn’t leak out because I coded that thing wrong…

(Sitting in Kendall Square right now). I'm not surprised, though we're saying the same thing. So. Much. Biotech.

This is why the WFH revolution didn't make me panic when I discovered how much it would end up costing to renovate a small house 1.5 miles from here. So much biotech, and for that you need to be in the lab at least some of the time. The MBTA's recent troubles ("global slow zone", anyone?) only make it "better", like I paid them off or something.

I'm sitting just up the street right now, and -- hoping to buy a walkable nice home in town someday -- wholeheartedly counsel the East Cambridge biotech people and the Kendall MSFT/GOOG/etc. outpost people to make a luxurious and convenient commuter rail ride, between work and BFE part of their daily lifestyle.

If the commuter rail ever electrifies and becomes regional rail, it might not be so bad.

The commuter rail as-is is too infrequent, too packed and too polluting with all those stops & a diesel train.

Overhead electrification on the commuter rail lines or even battery-electric trains would allow the T to run Green line style trams further out into the 'burbs out to I95 and let the commuter rail trains focus on the I495+ outer burbs/medium distance without having to stop frequently on the inner part.

Reusing the existing commuter rail lines with trams is much cheaper than building new T lines as they did with the Green line into Medford (and if you don't live in Medford, it doesn't help you!).

I don't know about biotech, but my brother works in a lab with lasers and he's still WFH 3-5 days/week. Experiments are done in the office, but planned and analyzed at home.

For the purpose of this conversation, there's no practical difference between "work from home only some of the time" and "never work from home". If you have to be in the office two days a week, that implies both the purposeful existence of an office and a need to live somewhere that's not a zillion miles away from that office.

There definitely is impact. Shops can't survive being only open 2/7 of the time. As in things like coffee shops, restaurants, etc and this cascades. Even malls are impact as people might buy random things at lunch or after work.

Coffee shops and lunch restaurants--the places people going to an office might frequent--sure. But other shops will still exist (or if they don't, it will be because of Amazon, not because of WFH). As for reduced foot traffic, that problem will solve itself if commercial rents plummet; look at the storefronts in any depressed town or dying mall and marvel at the weird, low-traffic uses that empty storefronts get put to when landlords get desperate ("Sure, you want to open a store for bouncy-ball enthusiasts that's only open on Mondays? Keep the pipes from freezing over and it's yours."). And if there are 2/7ths as many Starbucks, that'll still leave two Starbucks within eyeshot at any given moment.

> And if there are 2/7ths as many Starbucks, that'll still leave two Starbucks within eyeshot at any given moment.

It doesn't work. It'll go to 0. None can cover the costs.

> But other shops will still exist

You might be surprised the number of people that sneak out during work or during "breaks" and/or before/after work. Have seen people with all sorts of things from the shop in the office that isn't food.

> It doesn't work. It'll go to 0. None can cover the costs.

There will be plenty of places with sufficient population density to cover the costs of operating a coffeeshop (or whatever business).

> You might be surprised the number of people that sneak out during work or during "breaks" and/or before/after work.

Anyone who sneaks out of work-from-office to do some shopping can just as easily (more easily!) sneak out of work-from-home to do some shopping.

Those may not occur in the city center. It will be spread out, which is a lot different than say a few streets of shops or even a shopping mall.

Those that "sneak out" might not even leave near a shop. It could be a 30mins drive.

A lot of WFH-er have moved to lower cost of living areas. Your city centers (where a lot of offices are) will be a lot different.

Boston in general has always had the 128 loop containing a fair number of companies. Especially prior to the Big Dig, where congestion in and directly around the city was beyond heinous. DEC never really was in Boston, but QUITE a ways outside not just Boston, but over 10 miles outside the 128 loop as well.

Though the reality is Boston has a lot of industries. It's not just some computer tech and biotech, but the metro is still a top global education destination, still has a huge medical footprint, still has several massive financial institutions (notably Fidelity and State Street) and a decent banking footprint, as well as insurance. Boston has a lot of industry tentpoles, so it's very resilient to one industry going elsewhere, like when tech heavily shifted to the Valley long ago.

Though the MBTA's shortcomings in the past 5-7 years is starting to take its toll. I feel the T being taken over by the fed to right the ship a la DC is inevitable, and it's likely necessary for Boston and Cambridge to not significantly lose appeal. Though at least it's one of the most walkable metros (particularly Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline and Quincy) in the country.

Though almost all of the major MA computer industry was out in the suburbs and ex-urbs anyway. Lotus is the main exception I can think of.

Biotech and pharma is obviously huge around Kendall. The big software companies in Boston and Cambridge today are mostly offices of West Coast companies.

One reason building up Biotech and Pharma wholesale in the Kendall Square area was practical was a lot of that was underutilized warehouses and the like from Cambridge's industrial era so you could (and continue to) do massive new constructions for those types of companies (and MIT of course).

I wonder if biotech in the Bay Area can now expand into SF because of falling rents?

No. The building requirements for lab space make it infeasible to retrofit existing offices.

For instance, lab buildings typically require floor-to-floor heights of at least 15 feet in order to accommodate 5+ feet of mechanicals for every floor. They concomitantly require much larger utility risers between floors, and floors that can support much heavier loads than office buildings.

Why would it want to? The heart of biotech in the Bay Area is South SF. Genentech is there. And developers have built several millions of square feet of lab space in the last 5-10 years just West of 101. It's amazing to see 3-4 towers that have gone up in just a few years.

South SF is very business friendly, there is plenty of open land and it's nice to plant your company somewhere where there are dozens of other start-ups/small biotechs within a 10 min walk.

There is some biotech around USCF in Mission Bay (and some venture firms), but it's pretty small at this point.

That area is completely unwalkable. It’s all just offices and lab buildings. No shops. Only a couple of restaurants in the airport hotels nearby.

Public transport is not accessible. It’s really a world away from SF or anywhere interesting.

The South Bay is also unwalkable.

But it's still the center of tech in the Bay area.

If the choice is between "trendy restaurants" and "center of business universe", trendy restaurants ain't gonna win.

Because as their South SF presence grows, traffic will become unbearable. Without trains, you can't just increase job count indefinitely.

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