San Francisco Fed President Dismisses Silicon Valley 'Exodus' (axios.com) 70
In an interview, San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly addressed Silicon Valley heavyweights like Elon Musk and others who have bemoaned California's COVID-19 restrictions and taxes and said they're taking their ball and moving to places like Miami or Brownsville, Texas, or the 140-square-foot Hawaiian island they own. Daly said: I've been working at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco since 1996 and when I arrived in 1996 there was a series of books written that said Silicon Valley was dead, it was over. People were going to move to Austin, Texas, and Portland, Oregon, and Boston and that was going to be the end of Silicon Valley. It had reached its peak and it was on the demise. Of course, it didn't happen. What happens is that absolutely tech firms move to other parts of the country, they relocate, and some of it is the business climate that they cite, some of it is that it's easier to get a workforce if you spread it around the United States than if you're all in one area. That concentration does raise housing values, and housing prices because people want to live here. All of these things are true and yet year after year, decade after decade, you see Silicon Valley robustly continuing to grow and continuing to thrive.
Now it really IS different (Score:1)
Because people have the opportunity to work remotely full-time in numbers that have never been possible before. Both the hardware, software, and connectivity solutions as well as the cultural shift to remote work with be with us forever now. Knowledge workers don't have to be in the office anymore because "work" is no longer a place.
So they're moving to places that have better weather, more diverse political views, a lower cost of living, and several other benefits.
Re:Now it really IS different (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope - it's no different. The whole thing about everyone working remotely is highly overstated. I don't think most people _actually_ want to work remotely - especially those who are younger. It's just the loud online minority, and companies are wising up to this.
People want to go back to offices, get beers with colleagues, find a mentor they can learn from, form networks, and even date others.
I am a parent and am someone senior enough that I don't care if my career growth slows down a bit. I would love to have more flexibility. But I am in the minority.
Re: (Score:3)
Even those who want to work in an office don't necessarily want to work in an overcrowded office in the middle of terrible traffic and rent that costs several times a house payment elsewhere.
If working from home works out OK, working from a remote office does too. Employers are also wising up to that, especially when they look at how much THEY are paying to rent office space.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Hi, I'm an introvert. I've NEVER wanted to "socialize" with my co-workers.
Just so you know, working from home doesn't help with that. I socialize with coworkers more than ever now, via Zoom.
I can't say I appreciate this turn of events, I want to program with my coworkers, not socialize with them. Programming is the most enjoyable socializing for me.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
People want to go back to offices, get beers with colleagues, find a mentor they can learn from, form networks, and even date others.
I've worked for one company who fired people if they showed the least bit of dating interest in one another. And that was almost 20 years ago now.
Aside from that sure, the extroverts want to go back to the office. And stand around the watercooler bullshitting. The marketing departments of the world felt like the last year was punishment of them personally. The rest of us are just fine getting our code written, circuits designed, papers written, etc. at what is now quite a nice home office.
Re: (Score:1)
Scary Math (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Speak for yourself. I like my co-workers but at the end of the day I like being at home better.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
The distance between home (East Bay) and work (South Bay) is roughly 35 miles. My commute was about 90 minutes each way. I do not look forward to returning to the office.
Re: (Score:2)
People want to go back to offices, get beers with colleagues, find a mentor they can learn from, form networks, and even date others.
I second that. I am getting frustrated when I want to get together with a group of people whether it is work related or social events because there's so much communication that is non-verbal. Or verbal where I can say blah blah blah and the meaning gets across even though if put in writing it will not make sense. I sure miss those Third Thirsty Thursdays held by local ASME chapter at a brewery in Sunnyvale.
I have also seen newbies at work who graduated last year but have had little interaction with exper
Re: (Score:3)
Knowledge workers don't have to be in the office anymore because "work" is no longer a place.
The Covid induced changes have not yet stood the test of time.
More companies than expected are changing their plans back to the status quo ante. The companies listed in TFA are not going to a full WFH model. They are just moving to different cities.
I was working 3-2 before Covid (MWF in the office, TTh at home). Post-Covid, I will be 1-4, but I will still go to the office one day per week. I can't do that if I am in another state.
Working remotely can work for people who already know each other. It works
Re: Now it really IS different (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Exactly this. It's different this time, because we're not talking about companies leaving, it's workers leaving but taking their jobs with them. The canary in the coal mine to me is that SF Fed President felt obliged to make that statement. If it was *not* happening, she would never have mentioned it. I know of a few people not going back and a few others considering moving out. Exodus is probably a bit extreme a term, but it's certainly much more prevalent over the last year.
Re: Now it really IS different (Score:2)
But she isn't dismissing it as if it's not happening. She is saying that has always happened; this is nothing new.
It's not a zero sum game. New businesses come up, some move out, some stay, and eventually all die to be replaced by new.
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
So they're moving to places that have better weather
Nope. No one leaves the lower half of CA to find "better weather."
Re: (Score:3)
"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." - S. Clemens
Re: Now it really IS different (Score:2)
Can't believe people on this site modded you up...
Re: (Score:2)
I see a lot more remote work, but few people working only from home. For the great majority, it will be 2-3 days of remote work a week, with office hours the rest of the time.
What else can she say? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Why? She doesn't work for realtors, she works for the Federal Reserve.
Re: (Score:1)
There are companies leaving Silicon Valley, but this is not the problem the people talking about Silicon Valley's demise think it is. Companies are not a finite resource that will run out when they all leave. Silicon Valley is a place that spawns new companies at an amazing pace. Sure, a lot of them fail, but plenty of them succeed. So many of them, in fact, that there isn't enough space, and they're spilling into adjacent areas and leaving for elsewhere. I would be far more worried if there weren't co
She's right (Score:5, Insightful)
People have been saying this about Silicon Valley for decades, and it keeps being both true and false.
True because lots of companies actually do relocate, or at least spin off significant offices in other states.
False because Silicon Valley continues to grow regardless.
Every time I look at housing prices and traffic in the valley I say that's just not sustainable, it can't continue. But it keeps on continuing.
The fact is that, even with the crazy costs, there are few places in the world, if any, that are as good for starting a high-tech business. Why? Because of the concentration of talent, suppliers and capital. Everything you need is there, to a degree that is not true anywhere else, AFAICT.
Re: She's right (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
So one dirty bomb and all of CA is crippled?
How would bombing SV cripple all of CA? It would put a big dent in the tech industry, but CA is a lot more than SV. Among other things, it's an agricultural powerhouse.
Personally i think you guys just suffer a lot of hubris.
What's this "you guys" bit? I live in rural Utah.
Re: (Score:3)
This is so very true. The whole "Silicon Valley is doomed. Time to pack it up and move to... somewhere, before it's too late." (With various differing values for "somewhere".) business has cropped up every other year or so; and has done so since before I even graduated college. In just the time I've worked in the industry, "somewhere" has been:
- Seattle
- Portland
- Boston
- New York's Meatpacking District and surrounding environs
- Some neighborhood whose name I forget in Chicago
- Orlando
- Singapore
- Hong K
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
People have been saying this about Silicon Valley for decades, and it keeps being both true and false.
True because lots of companies actually do relocate, or at least spin off significant offices in other states. False because Silicon Valley continues to grow regardless.
Good thing our comments are provided virtually here. That way we don't have to endure the smell of human shit wafting from the richest San Francisco streets as we speak of their implied growth and prosperity.
It takes a lot more than a Valley enhanced by Silicon(e), to sustain entire cities and the supporting infrastructure. Silicon Valley stands as the idiot who's jumping up and down bragging about how they won the battle, while failing to realize they lost the damn war.
California as a whole will continu
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
What's with the standard conservative preoccupation with human feces in California? Do they taste better than what they get at home, or what?
Re: (Score:3)
Apparently every single homeless person on the entire planet is in San Francisco. Who would have thought. It's the wishful thinking side of politics - if governments just read my mimeographed newsletter than all the problems would be solved! But because they do have problems it means that their politics are utterly corrupt and they absolutely do need copies of my newsletter to set them straight. This is political schadenfreude.
I've been in the most midwestern heartlands, and in the rural south, and over
Re:She's right (Score:4, Interesting)
I know right?..
I mean true, some of the cities with the highest homelessness are in CA.. (LA county having some 56K homeless alone..), but NY, Seattle, Phoenix, and DC all round out the pack as well (current stats are about 570K homeless persons in the US.. if you take CA alone, that's about 98K homeless.. but the other 472K are in the rest of the country.. So people need to stop trying to put everything on CA.. its one of the most populous states and one of the wealthiest, and has some of the best weather.. what the heck did they think was going to happen... ZERO homeless?.. just not possible) And people forget that homelessness is sadly a byproduct of success.. As the city moves more to cater to the influx (or local) population of wealth, those at the bottom most rung tend to fall off.
Re: (Score:2)
people need to stop trying to put everything on CA.. its one of the most populous states and one of the wealthiest, and has some of the best weather.. what the heck did they think was going to happen... ZERO homeless?
You're right. As you and many others keep incessantly bragging, California does have some of the best weather. Which is an obvious factor when you're homeless. What the heck did people think was going to happen? California would have a reasonable amount of homeless as a result of that? They hold near 20% of the homeless for the entire country.
New York City is "most populous" too. The difference there is you tend to die trying to survive a winter.
If you were homeless and owned a one-way ticket to anywh
Re: (Score:2)
Sound truthy, but it is the truth?
If I became homeless, I might want to move somewhere that services for people like me aren't hopelessly overwhelmed. So California wouldn't be my first pick. There are lots of places in the US I won't freeze to death in the winter by living outside.
Do you have any stats on the number of people who first become homeless in one state, then pick up and move to California because of the weather?
Do we have the stats on the migration patterns of the homeless? No. We just have the "truthy" truth. Damn near 20% of the homeless population in America, is in California.
And if the homeless start moving out of California, then there is no more arguing as to how bad that "state" is.
Pfft.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Silicon Valley remains viable largely because tech giants who are strongly established there are afraid to pack up and move, Even if it seems like a financial benefit to leave, they're weighing the benefits of leaving "Taxifornia" vs. losing a big chunk of a local workforce who probably lives out there *because* it was the best place to be to work in the tech field at a high level.
The tech giants can absorb more abusive taxation and legislation than most businesses, by virtue of the fact they typically sel
Re: (Score:3)
Silicon Valley remains viable largely because tech giants who are strongly established there are afraid to pack up and move,
Silicon Valley isn't about tech giants, it's about startups. Amazon and Microsoft aren't even in Silicon Valley, except to the point that they have to be.
Re: (Score:2)
So Apple doesn't count as a tech giant? Or Facebook?
I'm not sure this person is seeing area trends. (Score:2)
Lord have mercy! This man is delusional... (Score:1)
That concentration does raise housing values, and housing prices because people want to live here.
Not exactly. For big city California, house prices rise because there's not enough of them being built. Californians should be ashamed of all the homelessness that is evident on California streets.
All of these things are true and yet year after year, decade after decade, you see Silicon Valley robustly continuing to grow and continuing to thrive.
Thrive? depends on who you talk to. HP, Oracle, Telsa and a number of folks must be high for they all took off for Texas!
Re: (Score:1)
Good (Score:4, Interesting)
Stay there.
Look at the mess they've already made of Austin.
Working in the Silicon Valley (Score:5, Insightful)
I moved to the Silicon Valley in 1995 and still here. The first month I was here there was an article in the local paper about people and companies fleeing California because of taxes, regulations, blah blah blah. in 1998 I bought a house in Berkeley for $300K and people at the time told me I was nuts to spend that much money on an old house. It's now worth 5 times what I paid for it. I first came to San Francisco while following the Grateful Dead in 1976. I stayed with my cousin and his girlfriend while they looked for a house to buy. They looked at one house in the Upper Height for $55K and the place was trashed. People said you would be nuts to buy that place, they did not. I looked at that house in 1998 and it was going for $1.3 million. I'm sure that 23 years later its worth more than that.
I get emails and phone calls every week from recruiters looking to place me at some company. I get these call even if I am not actively looking for my next gig. During my drive to work I see new offices being built. I can remember when Netscape was taking over Mountain View and Sunnyvale, at one point every other building on Matilda Ave. was a Netscape building. Now its Google. Intuit is build 2 new building across the street from their man campus.
People have been predicting the demise of the Silicon Valley since the late 1980's. Its all bullshit until the day when companies like Google, Intel, Cisco, Juniper, etc. ALL completely leave and you can drive from San Francisco to San Jose on 101 at 0830 on a Wednesday morning in under 40 minutes.
Re: (Score:2)
Is this good or bad?
Re: (Score:2)
I get emails and phone calls every week from recruiters looking to place me at some company.
Software developers get those regardless of where they live if they have a track record and have published it in their LinkedIn profile. It's definitely not unique to living in Silly Valley.
Re: (Score:2)
Linux DevOps guy here. Most of the emails and calls I'm getting are for gigs, I'm a contractor, say the same thing "Remove until COVAD over". Most of my friends are also getting email and phone calls. Hiring is definitely picking up and most of the jobs are in the Valley.
If the Silicon Valley is dead or dying someone needs to get on the stick and tell all these companies that they are going out of business. Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc are going to be very surprised. There are also a number of startup als
Re: (Score:2)
And once you can make that drive in 40 minutes, the businesses will come back. Why? Because the weather is awesome. You're just a half day's drive from lots of outdoor activities, from skiing, surfing, hiking, kayaking, sailing, hunting (yes), fishing (yes), off-roading (yes), etc. It's only the crowd that makes it less desirable.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I lived there for 10 years. Was laid off last June, looked for work for 5 months before giving up and moving back east. Paid 3000. / month for a 1 BR apartment in North San Jose.
I did finally get an offer in February, for a company where cost of living is 1/3 to 1/2. what it is in the Valley. For the 3k/month I was paying, at my new location I could rent a 4 BR house on maybe 1/8 acre lot, and still have 500 left over. And the ultimate punchline, Im earning more at my new job, and even using / learning
Re: (Score:2)
Because if you network reasonably well in the Bay Area, and you work for startups you can normally find a new job in a few days.
Things that most of the readers are dismissing is that Stanford encourages students to commercialize their discoveries/inventions that they make as students.
Ask Marc Andreesen about if he'd recommend the University of Illinois.
There are very few universities that encourage their students to profit off of what they invent as students. Stanford is a huge part of the engine that drive
Re: (Score:2)
And that means what? Who the fuck care where one comedian / video blogger moves to. The guy is turning into a modern day Art Bell.
Should have let Elon launch off the Golden Gate (Score:1)
Keep thinking this way buggy whip salesperson! (Score:1)
When your craptastic little world crumbles around you, I'm sure you'll be comforted.
Please get new editors (or any at all) (Score:2)
"Fed" is a slang contraction. Don't use them in titles. It also actually MEANS something, so using it causes confusion.
Off by a factor of 27 million (Score:3, Informative)
Journalists and numeracy; like oil and water: Larry Ellison has indeed moved to the island of Lanai, of which he owns 98% , but it is a 140-square-mile island, not 140 square feet. So it's more than six times the area of Manhattan rather than the size of a small parking space.
How not to write a headline (Score:1)
San Francisco Fed? (Score:2)
140-square-foot Hawaiian island (Score:2)