[gonehome]

Yeah, I've had some friends leave (to CO and DC), but I'm skeptical of companies and VCs leaving.

For a kind of funny example, there was an episode of the all-in podcast (mostly a podcast of successful VCs) where they talked about SV politics and leaving.

The irony was while they talked about CA politics to an absurd degree ("worst run state in US", etc.) when they asked each other if they were planning on leaving all of them said no.

People complain a lot (and there are good reasons to complain!), but people have been complaining since at least 1993 and it's still an economic hub for startups. I'm skeptical of that leaving.

I have seen coworkers and friends leave, but it's mostly a housing issue. As people turn 30 and want to have a family if you haven't cashed out $5M in some exit event then it sucks to live here. $500k can get you a nice place in CO, $750k for outside Seattle.

I have had older friends leave to have a family. They went to Santa Cruz, Seattle, Denver, DC, and Austin. It's a shame. The ones that stayed either are very rich where a $5M house is not an issue, or they still live with three roommates and rent without kids.

Some other reasons to complain about, but that I don't think are usually deciding factors for people to leave:

- Bad policy (AB5), Extra founder Tax, Hostility towards tech in general.

- Political monoculture (I don't mean not enough trump people, I mean it can be controversial to be an obama era moderate/neoliberal and 'woke' politics is hard to avoid).

- High state taxes that harm capital gains and new money. This is related to housing and prop13. Not only do the people that live in housing they bought decades ago pay almost no property tax compared to new buyers, they then push to restrict new supply while also pushing to increase tax on new money. This comes in the form of higher capital gains tax (there's a bill to raise it to 16.3% this year retroactively, by far the highest in the country). They also push legislation to increase tax on the companies excluding homeowners to fund their services (which indirectly affects the employees again). This kind of thing makes it doubly hard to be able to buy in and live here.

[TuringNYC]

>> Yeah, I've had some friends leave (to CO and DC), but I'm skeptical of companies and VCs leaving.

>> I have had older friends leave to have a family. They went to Santa Cruz, Seattle, Denver, DC, and Austin. It's a shame. The ones that stayed either are very rich where a $5M house is not an issue, or they still live with three roommates and rent without kids.

Just wait until they look for interesting jobs and get 100 linked in messages from CA and like 1 or 2 from DC. (note: I live in VA just outside DC, speaking from experience.)

[munaf]

Exactly.

An anecdote: I got an offer to leave my mid-level FAANG job to return to the Midwest for a VP role at a 200+ person company. The compensation was about 35% of my total comp, and it was maybe one of 3 companies in the area I would consider working for. Not to mention going back to cold winters, McMansions, and chain restaurants.

I don't think people fully appreciate the value of unenforceable non-competes + many companies congregated in one area. No where else in the world does the labor have this level of negotiating power and flexibility. Even if it can be replicated (and I hope it is!), it won't be overnight.

[TuringNYC]

Agreed. I think it was all OK when I was single. But the appetite to re-locate a family every 2-3 years with a job change (or employer disappearing) (changing friends, school districts, continuity) is a tall order in my humble opinion.

There is an old Russian saying about how every time you move it is like a fire happened (because you lose things.)

[gonehome]

Well, this entire premise is that remote work would make that more possible (I personally don't believe this though).

That said, the people I know that left aren't planning to find new work (for the most part). CO does have a lot of FAANG options though and Slack was also there.

They're not looking for the most interesting work at that point, they're looking to keep their job and raise a family - it's a tradeoff.

Isn't that a risk to move to a place without as many employment options? Yes. The reason for that risk is you can raise kids in a nice house for $500k rather than in a tiny, old, 2 bedroom apartment for 1.5M.

[TuringNYC]

>> They're not looking for the most interesting work at that point, they're looking to keep their job and raise a family - it's a tradeoff.

>> Isn't that a risk to move to a place without as many employment options? Yes. The reason for that risk is you can raise kids in a nice house for $500k rather than in a tiny, old, 2 bedroom apartment for 1.5M.

You exactly summarized my thought process three years ago. To be fair, i'm very happy here. But it is a mixed bag.

Housing is great compared to the bay area, but $500k is a stretch for DC/Virginia (check it out on zillow) though not impossible, there is a ton of inventory if you are willing to drive out a bit. Unlike FAANG folks out-buying houses from you, you have lobbyists and government/intelligence contractors outbidding houses from you. Def better than Bay area though.

Except i'm in one of like five growth startups in the area and there are rarely any senior positions open, and the senior workforce appears larger than the pool of interesting senior jobs. Its a huge bet on your employer in addition to the already huge bet you're making w/ taking, say, illiquid early stage stock. So your career growth is much slower.

OK, so what if you are OK w/o an interesting job? Then you have plenty of options. Also, plenty of options if you're willing to be a consultant and travel, but now you're making a 2nd tradeoff.

All in, very happy but not a panacea and certainly multiple tradeoffs.

[gonehome]

Yep, agreed - sounds like we have a similar take :).

In my specific case my SO grew up in Cupertino and her family is here, so that's another element that makes it hard to leave. I'm currently doing the live with roommates bit, but it's a hard tradeoff to make.

Also I saw where you work in your HN bio - do you partner with VRAD (or maybe are considering starting your own)? I've always though leveraging ML imaging software as part of a nighthawk radiology service would be really interesting. Basically hire radiologists to be part of the company (give them some equity) and leverage their readings to train the model. In a bit of a Tesla style self-driving play where you're providing the current capabilities via humans, but the ultimate goal is leveraging that to train and improve the software. My dad does neurorad so seemed like a natural fit for deep learning image recognition to me. If you're writing the reading software then you can tailor it for training too.

Unrelated to that, if you're looking for more options in DC the company I work for has a major office there (feel free to connect, my email is in my profile).

[ummonk]

Why can't you rent a studio or 1-bedroom without roommates? A Bay Area tech salary should more than cover it.

[TuringNYC]

I'm the GP commentor, and in my case, theoretically I can, though in my case I have a wife and two children, so it does get tight.

And while I'm grateful for everything I have in life, and I have been given much more than my grandparents abroad...I do wonder -- after struggling through top colleges and a working hard for over two decades with ever increasing responsibility, whether I really "deserve" a 1br or should I aspire to more for my family and me.

I realize it sounds both selfish but also reasonable based on how one looks at things. For now, we've chosen to live very comfortably in DC.

[gonehome]

Yeah we definitely can, but larger place with roommates is both twice as nice and a lot cheaper.

Helps to save more to try and buy a place eventually.

[MrMorden]

Maybe if those contractors are VP level or DINK; a senior IC working for a Beltway bandit might possibly, with a tailwind, clear 200k total compensation, but that's very much the high end of their pay scale despite the hourly rates they charge the government.

[stryan]

Your experience may be your own; I live just outside of DC as well (though on the MD side) and get bombarded with DC and MD job offers all the time. Perhaps not to the same extent as CA, but saying only 1 or 2 seems like a personal situation.

[TuringNYC]

One more thing for outsiders: Security Clearances are huge here, which really changes outcomes.

@stryan Would love to chat offline if you're open? Really struggling in deciding whether I can continue to live in the region long term, despite being in love with the area and the people.

[raunakdag]

As someone who lives in the DMV (VA) - what’re the biggest factors influencing whether you can continue to live here long term?

[TuringNYC]

Not being bored or underutilized at work. Excitement about career opportunities. Room to move upwards.

Hard-tech job opportunities w/o having to regress to an entry-level or mid-level role.

Senior level job opportunities, w/o having to join a consulting firm (i mean, if i'm potentially traveling 4/5 days, i'm not really 'living' here anymore...) I've rolled the dice on management consulting before in my life and spent almost no time in my home city. That was great when I was 20 and not so great with a family. I do wonder whether it is different w/ DC and local projects or whether it might be different in a partyly-WFH future!

[alexhutcheson]

I'm hopeful Amazon's HQ2 will make a big difference for the DMV tech scene.

[gumby]

Yep, I recently got a call from a FB recruiter in Austin. One constraint was: are you willing to move to the Bay Area to work at the FB campus after lockdown ends? Why yes, I already live here.

[almost_usual]

There are a ton of companies in Austin, also no state income tax.

You can always move back after you vest and sell.

[Apocryphon]

Yeah, the previous poster seems to be completely missing out that Austin and Seattle are major tech hubs, Denver is a secondary hub, and Santa Cruz is within spitting distance to Silicon Valley. Seattle alone is probably the second most significant tech region in the country after SV and Austin is easily third or fourth.

[almost_usual]

Yeah, also have coworkers moving there. If my family wasn’t in the Bay I would seriously consider it.

[Apocryphon]

The main idea is that those jobs are now moving to remote, because of the pandemic?

[TomVDB]

That $5M is hyperbole, right?

Nobody will deny that Bay Area housing is expensive, but even today, $1.5M will get you a decent single family house with a garden in Santa Clara.

That’s a ridiculous amount of money for most, but it’s not in $5M exit territory, and something that’s relatively easy to manage for a 2 tech income family: $1.25M loan is $5600/m mortgage, $1500/m in real estate taxes.

[gonehome]

$5M is a little hyperbolic, but $4M is not.

$1.5M will get you a shack - really old maybe a little bigger than 1000sqft in Santa Clara if you can find one at that price at all.

$4M gets you a nice, newer 2900sqft house (comparable to what you'd get in the other regions I mentioned).

$1.5M would have been enough in 2012, but it's gotten worse since then.

[TomVDB]

2900ft houses is a good way to skew the argument in your favor, but it's a bit of a strawman: the vast majority of houses in the Bay Area aren't 2900ft to begin with, yet 2000ft house are plenty, with 4 bedroom, on, say, a 6000ft lot. You can easily find one of those for $2M, and they're not shacks.

This is a $2M house, 2600 sqft, 5BD house on an 11000 sqft lot: https://www.redfin.com/CA/Santa-Clara/2602-Birchtree-Ln-9505....

But going back to my earlier price range. I took me all of 2 minutes, not months of open houses to come up with these:

For $1.6M, you get this 2200 sqft house: https://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Jose/1244-Broadleaf-Ln-95128/h.... Or you get this 2500 sqft house: https://www.redfin.com/CA/Santa-Clara/1453-Franklin-St-95050....

[gonehome]

I don't know if I'd say plenty.

Redfin filters:

- Santa Clara

- Sqft Min: 2000

- Property Type: House

- Price Max: $2M

Results: 9

If you set a minimum year built to 2000 (so up to 20 years old)

Results: 0

You're right though that there are houses you can find in less desirable areas on the peninsula for around 2 million (and San Jose is cheaper, east bay is cheaper). Usually though there's some tradeoff (bad schools, long commute, house is really old). These tradeoffs don't exist in the other regions where for a a lot less you can live basically anywhere you'd want in a nicer place.

The places I've been looking (Palo Alto, Cupertino, Mountain View) don't really have anything in the price points you're talking about.

I will admit that my general statement about Santa Clara was wrong though (I was thinking mostly about the cities I mentioned as part of Santa Clara county, not the city of Santa Clara).

[JKCalhoun]

Yes, I think the people on each side are using "Santa Clara" differently.

As the County of Santa Clara, you can find a nice 2000 sq. ft. home for $1.2M.

South San Jose, people.

[alexhutcheson]

Depending on where your office is, you might consider the commute from South San Jose unacceptable.

[dmode]

I have a 2500 sq ft house in a 10 rated school district, 16 miles from SF, that I purchased this year for 1.4mn. Here's another similar example: https://www.redfin.com/CA/Lafayette/3399-Angelo-St-94549/hom...

[whimsicalism]

I agree with this comment if by 100 you meant 1000

e: oh whoops, it was edited