Want a job in Silicon Valley?
hiring.customerdevlabs.com
hiring.customerdevlabs.com
Case in point. This websites says "work with the smartest people in the world" as if SV has the highest concentration of intelligent people in the world and as if that's even a measurable statistic.
But doesn't address the bigger issue of smugness, which I've noticed too. Certainly something in the SV attitude that includes a holy-than-thou vibe, but now that I think about it, I get that vibe whenever I'm around successful entrepreneurs - no matter what city I'm in.
Re the living expenses - it's definitely a deterrent if you're starting your own company. If you're working for someone else though, from what I've seen, the increased pay more than offsets the increased cost of living.
Only if you're willing to downsize. Some people are, but it's a tough sell to lots of people.
They're building new apartments all around the bay now and the greedy realty vultures somehow think it's reasonable to charge as much as $3500-4000USD per month for them (one and two bedrooms). That's easily a mortgage payment on a brand new home out here.
The older apartment complexes have seen this and have been raising their rates as well (the monthly market rate on my apartment went from $2150 USD to $2750 USD in the last six months I've lived there even though it's in the south bay area).
The worst part of all of this is the realization that I'll likely never be able to afford a home out here (median house price is currently ~$500K USD): http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_23249121/bay-area-med...
http://geolib.com/smith.adam/won1-11.html
or quoting from mises.org(!)
Smith was even less kindly to the role of landlords, where he recognized no economic function whatever that they might perform. In pungent passages, he writes that 'As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords like to reap where they never sowed and demand a rent even for its natural produce'. And again: 'as soon as the land becomes private property, the landlord demands a share of almost all the produce which the labourer can either raise or collect from it'.
The market only bears it because the government (federal, state, and/or local) in some cases has arguably helped place realty companies and others in a position where they essentially hold a monopoly over vast areas of land and housing.
California also has a unique problem in the form of proposition 13:
http://www.nber.org/digest/apr05/w11108.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-19/jerry-brown-s-last-...
I predict, extravagant housing prices lead to the competitiveness of other technology markets. But for the next 5 years at least, feels like there will be more investors, buzz and energy in SV than anywhere else.
Higher perceived chance of success worth increased rent?
If you buy a house in a good neighborhood with good schools, your property values will likely trend up, even if they are higher to begin with.
If you buy a cheaper house in a bad neighborhood with poor public schools, you'll have to offset the monthly mortgage cost with private school tuition. This extra cost doesn't give you additional equity in your home, and there are no tax breaks like there are with mortgage interest.
In both cases, you'll have a place to live, and hopefully provide your kids with a good solid education. But if times get tough, you can always sell your house and reap some investment if it's in a good neighborhood. That is not always the case in a poor neighborhood.
And to make it plain for everyone to understand the insanity of it: A year in Elementary school is pretty much free in a Public School. It easily costs you $20K in a Private School. That's for one kid. Tack that on top of your $3K a month rent or mortgage and you quickly see how a six-figure salary does not mean much in this area, for anyone but the single 20-something.
I think it's a bit by design too, as most of the local economy wants young people, with stars and dollar signs in their eyes, who will work 12 hours a day while shacking in groups of 3 in 11x11-foot apartments. LOL
I'm born here, grew up here, and the recent explosion of the smugness really does bother me. Besides, I'm willing to bet that the "Smartest People in the World"(tm) are probably in Cambridge, USA and Cambridge, UK. :P
1. Housing costs (too expensive)
2. Transportation time / locality (takes too long to get elsewhere in the Bay Area, probably can't live near the job because of #1)
3. Climate - San Fran is rather cold nearly all year round.
4. Because of 1 and 2 likely would not have a garage or space to do projects in.
5. Sometimes things seem rather legally onerous in CA/Bay Area.
6. Regional tunnel vision. When I lived in Northern California I got sick of hearing how it was 'the best place on Earth.'
On the positive side there, there's an "energy" (please excuse hippie nonsense) to people here I haven't seen in other places. A kind personal momentum that is intoxicating - hard not to get crazy shit done around here.
Certainly not for everyone, including me on occasion, and it's got its downsides...but I haven't seen a place better for the ambitious to design their future than SV.
A sad reality.
Isn't it?
I kid, I kid. Mostly. But the revealed preferences of where people choose to move and at what price does say a lot about places. Most people, given a choice of buying a nice house in Fargo or Macon for $150k or a nice house in San Francisco or Palo Alto for $150k, probably will go for the latter.
I moved out of SF about a year ago, I am now paying less for housing, in a better neighborhood, in Manhattan.
The alternative to paying ridiculous sums to live in SV/SF isn't a complete change in lifestyle.
The point is about what people are willing to pay to live in an area, though. The fact that people are willing to pay so much more to live in the Bay Area is revealing.
THIS is why 1 of every 50 cars in Austin has a California license plate.
EDIT: there's less access to VC money here. But that doesn't seem to be stopping people.
It's not just me: http://www.quora.com/Silicon-Valley/Whats-the-dark-side-of-S...
Just submitted to https://news.ycombinator.com/newest if you'd like to get the word out.
Who do you suggest I pass interested people along to?
I suggest http://capitalfactory.com/, http://ati.utexas.edu/, http://techranchaustin.com/ for starters. Also consider hitting up http://austinonrails.org/, and any of the Javascript/R/Python meetups. Every one of them seems to be packed every week.
Happy Friday, 'yall.
The site needs checkboxes for 'are you young and innocent' and 'are you single and/or do you not care about your family and personal free time'
Those are two huge requirements for most companies out here, but they can't admit this kind of stuff by law.
I don't see any reason why I need to give up 2 hours of my day traveling to / from work on the days when I need to work exclusively on coding.
So I'll stay where I am.
Sorry if I'm wasting your time customerdevlabs! I mostly signed up out of curiosity.
Obviously, though, if you want to pay me $150k/year, give me 3 months of vacation, let me telecommute 2/5 days, pay my moving expenses, and give me fun problems, I will move tomorrow.
There's a war on for talent now. Be careful what you wish for.
More often than not, in SV at least, "unlimited vacation" policies is really just code for "don't take any". The small print is also "if you really do take a lot of time off, even if you're great, you don't belong in our Red-Bull-shotgunning startupy experience".
It's surprising to me that despite being so innovative and forward thinking, startups and companies in the Bay Area aren't realizing they have to accept this as a constraint and start hiring remotely and find ways to make it work.
Yes, it's sub-optimal to have a remote team in many ways when you're in the early stages. But you have to balance that against fighting for every new hire and then trying to avoid watching them get poached by the newly funded startup across the street. If I were starting a company in SF, this would be a major distraction and something I'd want to avoid at any cost.
NO.
You should never lead off with an open-ended question. And I seriously do not want a job in Silicon Valley, but that doesn't stop the recruiters from contacting me. If a developer with tons of experience hasn't worked in SV by now, they probably never will.
If you are young (20-30), single, and are willing to have roommates to group up into some apartment, then SV may be an adventure for you. However, as you grow in life, you will need a pretty high level of income to feel secure in this environment.
Start-ups would be better off setting up shop in underdeveloped parts of the country, however, as the cost of labour here puts a serious overhead over any fledgling company.
http://www.downtowndurhamstartups.com/content/job+board/1604...
Also, there is a "Tech Jobs Under The Big Top" job fair that is held periodically at the American Underground in Durham, where startups pitch prospects to come work for them. There was just one in April, not sure when the next one is. But check http://bigtop.it for more info.
If you live in the future, want a job in Austin?
That being said, don't trust cost of living calculators, they are full of crap. Go on Padmapper and really scope out the cost of housing in your area. If you really are thinking about it, fly there and look at the actual costs of things.
Taking the mean/median of anything when it comes to cost of living just means you have a systemic way of calculating a number that has no relevance to reality.
I'm probably not to pursue it (my job search is going really well and I'll probably take something else) but anyone who's interested can reach out. I'm not afraid to share the idea.