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I wouldn't call places south of Mountain View and Palo Alto 'Peninsula'. San Mateo is an often overlooked option (not as cheap as SOMA, afaik) but in a way it means a commute both for folks coming from Cupertino/Sunnyvale/Palo Alto/Mountain View and for folks coming from the city. I would say significant amount of startups would still prefer Mountain View to SOMA, but they'd probably prefer SOMA to Santa Clara or San Jose. There are many positives you've described to places further South, but there are also issues: fewer other startups, less third places in walking distances, being rather far from any kind of public transportation. In terms of employees it's somewhat of a balancing act: there are older employees with family in South Bay, more infrastructure folks (ex-Google and VMW folks, as well as various infra startups), and there are also younger employees, front-end developers, designers, and people with finance/consulting who live in SF. It would be more far more difficult for SF set to commute to, e.g., an office park in Santa Clara than for folks in South Bay to commute to SOMA (fairly easy trip by either car or Caltrain). That said, Peninsula is exactly what its name implies, and SF is at very end (with hills in between). There will be greater pressure for startups to go further South again, as well as East (if Berkeley/Oakland adopt more startup friendly laws), elsewhere in SF (already happening), and so on. |