[delfinom]

Yep, all tech companies have seen the writing on the wall for overconcentrating their operations in California. People in general have become more and more hesitant to move there for a wide platitude of reasons from absurd cost of living to issues such as mass wildfires.

They've realized that perhaps, just perhaps, they could afford to have more than one large corporate campus at their scale of fuck you money. Which gives them wider access to talent and actually reduces headaches such spiraling cost of living forcing salaries to also spiral upwards and also being expected to solve housing crises locally.

[dangus]

Comments like these greatly downplay the role of industry clusters. The hot take of the day is that California is a hellhole to be escaped as soon as possible.

Industry Clusters are often historical, so it always strikes me as strange when I see comments like this one that make a case for how misguided it was for tech companies to cluster in Silicon Valley and tolerate the high cost of living.

That line of thinking misplaces causes and effects so that they’re hilariously backwards.

Silicon Valley is a innovative place because of an extensive history of educational institutions, research facilities, and other market conditions that simply did not physically manifest in any other place.

On top of all that, the software industry has one of the lowest COGS (cost of goods sold) of any major industry. Facebook’s sales per employee is close to $2 million [1]. The fact that their SV employees cost hundreds of thousands of dollars more than employees is quite nearly irrelevant. Someone that’s 10 or 20 percent more productive will make up that labor cost difference by bringing in 10 or 20% more revenue, so it doesn’t really make sense for Facebook to abandon the best talent pools in search of cheaper rent or wages.

Tech giants are building out in Austin for its specific traits, and they don’t seem to mind that it’s rapidly becoming expensive and congested just like California. The question that might be asked is: why is Apple in Austin instead of Houston or Dallas or Nashville or Omaha?

[1] https://csimarket.com/stocks/FB-Revenue-per-Employee.html

[offtop5]

The big difference is Texas isn't ran by morons who make it impossible to build homes.

The anti building laws of California are by far the biggest reasons housing is so expensive. Even if Austin gets pricey, you can always drive into the city.

As someone who left California, I will say no one in their right mind should live there. No matter how much you earn, you'll never realistically out earn the cost of living. I found myself quickly deep in credit card debt trying to be cool in California. It's just a horrible place to live, I had to estrange myself from my family to move, and it was absolutely worth it. Anyone who tries to make you live in such a horrible place does not care about you at all.

People are also phenomenally nicer in other cities, I was shocked at how easy it was to meet my girlfriend once I got to Chicago. It's as if Chicago's this amazing City where people understand you need to work to get things you want instead of thinking you're entitled to everything.

Anyway, with remote work now being seen as viable I can see the idea of having expensive big offices becoming antiquated.

[ribosometronome]

Apple already has a large campus in Austin that dwarfs a lot of companies and a second under construction. They might not be quite Spaceship in terms of unique design but they exist.

Being solely located in one of the most expensive areas in the United States does seem a bit absurd if you can avoid it. Based on Cook's statements about returning to the office, it seems like they value being physically proximate more than the immense savings that moving the workers who could be remote to remote.

[Angostura]

Just an FYI - I'm not sure what word you were reaching for, but it wasn't 'platitude' in this context.

Perhaps 'plethora' or 'multitude'.

[sizzle]

Seems like they were going for latitude?

[mft_]

Neither would work well with the preceding ‘wide’.

[throwawayboise]

variety. Or better yet, drop "a wide variety of" and just say "various"

[sizzle]

“wide latitude”