Hacker News Reader

Comment by janalsncm | Hacker News Reader

Had a recruiter call with Twitter a few months ago. Mandatory in office 5 days per week. Among other things, an hour commute both ways to work was not acceptable.

Maybe they will have better luck in Santa Clara.

I don’t buy any of the flamebait reasons for leaving SF. Reason 1 is money and reason 2 is talent pool.

View on HN

I’ve had several meetings, either in Twitter office or around it, and the street scene is very bad in that part of SF. If the claim is that this is a motivation for the move, it certainly passes the sniff test for me.

So you've been able to gauge life and the street scene in SF based on several meetings? That's super interesting. I would argue the Embarcadero is fairly nice and I live here, but what do I know.

I visited Fisherman’s Wharf last year after dark and it was pretty poorly lit and not that clean. Maybe for a company where employees are expected be “extremely hardcore” (i.e. long hours) that is a consideration.

(Although if you’re truly hardcore you don’t care what the street looks like, you sleep under your desk.)

This is disingenuous. Twitter is located in Civic Center, which is a different neighborhood. From the ferry building at the Embarcadero to Twitter HQ is about 1.8 miles away, or 3 BART stops.

Given the density of SF and how quickly spaces can change you cannot realistically compare the two.

Only visited for a few days for a conference, but I think if you live there you may have become desensitized to the situation. It's really really not normal to have all the stores boarded up and security guards at the entrance. It's really not normal to be outnumbered by fent addicts nodding off on the street. The worst vibes of any city i've ever been to in my life (Including many people would describe as shitholes). This is so messed up to everyone who hasn't been beaten into acceptance of it

I don't know what you know, but one thing you apparently don't know is that Twitter HQ is nowhere near the Embarcadero.

My wife and I have lived in SF for over a decade and I go to the Fitness SF next door to this building at least twice a week these days. We can all play this game where we try to pretend that this area is really nice to people not from here.

But what that guy said was "the street scene is very bad in that part of SF." and he's dead right.

I love this city, but misleading people on the Internet is not right. Tell them the truth. I've lived here as long as I have because I think the benefits outweigh the pains. But not because there are no pains.

I am nobody important living in rural middle of nowhere, but visited SF twice for work, and it was the most horrific city I have ever been to. I am a big man and didn't feel very safe.

About 20 years ago I was visiting SF for work and, in a moment of weakness, let someone else book me a hotel - they booked me into a rather rough hotel on Geary. When I got into a taxi at the airport the driver said "Do you really want to go there?".

lol

SF has had some cleaner parts - including north parts of Embarcadero, Presidio, etc. but the center and Market St. areas can be pretty scary to a person who's not used to it. As a large ugly dude, I didn't really feel _that_ threatened there, even if a bit uneasy, but I can only imagine how, for example, a woman would feel navigating it, especially at later hours...

Statistically speaking, women are almost never physically attacked by strangers, it is almost always someone they know.

Men are attacked by strangers at a much much higher rate than women are.

I would also say woman fear strangers much more than somebody they know.

Maybe what’s the reason they can avoid getting physically attacked by strangers better than men.

I'm not sure what your point is to be honest, are you saying women are safe in that area at that time of night because of global statistics?

"I didn't feel that threatened, but I can only imagine how X group would feel" doesn't make much sense if X group is actually at a lower risk.

I don't know if they're right at all, but the point seems pretty clear. And they're not saying anyone is safe.

That’s fair, I never visited the office. But if that was the only issue maybe they’d consider a different part of SF, which would be easier for current employees.

... a literal sniff test? from what I hear (not having been there in more than a few years), it's become quite a problem.

I rode by their office in SF daily in 2015-2018 and even back then it was pretty rough. I've heard things have gotten only more difficult since.

I interviewed there around then, I remeber getting off at civic center bart station on my way in wondering to my self if I really want to do this commute everyday and what kind if effect it would have on me. Then I got the offer and was like, I'll figure it out hah. Sketchy mornings watching all the drug dealing happening hoping I wouldn't accidently look at the wrong person the wrong way or something.

Isn't van ness station closer to Twitter?

If he was going via BART, Van Ness doesn’t have a BART station. If he was going via MUNI, technically yes but not by a lot.

Oh wow, my bad. I thought there was a BART station down there. (I used to be a regular muni rider, not a regular bart rider).

It is an easy mistake to make because Van Ness is a strange station to have been built. It’s past the point where the BART tracks turn towards Mission and is close enough to Civic Center to seem redundant; but I guess a ton of civic buildings are directly on Van Ness and it is a major North-South transit corridor.

The Van Ness station is not particularly pleasant either. Come out of the subway and see this: https://x.com/sfdsrvsbttr/status/1809986173844279305?s=46

It gets much much worse than that at night (even as early as 7pm) so it would be pretty valid to not want to be in that area and have to leave the office and take public transportation. I wouldn't want my spouse or child to have to walk through that den of hell at night... it's extremely sketchy. Check this out for example: https://www.instagram.com/p/C-RuONoqOeP/?utm_source=ig_web_c...

Maybe, I used to live closer to a Bart station and it was faster so I always took that down town if I could.

I used live in the Tenderloin and work in the Twitter building. My walk to work required me to be mindful of both stationary and recently minted poop in transit. This was in 2019.

I used to live in the Tenderloin in late 90's early 00's. Nice affordable studio on Turk. There was always a diverse party going on during the day on the streets. Definitely had an old fashion skid-row vibe. Market street wasn't too bad then. Ah the memories.

It's exponentially worse now with fentanyl and meth plus now there are now social repercussions or consequences and you can steal to fund your habit with no consequences. It's a sick sad society that would allow this and not see it as an injustice to man. To not intervene is bad enough, but SF actively enables this crap by giving out cash (adult assistance program) and needles (without requiring them to turn in dirty needles). But the voters get what they vote for.. so I guess they want this. This is what it looks like now on 6th/7th and Market: https://www.instagram.com/p/C-RuONoqOeP/?utm_source=ig_web_c... it's always been bad, but this is insane. I took BART to Civic Center for concerts and bars many many nights and it was never like this until the pandemic. I blame all city leaders, voters, and SFPD for allowing this to continue unabated.

That was also true in mission bay, is true in Lakeshore, and I assume other neighborhoods too.

It shouldn’t be like that, but those are the priorities we (as society and electorate) decided on.

That is a quite ironic statement considering that Twitter has been an integral part of modern social engineering to reprogram people into accepting and tolerating the intolerable and unacceptable.

So here we are, at a point where people not only self-censor, they will even get violently aggressive or simply will suppress speech or even the ability to read or hear what someone has said if it diverges from the cult rules that have been imposed on our whole civilization.

Have you touched grass recently? I wholeheartedly recommend it.

I'd far prefer to live in the tenderloin than south bay. People make it out to be far scarier than it is.

I’d be willing to be good money you couldn’t take the bus out of the old X headquarters at 11pm for a month straight and not get robbed at least once. I got robbed twice in the 3 months I worked in the TL.

Why do the citizens of SF like living in such squalor?

The obvious answer is they don't, and it is a tough problem to fix

The way I see it, the main way in which the citizens of SF can fix it is by voting for something different, but they don't. So it certainly does seem like they find the status quo preferable to alternatives.

Before you jump to that conclusion you have to be sure that: - such politician exist (politician is not where we humans shine) - you believe the ones who claim they will fix it - the one that you believe can fix it don’t come with values that you cannot accept (extreme example: “I’ll kill all homeless people. vote me!”

Given there are/were cities that are not in such decline and such a state, including SF itself, it definitely seems like there are politicians that can fix it.

The values conflict may be relevant. If, for example, you think it's critical to allow and facilitate your fellow man to become total enslavement to drugs that destroy their lives and health and eventually kill them, then I can get that you won't want to do anything to stop it, even if you have to live in squalor for that to be the case.

They might be wrong, but that doesnt mean they like living in squalor.

Even if your solution is 100% workable, your statement is like saying a man must really like drowning because they dont know how to swim.

I guess I dont think it isn't very constructive.

Not really. People have just deluded themselves into thinking that the current situation is somehow more humane than mandatory rehab and institutionalization.

Homeless industrial complex. First you cause the crisis then you profit off of the solutions that claim to fix it (but never fix it).

https://yandex.com/search/touch/?text=san+francisco+homeless...

But the citizens of SF can just stop electing local governments that fund this, yet they don't. I can certainly see how they contributed to causing the crisis (i.e. by electing people who caused it), but I don't see how they profit from it, unless the people in SF likes such conditions, which seems pretty weird, at least to me.

>the people in SF likes such conditions

The people in SF like their million dollar shoeboxes to appreciate in value, with zero regard for the externalities that scheme creates[1].

1. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/...

Exactly. The residents could vote to build more shelters or do something/anything realistic to solve the homeless issue (other than just giving them money/tents/needles), but if they build more homes then that increases the supply of homes which residents are fundamentally against. They don't want any new housing to ever be approved for any levels/neighborhoods because by restricting supply it pushes prices up.

Blame the homeless and people trying to help them, take the blame off the real problem: few available homes with high prices[1].

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10574586/#:~:te....

Have you been to Twitter's SF site? It is a weird place, between super sketchy and plainly empty, what is missing is the peace of mind, definitely a valid reason to leave. It has all the downsides from being in the downtown, while none of the perks remain in today's SF.

Talent pool isn't a real issue for Twitter now, under Elon, I don't think they truly prioritize Twitter over any of his other companies, the mission is to keep Twitter's lights on, that is it, the website/app had basically stayed the same after he took over, what talents do they really need, I don't buy it.

I think it’s inaccurate to say that they don’t need talent to keep the lights on at Twitter. Maybe not a lot of new architectural development is happening, but you definitely need a lot of ops people that know what they’re doing to keep the lights on there.

Elon had outsourced majority of Ops work, there are about 20% of employees left in the Bay last I checked from news.

If you use Twitter you would know it has been far from the same.

It appears they're trying to change the platform to be more of a media and payments platform. That requires talent.

Santa Clara-San Jose area is relatively still damn expensive. (Ask me how I know.)

Anywhere with an RTO mandate is a hard pass. If they want to treat their employees like children and waste my time and money on pointless commuting to feel in-control, then count me out.

Yeah, this has been tested every which way by now, the entire point of in-person work is to monitor employees. My manager told me outright that the only reason I can stay remote is, unlike most of the team, I didn't seem to "disappear" during 2020.

There's a unfortunate conflation of completing useful work with appearing to be present. The appearance of presence is the new 37 pieces of flair.

The other new 37 pieces of flair is creating a lot of Java files with large loc and many layers of object inheritance.

reading this as a mariner who works 2-4 months straight, on a ship, in deep sea, 12 hour work day, and no days off (working saturday and sunday).. lol you dont know how bad it really is..

Sounds like a prison work camp!

I'm going to assume your work requires your physical presence on that ship, in the deep sea, though. My work, however, does not. Further, employers are, on the whole, cheap, and want to pack workers into as small a footprint as possible. (Literally, 4' or less.) I can build a better work environment at home, for under $1k.

"My [unrelated] job is worse" is not a logical reason for me to abstain from advocating for better work conditions for myself, where there is a possibility of better work conditions. I can dislike things about one tech job vs. another tech job while still appreciating that the conditions of either job probably far exceed that of a career I wouldn't like.

(And, I would also still default to advocating for sane worker's rights in your industry too, unless there is some compelling reason that working >8h/d, 7d/wk makes some sort of sense in your industry.)

"You kids think you're being exploited? Haha that's nothing, I've been exploited 10x harder!"

Let's not crab bucket each other. You deserve good working conditions and making life suck for everyone else, too, won't make your life truly better.

"you should feel good about that because my life has been much worse"

Talent pool is downstream of the "flamebait reasons" though. Maybe they're not moving out of SF directly because of the high crime etc., they're moving out of SF because they can't attract talent in SF... but that may well be at least partly because of the high crime etc..

I've lived in high crime areas, and SF doesn't have the kind of high crime that would actually deter me. The monotony of a homogeneous population is enough to keep me away from the Bay for as long as I can; and I know plenty of other talented people that feel the same

The Bay doesn't have a homogenous population, you just don't know any locals.

I've lived all along the West Coast from Tijuana to Seattle. There is no place along this coast which I would call homogeneous except the Bay. I would challenge your locals statement, but at this point, I've wasted too much time on No True Scotsman fallacies for this lifetime.

Either way, my community was one of the last diverse communities to get priced out of the Bay (around the early 2010s). Yet, you can find my community in any other populated place along the west coast. The bay definitely has a diversity issue when it comes to interesting people.

The thing about being priced out is that it can only happen if you aren't a homeowner. If you are a homeowner (or in such a household), the same effect is making you more than $100k a year richer. So you just have to like living with your parents.

Musk runs Twitter like a dictator.

The first and only reason is whatever Musk felt like.

Twitter was imperically a terrible financial decision.

It seems like a bold statement to say the #1 is de facto money.

I suspect non-money issues are much higher on the list.

If anyone on the planet doesn't need more money, it's Musk.

TBF, Elon has been running his other companies like he is running Twitter. Also, isn't it his prerogative to run his companies however he pleases as he is the CEO? If the shareholders are not happy with it, they can push him out.

Most CEOs aren't worth >$200B...

I mean reason #1 is probably that they are getting evicted right? Didn't elon stop paying rent?

Paying rent is a woke mind virus, so Elon would never go for that. Fight the oppression!

Like just buy twitter, then you won’t have to pay rent. - Elon probably

Reply on news.ycombinator.com