Tech workers are increasingly looking to leave Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/627414/tech-workers-are-increasingly-looking-to-leave-silicon-valley/ <comment><USER3> I left the Bay Area, not Silicon Valley, 6 years ago and since then I've been able to realize a 40% salary increase (this has more to do with experience and seniority than locale - just making the point that good salaries are possible outside SV) and I've purchased a house and a rental property. The latter would have been unthinkable in the Bay Area. Plus the gender ratio is much better for men almost anywhere else.

I don't even think SF and SV are good places to start out anymore. You can learn skills anywhere with the internet, and you miss out on early investments due to the opportunity cost of rent. If you want to live in the Bay Area, it's better to hunker down someplace cheaper for a decade or more, save up a down payment, and then lateral into a midlevel or senior role at a tech company, whose salaries are high enough to service a mortgage but not high enough to save a down payment and pay rent at the same time.

<comment><USER4> > I've purchased a house and a rental property. The latter would have been > unthinkable in the Bay Area.

I purchased a house with my wife here in northern OH, and while we don't have a rental, we do have around 4 acres of land to use and for our son to play on, in an area with an excellent public school district. I know this would be very hard to come by near most tech-centered hubs in the country, and would be very difficult for me to give up now. The more I think about it, the less certain I am that even doubling my salary would convince me to do it.

<comment><USER5> But, it's cold and rainy 7-8 months out of the year. A family of 3 doesn't need 4 acres. You have to admit that most people are willing to pay up for good weather

<comment><USER6> The weather isn't even that good in Silicon Valley. I'd take rain and snow vs. dry and concrete.

<comment><USER7> By any objective measure, it IS good.

Concrete is not a weather condition.

<comment><USER8> Concrete is most certainly a weather condition [1]. And better weather doesn't always make for a better environment.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island)

<comment><USER9> The urban heat island is my single biggest point of displeasure living in NYC–I so love sleeping the windows open and a cool night breeze in the summer, which would be very possible in my quiet neighborhood of Brooklyn if it were to actually cool off at night.

Instead we have hot days followed by slightly less hot nights, and I run the A/C all night lest I get no sleep at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For anyone interested… We just moved back to Atlanta in September after five years in the Bay Area, to be closer to family, and to be able to afford a house, ever.

I was well paid at Google, and loved working at YouTube. I also severely miss our many friends, as well as beautiful San Francisco: I used to walk up Bernal Hill one or two days a week with my toddler. Pictures of oceans and hills and everything else make me sad…

That said, we could _never_ afford a house in San Francisco. And to get affordable, we'd have had to have gone _way_ out, and the commute would have been terrible.

I was lucky enough to find out that Square has an Atlanta office, full of _very_ smart people, so I was able to keep doing Silicon-Valley-style programming, which is a big win.

<comment><USER11> Google's HQ is in Mountain View. Why did you have to live or buy a house in SF?

<comment><USER12> Housing prices in Mountain View are just as bad as those in SF.

Also, YouTube's head office is closer to the SF airport.

<comment><USER13> > Also, YouTube's head office is closer to the SF airport.

Which is _also_ not in SF.

<comment><USER14> It's geographically close enough.

<comment><USER13> It isn't geographically close enough to make the claim that living in SF is necessary because you work there.

Of course, even if the office was _in_ SF that wouldn't be justified. It's hardly unusual for people to commute into SF from places with lower living costs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [http://www.trulia.com/property/3223512589-714-Douglass-St- Sa...](http://www.trulia.com/property/3223512589-714-Douglass-St-San- Francisco-CA-94114)

[http://www.trulia.com/property/3224704811-407-Loreto-St- Moun...](http://www.trulia.com/property/3224704811-407-Loreto-St-Mountain- View-CA-94041)

[http://www.trulia.com/property/3164651301-1625-NE-Marine- Dr-...](http://www.trulia.com/property/3164651301-1625-NE-Marine-Dr-Portland- OR-97211)

[http://www.trulia.com/property/3152279353-109-Syrah-Cir- Aust...](http://www.trulia.com/property/3152279353-109-Syrah-Cir-Austin- TX-78738)

Of course, life isn't about how big/nice your house is. But at some point you realize you've just been working on a CRUD app the last few years (and not changing the world with a self-driving AI satellite hyperloop), you can't cross your apartment without stubbing your toe, and you have enough money for whatever you want but no time or room for anything, and maybe (just maybe) there's delicious food outside silicon valley, too.

<comment><USER16> Markets reveal preferences

<comment><USER17> They also stay irrational longer than you'd expect.

<comment><USER16> So how many decades now?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've been wanting to leave the Bay Area for at least 3 years -- Seattle, Austin, or Berlin. I don't love California, but really dislike virtually everything about San Francisco. Of course, I've been working in San Francisco for 21 months now, but that's because of a specific company -- otherwise I'd be gone, at least to the South Bay.

SFBA is not a good place to hire engineers, unless you're heavily funded AND a clear winner and need to hire a bunch of diverse types. For anything else, I could find other places which are far superior.

It's a great place to hire professional services to support startups, and the best place in the world, hands down, to raise money. YC being here makes it great early on, too. I think investors become less location-sensitive as you get to later stages, if you're winning.

The biggest problem is if you're selling b2b to tech companies at all, you can literally bump into your customers here.

With my next startup, I plan to do Seattle (probably) or Austin for a US office, with a small SFBA presence, and then Berlin, and run EU and US companies as separate entities with separate officers, so people can choose if they want to be customers of a US or EU company. Maybe add other location in the future.

(I'd obviously be doing something in the infosec space, which is becoming increasingly jurisdiction sensitive.)

I absolutely encourage people to work in SFBA for a while to build a network, but after that, GTFO unless you really want to be here.

<comment><USER19> Out of curiosity, why would you prefer other US cities over a Californian city? (That is, why don't you love California. Also excluding European alternatives.)

<comment><USER18> CA laws (guns, primarily; taxes, secondarily, and a bunch of other stuff. Guns are a personal thing for me, but the rest has business impact.). I'd also like to actually be involved in my community somewhere, but everything about SF (and CA) is repellent to doing that. (In Bellevue/Issaquah/etc., I'd happily be a volunteer EMT or even reserve PD officer; might get involved in local non-partisan politics. There is no way I'd ever want to do anything like that in SF.)

There are also no non-SFBA cities in CA that I'd actually want to do an infosec startup in. The set of places I'd personally consider (in no real order) is: Seattle, Portland, SFBA, Austin, DC-Metro, Boston, Boulder/Denver, SLC, Raleigh/Durham. I dislike NYC and Chicago but those are also viable (also dislike Atlanta; might be ok). I actually like Las Vegas, Nashville, and Louisville, but they would be challenging. I think Houston, Dallas, Miami, Phoenix, LA, San Diego, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh could work, but not sure. Some other big university places (Ann Arbor being the canonical example) could be fine if you're from there.)

<comment><USER20> so you're going to move to Europe due to it's liberal gun laws?

<comment><USER18> I'm willing to sacrifice for ~5-10y due to all the other benefits Berlin has. (And German gun laws aren't UK/Japan level)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I moved my family (wife, 2 kids) from SF/Bay Area to Seattle in 2011 after living down there for a decade (and loved most of it). Worked in downtown SF, lived in the East Bay. For a while there, we could drive our Prius over the bridge in the HOV lane - and bypass tolls - and I could get to work from my house in 18 minutes. We owned a home in El Cerrito near Albany with some initial d/p help from family. It was a very nice neighborhood, walkable, and close to BART (which we also used regularly). The house was small, but we made it work. But the school situation was horrific. Either go to so-so schools which lacked financial support at the time, or pay upwards of 20K for private school kindergarten. Nope! In Seattle, with as much public angst as there is for the schools here, they are light years ahead of the public options we had before us down there. Everything up here just feels easier. Stress reduced, larger house for kids to grow up in, neighborhood where everyone knows everyone else no matter where you go - I've never experienced this type of community my whole life. And the tech sector has plenty of opps here, too.

We love it.

To be fair, my wife has to commute to SF at least twice a month for her job, so she still gets her SF fix. I, on the other hand, have gone pure North West. I've got my Subaru to prove it. ;)

</comment><comment><USER22> Made the transition from SV to Brooklyn. Wages are basically the same, housing is much more affordable (our apartment would be at least 2k more per month in San Francisco), and there are people here who do things that are not tech! Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of startups and great companies with offices in Brooklyn and Manhattan, but it's SO refreshing to be around people who don't just want to pitch their startup or talking about growth hacking.

I'm very happy with the change. I do miss the beauty of the pacific northwest, but otherwise it's been great.

<comment><USER23> Wow, your housing in Brooklyn is MORE affordable vs SV? What neighborhood are you in? Brooklyn has some of the highest housing costs in the country and is on par with Manhattan at times depending on the neighborhood.

<comment><USER24> Brooklyn is expensive, but it's quite a bit cheaper than the Bay Area at this point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's just so fucking expensive to live here, and coupled with the constant drumbeat of money money money, and seeing the vast differences in wealth, it's just so so depressing.

<comment><USER26> Glad you pointed out the vast differences in wealth as a negative of the Bay Area. Even if you're not an envious person by nature, it's really depressing and grates on you when you see it day in and day out. A 15 minute drive can take you from "bullets whizzing over your head crime and poverty" to filthy, shameful mega-wealth. Parking my Toyota between a Tesla and a Maserati when I go downtown with the family. People at work talking about paying [my salary * 0.5] for their kid's private school. Sheesh...

I come from a small town where the best off made maybe 3X the worst off. The Bay Area is total culture shock.

<comment><USER27> > People at work talking about paying [my salary * 0.5] for their kid's > private school. Sheesh...

Before you judge too much, consider that some (not all) of those folks might be paying that because they live in an area that has failing public schools, and they may be living in that area because they can't afford housing in an area with better public schools. Many middle to upper-middle class people find themselves faced with that choice.

In California overall, aside from anomalies like San Francisco itself, wealthier cities correlate with better public schools, and the correlation is > linear.

<comment><USER28> And where public schools are good, it feeds back on itself, esp in Cupertino and Palo Alto. Good schools draw in tech millionaires, who supplement their kids' public education with private tutors and summer school booster classes. Scores go up, house prices follow. Seems like there is an infinite supply of newly minted tech millionaires to consume all available housing. And to be fair, who wouldn't want what's best for their kids? It's a culture of being the best.

<comment><USER26> I'd love to know where all these "tech millionaires" are coming from, because there are only so many companies in the Valley, and they each only have a handful of top execs. Yet there are thousands upon thousands of $1MM+ houses and people are buying them left and right...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> A question I have for you folks who left SF for a smaller town: Aren't you worried about what you'll do if/when you lose your job or have to leave? In the Bay Area, you walk across the street resume in hand to one of the 5 tech companies in that office park and you're all set (in the best times), or you tough it out through a 3-6 month job search (in not so great times). In small town America, you may be working for the only tech company in 200 miles. What happens when the recession comes? I moved from small-town tech to SF tech for the employment security.

<comment><USER29> Talk to someone who lived through the first dot-com crash. A lot of good folks were moving _from_ the bay area, because they couldn't find jobs. Living here is no guarantee of anything, except (possibly) of a higher cost of living.

Tech is such a weirdly age-distorted industry that there seems to be no historical memory. They forget that as recently as 2009, a lot of highly qualified people around here were struggling to get work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Ok, counterpoint:

I moved to SF from NYC about 3 years ago and, yes, it's now definitely more expensive than NYC.

But I've built a friend network here that's absolutely unsurpassed in my short 37 years on this earth. I feel more at home in SF than I ever did in NYC - <USER2> see friendly faces all around the city, I run into people when out for a walk, I've got a group of people I cycle with regularly.

So - for that reason - even if you offered me 2x what I earn and a home/apartment 3x the size - I wouldn't even give leaving a minute's thought.

How does that play into the thinking for other folks? Do the folks who are thinking of just picking up and leaving not have friends they care about? There's got to be more to where you live than whether or not you own a home (and how big it is)....

<comment><USER31> I lived in the bay for 10 years - 2004-2014. Half of my friends from there are now up in Seattle where I am. Wait until you stop seeing all those friendly familiar faces around the city because their landlord decided to sell the place. I don't think I have any friends left in the bay that are in an industry other than tech.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm at a London based startup (MarketInvoice) that's open to sponsoring work visas and we've seen an increasing number of candidates from SF, not only for tech roles but across the board.

London isn't exactly known for cheap housing so there's likely other factors at play.

</comment><comment><USER33> Shameless plug: [http://www.visitgreenvillesc.com/](http://www.visitgreenvillesc.com/)

Greenville and Charleston, SC are working pretty hard to become tech hubs. Charleston is booming to a degree that housing is starting to go the way of SF (which is nuts in this area) but Greenville and it's surrounding cities have virtually no risk of that degree of price inflation. There's just too much land and space.

I live in Easley, which is about 10 minutes from downtown Greenville and you can get a decent 1100 square foot, 2 BR/2BTH apartment with washer/drier for about $500 / month.

Houses tend to run between 80-110 / sqft.

Also, food is awesome: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73GcUAb2HO0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73GcUAb2HO0)

<comment><USER34> I grew up in Greenville and am moving back in a month. I would love to connect. You didn't have anything in your profile, so feel free to drop me a line to the email in my profile, if you want.

<comment><USER35> Oh hi Greenville people! I don't have a ton to add really but since the city almost never comes up on Hacker News I just wanted to chime in. Was born there and lived there until I went to college. Mom still lives there so I visit once or twice a year. Great lil' town.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> If your mindset is $$$ first it doesn't matter where you live. We have a ton of valley expats here in Portland. The ones who are really artists and creatives at heart and work to subsidize their outside lives tend to thrive here. The ones who just want to live more cheaply end up miserable because this is not California North.

Wanna move to Portland? By all means come on up! But leave your dot-com privilege and your "live to impress VC's" mentality back home. Come to Oregon and be an Oregonian.

Also- if you're attached to your car, Portland is not for you. The commutes from the 'burbs are as nasty as the Bay Area, and the inner city is made for biking and walking. Your car is good for the weekends- getting to the Coast and the Mountains- but not for your work week. Change your perspective on commuting. This ain't CAr-ifornia

Note- I said "weekends", meaning Saturday and Sunday when you are not working. If that is a foreign concept to you, Oregon is not for you.

<comment><USER37> Holy cow are you a character from Portlandia?

I mean I was fine with most of what you said until you literally wrote, CAr- ifornia. What? People actually use that word and expect to be taken seriously?

I mean maybe there are people who talk too much about VCs, but your post didn't make you sound any better than those people. Talk about exclusionary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I came to the bay area five years ago from Ohio where I was working a soul- sucking job. I have two roommates and a SO, and my rent is $800 (my cost) for a two bedroom loft in Potrero hill.

I get the opportunity to work at an amazing startup and have been able to build a specialization in mapping technologies. On the weekends, I can hike or take a day trip or go to Sausalito, Angel Island, or just hang out and get high at Delores Park. Sometimes it feels like life isn't real we are so privileged around here, despite all the negativity.

I've made lifelong friends and connections here who "get me" more any other place I've lived. The gay community here is also especially strong...and weird! ;-P

It makes me sad that people are struggling, but I think the key is to value your experiences and spend the best part of your life less consumed with strict acquisition of wealth, and more with the depth and richness of experience. Of course that's a trade off.

Here's my advice on the bay area:

Don't rent an apartment in SOMA. Don't be consumed with trying to buy a house. Learn to accept living with roommates even though you make 6-figures and your friends back home are buying huge houses on far less. Forget about trying to save a lot of money. Be creative in your living situation if you want to save money. Enjoy your life and all that SF has to offer. I've lived all over the world and there's no place like it.

I guess for most people they are consumed with having kids and feel pressure to own a home and save for retirement. I've been able to save money and keep my living expenses down by having roommates, but I know owning a home here is probably out of my reach and that's OK. If you're unhappy here and really want to live a different lifestyle, and SF isn't able to provide you what you need to be happy, I would say you should move so you can give someone else the chance to be happy and thrive here.

<comment><USER39> > Learn to accept living with roommates even though you make 6-figures and > your friends back home are buying huge houses on far less.

I'm glad you like the Bay Area and this is a great post. If this is what it takes to love the Bay Area it's no wonder people would want to leave. But you are right. The extraordinary expense of living there will chase a lot of privileged people away because they don't want to pay the price. (Unfortunately some of the less privileged cannot be so flexible.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> After leaving the YC startup I co-founded, then doing consulting in SF for about 6 months after, I decided to leave the valley at the end of 2015.

Where did I move to? Medellin, Colombia. While I'm not sure I'll stay here forever and may move back to SF at some point, I'm definitely enjoying living down here for the moment. I'm doing remote software consulting, so I am geographically agnostic.

I definitely miss friends, the hustle, and being surrounded by smart people in SF. However, there are a lot of things I do not miss about SF. For example:

Prices: SF <> Medellin

Rent: $2000 (mediocre) <> $300 (nice, best part of town)

Nice restaurant dinner: $30-40 <> $10-15

Uber (20 mins): $25 <> $3

</comment><comment><USER41> As a happy engineer in LA, I'm pretty sad to see we're not in the top 8. I just wanted it say that the tech industry here is pretty great and you should all check it out. Actually, talent is pretty hard to come by down here and plenty of companies are hiring.

<comment><USER42> What about the traffic and commute?

<comment><USER43> I got a job in Santa Monica, while living in Long Beach. Commute was painful at 45-60 min, and I only had to be at work by 10:30.

I moved into a 1BR for $1500 in nearby Culver City, which cut my commute down to 20-25 minutes. Not so bad. I'm across the street from a little downtown area with bars, restaurants, a movie theatre, 3 yoga studios, and a grocery store. Fairly walkable.

The job market is pretty hot. The problem in my job search was lining up interviews to get as many offers as possible at once so I could have my pick of the litter.

And even nicer weather than the Bay Area to boot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I always thought it was incredibly ironic that an industry that's responsible for creating the virtual world would require all those working to create it to live in the same physical neighborhood.

</comment><comment><USER45> Don't worry, it will happen naturally when the current tide recedes. I think a lot of older people underestimate how flexible young people, especially ones who graduated into the financial crisis, are.

<comment><USER46> Interestingly, the opposite is true: young people are actually _less_ willing to relocate for work than previous generations.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/the-go- nowh...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/the-go-nowhere- generation.html)

<comment><USER47> That's really interesting; I wonder why that's the case. My girlfriend and I are split on this particular issue. I have no problem moving around to wherever the best job offers are (even if they're in a different country), whereas she wants to stay in the town she grew up in — or at least within a few hours drive of it.

The difference may come down to how we grew up; my father traveled quite a bit when we were younger, so I lived in France from ages 3-6. I thought those few years added to my life experience and gave me a unique cultural perspective. My girlfriend never moved growing up though, and she believes that moving hurts the friendships that young children develop. To be honest, I'm not sure who's right. I was always kind of introverted, so I didn't have particularly strong attachments, but she is very outgoing and extroverted and still keeps in touch with friends from elementary school.

<comment><USER46> I suspect the root cause is related to women's rights (and that's mostly a good thing).

50 years ago, if your girlfriend said she didn't want to move but you got a job across the country you would probably both move across the country. In part that's because you would likely be the primary income for the two of you and partly because women's wants were not often considered as equally important as men's wants.

Would that have been true in every case two generations ago? Maybe not. And would it still be true in some cases today? Probably. But the odds have changed over time quite dramatically. My wife earns nearly the same salary that I do (and made waaay more back when I was a student). We can't move somewhere unless we both have job offers lined up.

Also, our culture now has a rather unhealthy (imho) obsession with trying to make life perfect for our children that previous generations were less inclined towards.

<comment><USER48> There are concrete reasons to choose a place to raise children, unrelated to obsessive parenting. I moved to a rural community. The kids could go out the door with a backpack and sandwiches on a summer day, wander all morning exploring, and still be at home. Harder to do in the city. Not so many frogs, salamanders, redwing blackbirds and creeks to explore there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I've been wondering, as someone who has been observing the Bay Area on the outside, is it really the cost of living that's so high or just the cost of housing?

I've been looking at some of the stats here:

[http://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/city/california/pal...](http://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/city/california/palo_alto)

[http://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/city/california/san...](http://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/city/california/san_francisco)

It seems that aside from housing, everything else is just moderately higher.

Compare that to NYC, which is also on the list:

[http://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/city/new_york/new_y...](http://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/city/new_york/new_york)

If it's just housing that's insanely expensive, I could see why some have been trying to arbitrage the situation by living in alternate housing arrangements (think RVs), such as some notorious cases with Google employees.

<comment><USER50> My opinion is it's the cost of housing that people mainly talk about here, but often call it "cost of living". Don't get me wrong; housing is definitely part of cost of living, but if you own or are have been renting in a rent controlled situation then you don't have much to complain about really.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> This article is strange to me. The conclusion it tries to get you to draw is that the Bay Area is expensive to live at so techies are now starting to leave. The data they draw this conclusion from is search data for jobs. The number 1 place on that list; New York City. So people are leaving SF Bay Area to go to NYC, because it is cheaper?

<comment><USER52> I'm guessing NYC is at the top simply because it hosts the greatest number of opportunities. it's the rest of the list that's telling. the article also points out that the age 30-40 cohort represents the greatest portion of searches, which could indicate a natural course of settling down with family etc.

[which further proves to me that suburbs are not dead. it's merely been the vocal majority (millennials) blabbering on about big city living and how they'll never do this or that, only to hit the family creation stage in life and realize they were naive to think in such extreme absolutes]

<comment><USER53> I don't think this is a millenial problem, this is true of the young adult population in every generation. One trend I've noticed is that those who grow up in suburbs tend to prefer cities in their 20s, and those who grew up in cities tend to prefer urbanized suburbs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I can mention one reason why it could happen and would:

      Price

Taking your IT out of SF and SV means you could spend the money you save on offices and increase developers salary.

On the other side for developers it could mean better earnings with less being spent on paying rent and other services which could lead to more savings for you.

At industry level this would translate to a competitive advantage as you can build a service cheaper.

<comment><USER55> Salary increases will certainly not happen. Most likely the opposite.

<comment><USER56> That seems counter to other professions. You typically have to pay people more to live in the less desirable areas. Everyone wants to live in <insert cool city here>, so you can pay them less.

<comment><USER55> That's not my experience. My company transfers people to India to be point person with an outsourcing company. After a year they get a huge pay cut "because India is so cheap". I highly doubt any computer company will pay people in Kansas City more than in SF. Other industries or the government might but not high tech.

<comment><USER57> Does any one stay more than a year then? I looked it going ex pat with a big uk company and it was quite a nice package.

<comment><USER55> They don't. That may be by design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> After eight years in Silicon Valley, we returned home to Seattle last year. Bought a huge house on an acre with awesome schools. Now that I'm a parent, it just wasn't worth the cognitive dissonance of doing very well financially, but not being able to buy my family a good home. There are definitely things I miss, but overall, it was absolutely the right move to make.

The job market, while 1/10th what is was back in the valley, is still great. Now that Microsoft is embracing open source, the vast pool of talent that was previously locked away in msft's proprietary tech will be free to leave and spin off many new start ups over the next few years.

SF in your 20s, South Bay in your early 30s and Seattle when you have a family.

<comment><USER7> I moved the opposite direction. Granted, I'm only in my mid-30s, but I have no plans to move back to the Northwest. I love it when I visit, but I realize what you see of an area when you visit is very different from when you live there. I always visit when weather is nice, I don't mind the traffic as much when I'm on vacation..

Granted, the traffic on the Peninsula has gotten really bad in the past few years, it's ALMOST as bad as Seattle!

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> TL;DR:

Indeed.com, a job search site, published stats that show how tech workers in the Bay Area, and especially those from age 31 to 40, are increasingly looking for job opportunities outside, mostly in New York, Austin, Seattle.

This might be attributed to the search for a balance between happiness and opportunity.

Also, this type of migration is common in other parts of the world, and tech companies are willing to follow these trends, such as Facebook opening offices in Austin and Seattle, or Google in Portland.

Shameless plug: I started posting summaries of HN stories here: [https://github.com/simonebrunozzi/MNMN](https://github.com/simonebrunozzi/MNMN)

</comment><comment><USER52> surprised Denver/Boulder isn't on this list.

I've gone from lusting over migrating my career to the Bay Area, to becoming almost completely averse to the idea over the last two years.

<comment><USER60> How are/how many dev jobs are in Boulder?

<comment><USER61> Lots of stuff happening in the metro area.

Boulder is more startupy and small to medium size companies, but just southwest of Boulder is Interlocken, which has some biggish tech companies (Oracle and Level3 being the largest). Downtown Denver has all manners of software companies, from startups to big telcos. And then in south Denver (about 1-1.5 hours of commuting from Boulder) are a bunch of larger corporations (it's called the Denver Tech Center).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Come to Alpharetta, Ga (or Atlanta in general). It's great. Home prices are not terrible, taxes are not bad, great schools & people are friendly. Only real problem is traffic - staggered commutes and working from home can mitigate that.

<comment><USER62> Surprised at how many upvotes this has. If you honestly are looking for a coding position around here (Alpharetta), feel free to DM me (shoot me a tweet asking for refollow). I don't mind sending your info to my local contacts. I love building the local IT community. Great community, awesome local gov't support and large companies moving in daily. Honestly, it gets no better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> If I weren't in San Diego and in SV or SF instead, I'd move to another city like Los Angeles, or where I am now. Most other US states allow noncompetes. I won't sign a noncompete so unless they'll let me work without one, I won't be working outside of California.

Additionally, California labor laws are more employee friendly when compared to other states.

I know this limits my choices as businesses are leaving California due to the employee-friendly labor laws and the high cost of housing, but I'm semi- retired anyway so it doesn't matter to me. I can be choosy when it comes to taking a job.

</comment><comment><USER64> The tech industry needs to be more global, why is it, that we build global communities on the internet, take pride of them, yet, we cannot make it work if we're more than 100 cm away from each other.

<comment><USER65> People keep asking this, along with why people love the bay area with it's high cost of living. It has to be obvious that a great swath of people are willing to pay high rent/housing costs to have access to: lots of sunshine, bright people everywhere, top notch arts, culture, food scenes, good universities. And that should be enough of an answer. Silicon Valley isn't more international because they don't have to be.

<comment><USER48> Yet there are so many other places with almost all of that. And not the high cost of living.

<comment><USER65> well, i forgot the most important part: be in a cluster of a jobs, opportunity and entrepreneurship. Where else is going to match all that? Taken together, NorCal leads the world in spades,

<comment><USER48> I've worked for Silicon Valley startups all my life. From Iowa. Remotely.

<comment><USER65> Sure. But you live in Iowa. You may like it, but many people don't. It's great that it works for you. As a visible minority, I wouldn't be too comfortable myself in any of the flyover states. The lack of diversity and general ignorance (But where are you FROM?) is not worth $200/month rent to me.

<comment><USER48> I live in Iowa City (well, near it). Its got the University of Iowa, with a population of faculty, staff and students from 100 countries. Its hard to stand out here. And in the top 10 cities in America for PhD's per-capita.

But thanks for the vote of confidence!

Joe Flyover

<comment><USER65> Per capita. That's great. I went to school in a place similar to that (Waterloo). Extremely diverse, smart people abound, blah blah. Still once you move on from campus life, it's about as boring and whitewashed as one would expect. There's cool stuff going on, but it's like 1 or 2 things. Not many. The stimulation dies off. fast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> I pay $6/sq ft for my office in Braddock, right outside of Pittsburgh, PA.

...that's $6/sq ft for a year.

So two months paying for my two bedroom apartment, in Mountain View, can get me more than a year of rent for my office.

<comment><USER67> Pittsburgh is rather cheap, and it has CMU. It might be because I live here that see it in tech news every so often.

There's a lot more places up for rent lately, because the fracking bubble popped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> _D'Arcy said this type of migration—from big to smaller cities—is common around the world. The same patterns can be found in the UK and Germany, for example, with people moving from London to Cambridge and Berlin to Munich._

This is a strange comment, given that 5 of the 8 cities listed as top destinations outside of San Francisco are larger cities/metro areas.

</comment><comment><USER69> Bay Area native here. Born basically at 17 and 85, aside from some months living in Europe, I've lived in the Bay Area my whole life. With my current role, I work at home full time unless traveling -- I do go up to SF now and then to hang out with other team mates who do go into the office. I like the flexibility, the lack of time spent in a car, etc.

That said, we will likely relocated for a period of time later this year/early next north of Seattle for a bit of a change (ties there). That may dictate the overall plans we have.

Honestly, while having strong ties here (and owning a house) I'm not wedded to this area. Cost for the quality of life (I live in Santa Cruz) is ridiculous -- crime, drugs, etc. -- surfing and biking are great though.

I suspect the balance we will end up finding is part time in CA, part time in WA, and part time in Europe -- we both currently have location independent jobs.

</comment><comment><USER70> I never went to SV or the Bay Area for work, instead opting for NYC since I lived nearby anyway (nearby being within 3 hours). It's a similar issue, though. Housing is way too much. Taxes are horrendous. You make a good salary, but the cost to live there is rough, especially if you have a family.

I still work for a NYC-based company, I just work remotely from Richmond, VA. I like it better this way. I may not always work for a NYC co, but I will stay here. I bought a house last year that would be well into the millions in NYC's commutable suburbs. My kids go to just as good of a school as they did in NJ. There is no traffic to speak of.

If you have a dream of being in one of those cities, one of those scenes, then by all means, go for it. It's just not for me (and from what I can see, a lot of other folks on here).

</comment><comment><USER71> I 'grew up' in the Valley, 80's and 90's, lucky enough to wise up and leave it by way of a move to Europe. Never looked back.

My personal, subjective reality is that the reason to leave the valley is this: culture. Which is to say, by way of corollary, a reason to _Be_ in the Valley is this: the lack of culture.

Let me explain what I mean by culture: If you have to drive and park, its not culture.

After 15 years of success in the Valley as a relatively content systems software developer, what it boiled down to was this: can I take a bus where I need to go? No?

Well, go where the buses are. Go where the train, is.

Too many long days spent in dread of the ride home, the inevitable gear- grinding maelstrom of disaster that starts on the onramp and doesn't end until you get to your generic hide-away.

Cars: a reason to move.

<comment><USER72> why don't you just say you don't like cars, instead of redefining what human culture means? that would be a lot easier.

<comment><USER73> While I find the comment you replied to poorly stated, I think I can buy the point if modified slightly. No matter how great any city's culture is, cities that require one to spend a significant amount of time commuting inherently limit the culture that can be experienced in any given day. I don't see how an hour car ride vs. an hour bus/train/bike ride operates any differently in this regard though inasmuch as the time spent is non-optional for traversing the city.

<comment><USER74> You were describing life in the valley, not the city. People in the city walk and bike and ride muni and uber.

<comment><USER73> Well, I wasn't describing anything, just thinking a little bit about a post I really didn't care for at first. I've never thought about the impact of travel on culture much, so I found it interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> I've been working from home of the past four years. About once or twice a month I get an email from a recruiter from the Bay Area. I in turn reply that I'd be interested if I didn't have to relocate and can continue working from home, to which they usually reply no.

At what point in this tech worker shortage/drastic expensive economy do I convince one of these companies that I'd be a better value working remotely, even willing to work for less salary? The tooling is so good now it almost seems like I'm in an office anyway. And the irony is many of these companies already have distributed teams that use these tools.

What am I missing?

<comment><USER76> It seems like we have some fully remote startups (Buffer) and SMBs (Basecamp) that embrace this culture.

But I think the problem is that you're being contacted by recruiters in the bay at big tech cos. The small cos. might not have a recruiter, and the big cos. grew big without a remote-first culture.

<comment><USER75> Those companies are definitely on the bleeding edge of remote work culture, but there seem to be many others who would hire someone remote if it were the right fit (my company for example). I've been contacted by outside recruiters and corporate recruiters big and small, but when in comes to bay area they always seem to be hellbent on you being on site.

Then again, maybe it's because I'm not really looking, and I'm being contacted by those who are just grasping at straws at that point.

<comment><USER76> That's a good point -- not willing to relocate can certainly be interpreted ambiguously.

My company is a mid-stage startup of ~30 distributed across Cincinnati (75%), NYC (20%), and SF (5%). I would say we're semi-remote: most of our tech team works from home 1-4 days per week. I've personally done a few trips working remotely in another U.S. city one week at a time. In our case the culture isn't quite ready to accommodate a person being _fully remote_ , though I'm hoping to be the guinea pig.

For anyone reading this and looking for fully remote, there's a nice "database" of remote jobs in this GitHub repo.

[https://github.com/jessicard/remote- jobs](https://github.com/jessicard/remote-jobs)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> I guess it depends on what you want. I think it's fair to say that most work places outside of SV have less innovation (with some exceptions of course). I'm saying this as someone who moved from Texas to SV.

For me personally, there are tons of activities to do and not enough time in SV, which wasn't the case in Texas. It's a fast paced life and it took a while to get used to.

Yes there are negatives: cost of living, taxes, commute etc. but I'm okay with this trade off. IMO, I don't need 4 acres of land in the middle of suburbia or nowhere with nothing to do.

</comment><comment><USER78> and here I am thinking, surely Silicon Valley will be nothing like Vancouver, we are all leaving Vancouver for better paying jobs and housing we can afford.

<comment><USER79> Seattle and SF are way beyond Vancouver's unaffordability ratio. Vancouver is cheap.

<comment><USER80> Software Engineers in Vancouver make ~US$45,000 a year...

It's much, much less affordable there than Seattle or SF, trust me.

<comment><USER79> Where in Vancouver are you making $45K? I have dozens of companies on file that are seeking engineers in the 80-110K range.

<comment><USER78> pay is shit in Vancouver especially now due to USDCAD rates.

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18UwaThgGikSXzinnLNHx...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18UwaThgGikSXzinnLNHx7P3_HQSenggWbV262_UmuTk)

<comment><USER79> Your table is conveniently lacking the salary ranges I've been offered from over a dozen higher paying companies in the city...

      In fact, not a single company that pays well whom I've talked to is on your list other than Amazon and Microsoft  (Whom will pay a whole lot more if you point the spread out to them).

<comment><USER81> I am the original creator of the spreadsheet.

Proof: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18UwaThgGikSXzinnLNHx...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18UwaThgGikSXzinnLNHx7P3_HQSenggWbV262_UmuTk/edit?usp=sharing)

I am planning on converting this data to website that will keep track of what tech employers are in the city. Kind of like HackerBatch but just listing companies, not delivering job postings. (Also, it will be available to the public, not just UBC/SFU students. You won't have to get 50 students from your school to sign up like with HackerBatch, either.)

For the moment, I'm protecting the sheet so I have a stable source from which to work. Stay tuned...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> As Yogi Berra said, "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."

</comment><comment><USER83> If you look for a coding job in Europe, Zurich is a great place to live and is the only place where net-salaries are on par with the Bay Area.

Salaries are in the range of 7000 - 12000 CHF / month after taxes and apartments can be way cheaper than in San Francisco.

I am a technical recruiter with a software engineering background and I live in Zurich. You find my email address in my HN-handle.

<comment><USER84> Zurich is one of the most expensive cities in the world to live[1], though I have fond memories of when I did my postdoc there. I lived downtown a block from the Hell's Angels, 4 blocks from where the junkies and hookers hung out, and it was still cleaner than most parts of San Francisco. [1] [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=cost+of+living+index+z...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=cost+of+living+index+zurich+vs+san+francisco)

<comment><USER83> That is right but Zurich is tiny and almost everyone lives "in the suburbs" where the rents are half as much and which only means a 10-15 min commute[1] to town (using the superb public transport).

[1]"Living in the suburbs" anywhere else in the world but Switzerland means a >1h commute...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> Boston fell off the map. Whatever happened?

It seems like New York, Bay Area, and Austin, TX have become the three large Internet/App tech hubs.

<comment><USER86> The latest complaints in Austin is the lack of access to large VC money. Personally I see that as a good thing. Go be profitable and bootstrap a bit before looking for money.

<comment><USER85> VC money is stupid. Mark Cuban took VC money at the very last minute.

The latest incarnation of VC-backed tech companies leave very little for the founding members.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87> So here's a question: _why_ do you absolutely need to __own __a house? I 'm 28, still haven't figured out why people are so obsessed with the idea of owning.

What practical benefits does it give you? All I can see are many many downsides.

edit: I can see it making more sense if you can pay the whole sum in full on the day of purchase.

<comment><USER88> The money you spend on your mortgage (minus interest) is still yours, in the form of equity. If/when you sell, you get that money back, modulo market fluctuations. Or your kids get it via inheritance.

When you rent, you might as well be lighting that money on fire.

There are a few other terms in the equation (property taxes in particular) but that's it in a nutshell.

<comment><USER87> I've heard that argument a lot. Then I calculate how much a mortgage costs for an apartment in a place I'd like to live in. And the mortgage payments are literally _more_ than for rent.

Take SF for example. I'd need $1mil to buy an apartment. At 30 years, that gives me a mortgage payment of $4700.

Rent for a similar apartment is $3400. And I don't have to pay for upkeep.

So if my rent stays the same, I will have saved almost $40,000 in the next 30 years.

I can do a lot with an extra $1300 per month.

Not to mention I can maintain my desired lifestyle of moving every 2 years or so.

<comment><USER31> You realize at the end of those 30 years, you're happy to have $40,000 over $1,000,000 (in the form of a property you can now sell) right?

<comment><USER87> I don't.

My grandparents have a "property they can now sell". They never will. They've been investing in it and adding to it for so long that it has become useless to any potential buyer, and parts of it are now so old they really really need repairs.

They cannot afford to sell because the investment to make it sellable for a good price is too high. Nobody would want to buy because the investment to turn it into a useable large house, is too high.

So instead they turned a tiny part of the house into an apartment for themselves because the costs of living in the whole thing are too high. They turn on the heating in the rest of the house just enough during winter to keep the pipes from freezing.

None of the kids want to inherit the property. None of the grandkids want it either.

The location isn't that great either because the economic activity the location was great for (wine) is now in tatters and the government is paying people to please for the love of god stop making wine and cut down their vineyards.

My mum has a nice flat in a downtown area. She recently had to go into debt to afford to fix it up. She could potentially sell, but then she'd have nowhere to live. She's too young to buy a rural house (same price) because she still goes to work. She's too entrenched to deal with finding a new apartment somewhere else. And she'd have to pay more for a new apartment than she'd get for her current flat. At 50-ish, she also doesn't really want to go into another 10+ year mortgage.

So ... no, I don't see the value in owning.

Basically: Having all your wealth tied up in an illiquid asset is twoplus not good.

<comment><USER31> If the land and property aren't worth anything, thats an awful investment I'll grant you.

Regarding your mum - I assume there are rent controls in her area - in mine (Western US) there aren't necessarily those. If she rented she'd have been priced out of her flat years ago as the landlord ups the rent to market rates or "renovate".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> Moved to Portland recently. If you move here, don't tell people you're from the Bay Area. They don't like your kind around here.

The quality of life is 500% better here in Portland than the Bay Area. Even if housing prices were the same, I would still prefer living in Portland.

<comment><USER90> Naw, us stumptowners don't mind y'all moving up here. Just don't be spreading lies about how great life in Portland is. Sucks up here, rains all the time, can't find a good cup of joe or pint of beer to save your life. Did I mention the rain?

<comment><USER89> oh, actually you're right. I forgot about all that. It does suck here, you all don't want to come here, too wet. Beer sucks so bad, no good food anywhere. Nothing to see here, carry on.

<comment><USER91> I'm natively from Portland and moved to the Bay Area. Portland is comparatively boring, even in terms of nature.

I am serious, but my thoughts have the added benefit of deterring people from moving to Portland :)

<comment><USER89> There's always an exception to the rule.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER92> I moved to Europe a few years ago, though entirely for personal reasons and not because of the cost of living in the SF Bay Area. I'm sure I'd be making more money if I'd stayed, but I'm also pretty sure I wouldn't have the same quality of life.

I know others who did the same thing, and are doing fine over here ("here" being mostly Berlin but also further afield). I think the trick is to know what you're moving for, as opposed to what you're moving away from.

In most cases you will make less money, at least over time, and miss out on career opportunities. But there are other opportunities people in SF are missing out on. And as others have said, the income difference can easily be balanced out by a cost-of-living difference.

</comment><comment><USER93> My 2 cents as someone who left the Bay Area in 2003 and came back in 2014...

If you want to be at the core of a game changing software company that's got a decent shot of being a rocket ship, you're most likely to do it in the Bay Area. It isn't about getting rich, or cost of living or any of that. If you want a good stable technology job with a large house in a good school district, you can get it anywhere. If you want to maximize the likelihood of earning cash, hold your nose and go to Wall Street. If you want to work at Google or Facebook, you can live very well outside the Bay Area.

But... The best chance at grabbing onto the next Google or Facebook, it's best to go where these companies are sprouting from.

</comment><comment><USER94> If you don't do R&D, if you don't aspire to founding a successful startup, if you don't need to work with the smartest people on the latest tech... the Bay Area does not make sense. But if you check yes to any of those, you get what you pay for.

<comment><USER95> i am sorry but this is a very elitist comment, please consider all the successful startups that are born outside of Bay Area/US and really smart people who work on them...

<comment><USER94> I'm not disparaging those people. However, the fact is that the best and brightest give up a lot to move to the bay area and build the things that change the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> I'm not convinced this is a zero sum game. There will be a lot of small Silicon Valleys popping up. And as companies in these little valleys grow and/or die (germinating other companies), they will grow to be the size of SV and maybe support the capital costs of some of the moonshots that take place in SV. SV will always be there to welcome new entrants into the tech industry and foster old ones :).

Source: Proud Waterloo-ite surrounded by Ex-Blackberries. Possibly moving to the Valley soon.

P.S: Every region that wants to grow will face the real-estate crunch SV is. Look to your municipal laws/stucture to see how your region will weather this storm.

</comment><comment><USER97> Austin is a great city. I went to school there, lived there for 10 years, and went through Techstars there 10 years later.

But the cynic in me wants to point out that Indeed.com is based in Austin has a vested interest in bringing more talent to town.

<comment><USER98> Lived in Austin (Hyde Park), loved it, but it felt like I was constantly bidding up the price of things that used to be appealing because they were so fun, simple, and cheap. Barbecue, housing, Mother's, breakfast tacos... When I left in 2010, the only part of the city that still felt real and vital to me was Lamar north of Central Market. The part with the stip malls.

</comment></comment><comment><USER99> Of all the comments I see stating how happy they were to _leave_ San Francisco. I'm wondering if there's anyone in the opposite - happy _moving to_ San Francisco.

I live in Mid-Ohio (Columbus), and have been contemplating a move for some time. I know there's lots of tech companies outside of the Bay Area, but it seems like there's sooo much concentration there that I want to experience it at least for a short while. I was planning to try it out for a year or so, but now I'm not so sure.

FWIW, I make about 100k and but plan a significant increase when I transition into my own consulting full-time.

<comment><USER100> I was very happy to move to SF from the midwest, because: much better job (albeit with lower pay and much higher living costs), more walkable city, can- do/optimistic/accepting culture, better weather, more options in the job market. But things were much cheaper then and something's gotta give. If not for rent control, I might have moved away already.

<comment><USER99> Wow , I wasn't aware of rent control in SF, but a quick google search shows there's a big debate. Any suggestions on where to best look for apartments? From my brief visit (1 week trip) I really liked pretty much all over the downtown area, although it looks crazy expensive. I'll be living with my gf, so the rent would be split between the 2 of us which makes it easier.

<comment><USER100> The cool part of town where the new billionaires live is The Mission. Note that it is a transitional area with a more crimey side (east) and a more gentrified side (west). This is also the area where anti-tech-worker sentiment, violence, etc. is most common. The Castro is a nice, vibrant gayborhood in the south. The Tenderloin/Civic Center/Western SOMA are pretty gritty, but other than that the entire northeast quadrant is nice and walkable. The western half of the city has a more suburban flavor and worse weather, but it's cheaper.

In general, I'd recommend you take a short-term rental to explore the city rather than trying to lockdown a long-term rental from afar. Especially because the open houses are often open for an hour or two and result in waiting lists (dozens of would-be tenants) in length.

Also, just be aware of rent control. I think the market prices aren't any different between older (rent-controlled) and newer buildings, but after a couple of years of 20% pa price increases for the non-rent-controlled place, the rent controlled unit will be much relatively cheaper.

<comment><USER99> Thanks alot arebop :) And yeah, short term rental at first sounds like a good idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER101> There are a ton of people here in Bend who have had their fill of the bay area, and want a place where they can afford a decent house, have good schools, and so on.

Feel free to ping me if you're interested in the area.

<comment><USER61> And feel free to ping me if you'd like to hear me sing the praises of Boulder, CO.

<comment><USER75> Doesn't Boulder have similar high expense issues? I considered that area for all the tech opportunities, but found myself realizing I'd need to live 30+ miles away in Longmont for a house with a decent sized yard.

I also have been considering south of Denver but it has similar expense issues.

<comment><USER61> It's expensive for Colorado but I don't think it compares to SF or SV.

Houses with decent size yards are 450-600k in Boulder, depending on location and square footage (7000 SF lots). Low property taxes (CO has a counterpart to prop 13, TABOR, where every tax increase needs to be voted on by the public), a flat 4% state income tax, and great schools (in Boulder) add to the attraction, IMHO.

I haven't looked at the rental market for housing in depth, but I think you can get a 4br 2br ranch w basement for about 2000-2500/month.

Lived most of my adult life in Boulder so can't really speak to the real estate situation in south Denver.

<comment><USER101> I think your prices are optimistic:

[http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_rent/Boulder- CO/house,mobile...](http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_rent/Boulder- CO/house,mobile_type/30543_rid/3-_beds/1.5-_baths/any_days/40.245205,-104.867592,39.790863,-105.760232_rect/10_zm/)

<comment><USER61> The numbers I quoted are definitely anecdata, based on homes for rent over the past year in my south Boulder neighborhood, which is probably one of the more affordable.

Don't forget that Zillow will have the asking rent price, which is not always the same as the final rent.

But thanks for injecting some hard data into the discussion!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER102> Bad thing about Silicon Valley: All the burners. [1]

Nice thing about Silicon Valley: The quiet, peaceful time of year during which all the burners are on the playa. [2]

[1] [http://megagogo.co/](http://megagogo.co/)

[2] [https://www.jwz.org/blog/2014/08/i-wish-you-could-stay-on- th...](https://www.jwz.org/blog/2014/08/i-wish-you-could-stay-on-the-playa- forever-too)

</comment><comment><USER103> It's so surprising to me that so many of the posts here are about owning a house. Why is that so important? Sure, real-estate is a good investment, but it's a volatile one (especially given the current market in most major US cities).

I would not sacrifice my quality of life (diversity, food, education, etc.) to live somewhere else because it was cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER104> 12 years ago we moved from Silly Valley (where I worked for 20 years at places you've definitely heard of, and some start-ups) to the Seattle area. Great move, would do it again. With the exception of a little weather and geography (the motorcycling is definitely poorer up here), I don't miss SV at all.

I _definitely_ don't miss California. Never going back there.

</comment><comment><USER105> I want to design a system that will be fabricated in China, and sold to customers in Europe. I expect my engineers will work from home a lot of the time. Where should I locate the firm? I know! How about the most expensive fucking are in the USA, so I have to pay the highest possible salaries, which everyone will blow on basic living costs.

</comment><comment><USER106> I work for a nonprofit in DC. I have a higher standard of living, lower stress, shorter commute, and generally am happier than friends in the Bay Area making 120K, when I make about half that. It says something about my time in the valley that DC feels cheap.

</comment><comment><USER107> Regarding the specific case of working in SV while living in SV vs. commuting from SF:

I've lived in SV for about 9 years now. I know a lot of people who live up in SF and commute to SV. I don't know how accurate this is, but my observation is that SF housing prices are >= SV. The people that live in SF and commute to SV universally do it because they would prefer to live in SF for one reason or another, rather than for financial reasons.

When comparing what $x of housing will get you in SF vs. SV, the SF equivalent for the same price will have very different characteristics. The SV housing will likely be much newer and less unique than the SF housing, but it will also likely be in better condition than the SF housing.

Another huge aspect is the length of that commute. It's 60-90 minutes each way, every day. Some people are much more OK with that than others- I personally couldn't do it. The big SV companies have generally nice buses with bathrooms and wifi, where you might be able to get work done and might even be comfortable, but even so that means 3 hours/day on a bus. A nice bus, but still- 3 hours/day on a bus is 3 hours/day on a bus.

Now, some people will say that's great, because they use SF public transport and take the company bus to work and now they don't have to spend money on a car. In theory that sounds great, but what if you want a car? You're living in northern California, which I think is one of the most beautiful, varied, and interesting places in the world. Not owning a car means not being able to take off on a whim and go drive down Big Sur, or out to the desert, or Tahoe, or wherever. In theory a non-car-owner could rent a car when they want one and enjoy that lifestyle, but in practice most people end up sticking to destinations they can get to via public transit. That might not be a tradeoff everyone wants to make.

Ah, one might say, but you can have it both ways! You can own a car and live in SF, and still enjoy the commuter buses. Well, get ready to spend several hundred dollars a month on a place to store your car that you only use for weekend jaunts, road trips, and whatever needs pop up. Now the housing that was $x in SV that included car storage will cost you $(x + y) in SF, where $y is the cost of a parking space.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that SF and SV cost about the same but it's very hard to do an apples-to-apples comparison of what $x will get you in either place. The choice comes down to how an individual assigns weights to the pros and cons of each locale.

</comment><comment><USER108> It's interesting that almost all the comments are related to housing costs. If Silicon Valley dies as the premier tech hub it will be because there wasn't enough done to develop housing for a growing population. That would be such a shame.

<comment><USER28> What should be done, and by whom? New housing is going up all the time, but with the economy booming, demand is insatiable.

<comment><USER108> There is too much obstructionism to develop new housing. The pace of development is actually quite slow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER109> I left California (L.A.) for Raleigh three and half years ago and my quality of life skyrocketed. The pay is the same, the worst N.C. commute is half of the best California commute, and my mortgage is the same cost as my 650 sq ft apartment was.

<comment><USER110> can you explain what exactly have skyrocketed? I'm considering moving to NC

</comment></comment><comment><USER111> I left SV for Santa Barbara and could not be more happy. My compensation package took a hit but living expenses decreased proportionally. More importantly, I got my life back. My commute went from 90 mins to 15 mins and my family is happier.

</comment><comment><USER112> That's true, we're hiring in Boulder and Amsterdam, angel.co/stream

</comment><comment><USER113> This is happening. Finally.

</comment><comment><USER114> Construction of the Salesforce tower has started.

According to the skyscraper theory, there is an economic bubble set to burst in SF before 2018. Maybe this is one of the signals?

</comment><comment><USER115> What's it like to raise kids in SV? How are the public schools?

<comment><USER110> it's hard. Prices are really high, and land lords are not friendly. We've been discriminated two times, we found affordable apartments, but were said that little one will make noise for downstairs tenants. Complained to department of housing 2 months ago, no reply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What companies in other areas should people be looking at?

</comment><comment><USER116> And then what? All other houses are doubled. Does he cash out his "money for nothing" and live elsewhere or realise that the gap between his 2 bed and a 3 bed is now also twice as large.

Property speculation is utterly engraved into Western society now and it's killing it.

EDIT: it's interesting how people upvote this as they can see it's a truism, but downvote my post attacking land speculators.

NEWSFLASH: buying land and sitting on it to exploit scarcity creates no wealth. Therefore if you buy lower and sell higher that money comes from wealth created elsewhere, making you a leech. If you buy somewhere to live in, fine, but more than one place to speculate: you are leeching off of the labour of others.

EDIT: don't have time to reply now as i've got a prod issue to debug. Read up on Henry George or don't.

If you think making money from doing nothing then using the same money to consume goods is fine, well to hell with you.

<comment><USER117> I'm largely a believer in private property (and mostly libertarian even), but I really don't think that this dividing up the earth into tiny little squares and pushing everyone out of them in order to make money is defensible.

<comment><USER116> You're damn right it's not. We are effectively asking young people to join a game of monopoly that's been going for 2 hours. Would you play under those conditions? Well actually you have no choice thanks to the banks and their landlord foot-soldiers.

As _many_ economists have noted, land is not applicable to the general laws of economics because it is finite in supply.

We need land value tax to squash speculators who add nothing to the world, right now.

<comment><USER118> This is one of the most astute and coherent metaphors I have ever read about the subject.

<comment><USER116> It's not me. Read the history of the game monopoly, it's the polar opposite of the final product.

[http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/11/secret-h...](http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/11/secret- history-monopoly-capitalist-game-leftwing-origins)

Based on the work of Henry George.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER116> So you lost out due to people exploiting our flawed system which pushes all productivity gains to land speculators.

Then you went and got a rental.

Christ. People just love rentier activity. What is better than money for nothing!

<comment><USER119> Clearly you've never been a landlord.

<comment><USER116> Many landlords have made a lot of cash for themselves using leverage by sitting on property which is forcing up land prices. I think that's undisputed.

I know landlords always harp on about how hard their (chosen) path is but land prices have rocketed in SF due to this mentality. His post intimates it was a core reason for leaving. Then off he goes and joins those who let the plebs work for them once they can get a down-payment together.

<comment><USER120> Our laws facilitate the leaching of labor to land owners (feudalism). If it were easier to build a surplus of housing, this wouldn't be such an issue but between NIMBYism, zoning, local municipal red tape, and the near zero incentive from developers to build inexpensive housing units in mass quantities near urban centers, than this issue will remain siphoning any surplus of wealth from labor in cities (Silicon Valley, NYC, etc).

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11158398](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11158398)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10442929](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10442929)

<comment><USER3> Restrictions on construction and density drive the housing crisis in the Bay Area more than the desirability of the area or the economic opportunities, in my opinion. For example, if you can fetch a salary in Austin that is similar to one in San Jose, then opportunities between the two cities are the same. If you can live in a cool neighborhood in Brooklyn that has the same amenities as one in SF, then desirability is the same. The difference is that Austin has far fewer restrictions on development, geographical and legal, than SV. In the second case Brooklyn has far more legacy housing units than SF. In both cases the supply of housing is more in line with demand.

The high cost of housing in the Bay Area is partly due to geographical limitations, partly due to the attractiveness of the area and its amenities, partly due to economic opportunities, partly due to speculation, and lastly partly due to restrictive zoning and development laws. One of these five factors - which are not exhaustive - is much easier to rectify than the others. Reforming common law property rights, which is what the land tax proposes, is much, much harder than reforming local laws against density and development.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER121> Duh?</comment>


Common core long division. - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/dan.bongino/photos/a.517057181720381.1073741827.101043269988443/620433314716100/?type=1 <comment><USER2> I find the comments that people can't understand this method to be kinda bizarre.

I haven't heard of common core, but after a few moments of looking at this, the algorithm becomes clear: 432 is between 80 and 800, so repeatedly subtract 80 until you get below 80. Then repeatedly subtract 8. Keep track of the subtractions you're making, and add them up.

Slower and more verbose than the method I learned, and I'm not defending (or condemming) it, but I kind of wonder if some people have a reaction like "this is not what I would have expected to see, and I can't immediately understand it, so it sucks".

<comment><USER3> I think the problem is that the parents were taught how to do things, not how to think about things.

Nowadays, you don't learn long division so you can divide two numbers given a large amount of time and a big sheet of paper. Your computer will do that for you. You learn it as a precursor to algebra and number theory and as a way to apply an algorithm practically. That's what the Facebook comments don't understand.

(I don't really see the benefit in this case, but I'm tired of the knee-jerk reactions about everything new.)

<comment><USER4> Ironically, the previous generation was also supposed to be taught how to think rather than just how to do math:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Math](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Math)

<comment><USER3> Good point. We should have also taught them to remember to think before posting to Facebook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The common core standards which talk about division are described here [http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/7/NS](http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/7/NS)

At no point do the standards direct you how to teach long division. Rather they try make sure that kids who go through 5,6,7 grades have a basis in division and consequently long division. Claiming that common core directs teachers to teach division in a certain manner is false. The fact that the kid is learning how to do division in a weird manner is probably the fault of the teacher who does not understand it herself.

Common Core is a set of guidelines regarding what should be taught in a curriculum to provide some structure to the curriculum variability across classes, schools, districts and states. Common Core definitely has some problems and most of them pertaining to implementation, teacher training, and the fact that due to standards some students are being set up to fail. However, it definitely does not direct anyone how to teach, but rather what they should be teaching at the minimum.

<comment><USER6> " However, it definitely does not direct anyone how to teach" I'm a parent of 3 kids in a NY elementary school. Several members of my family are teachers or administrators in schools. As a parent I disagree with that, and every single teacher/administrator would disagree with that. The entire point of COMMON core is to have everyone doing the same thing. This is one of the many reasons teachers hate it.

<comment><USER7> Deidre Austen responded [0] to the original post that the standard being assessed is "find whole number quotients of whole numbers with up to 4-digit dividends and 2-digit divisors using strategies based on place value, the properties of operations, and/or the relationship between multiplication and division. Illustrate and explain the calculation by using equations, rectangular arrays, and/or area models."

Considering that this school has has chosen a reform (or non-standard) division approach to achieve this standard, instead of using regular long division, shows to me that curriculum managers do have options for ways to achieve the standards.

(Hopefully, this Facebook link works correctly)

[0] [https://www.facebook.com/dan.bongino/photos/a.51705718172038...](https://www.facebook.com/dan.bongino/photos/a.517057181720381.1073741827.101043269988443/620433314716100/?type=1&comment_id=1858450&offset=0&total_comments=312)

<comment><USER5> Exactly teachers have a lot of leeway in how they want to teach something. The most common reasons for failure are that the teacher does not understand exactly what she is teaching. That is a failure of the district and school in not recognizing that the teacher is not well-trained to teach the subject matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't think people realize that the purpose of elementary education is not to teach the kids how to do something -- it's to teach them how to _think_ about doing something.

This method is longer but it helps them grasp the concept of what division is so that they can then extend that thinking.

<comment><USER9> is this system really needed in order to grasp the concept of division? isn't saying "divide these 30 oranges to 6 boxes" enough? what does this system add to grasping the concept beyond this sentence?

actually i think the two methods of division are entirely pointless to teach youth. they are both mechanical algorithms that contribute very very little to the logical sophistication of kids, especially when you consider the other things you could teach them instead (set theory).

in other words, one method is short but easily forgotten, the other is long and remembered, but actually in real life you don't need to remember how to divide numbers and you also don't need to do it fast.

<comment><USER10> "isn't saying "divide these 30 oranges to 6 boxes" enough? "

So your plan is to teach division by telling someone to 'divide'?

<comment><USER9> why not... i'm not teaching the dictionary meaning of the word, i'm teaching the concept...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm getting really tired of the complaints from teachers and parents about these education reforms. Not because the reforms are any good, but because they're so tiny and insignificant.

"School math" is already an absurd parody of the real thing (rather than repeat the argument, see Paul Lockhart "A Mathematician's Lament").

And I'm supposed to get up in arms about switching to a slightly different long-division algorithm? Seriously? These parents and teachers are so ignorant of mathematics that they can't even form coherent arguments about what they don't like beyond "it's different from the steps I learned to mindlessly repeat as a child".

<comment><USER12> I would agree with you, but I've actually seen the homework assignments and only acceptable correct answers to common core work, and it's disgusting.

Trying to solve 72/9? Better show your work by drawing 72 circles, or you get no credit.

<comment><USER13> Depends on what the outcome of learning is supposed to be. If it is to simply recite 8, then what have you learned other than a factoid? 72 circles in 9 columns is 8 rows of circles and now you see the relationship clearly. If you rotate your grid, you have 8 columns of 9 circles. If the next question is 72/12 or 72/3 those relationships become even more apparent as the shape of the grid changes.

I see no problem taking math out of abstraction in this way, especially as one moves onto visualizing more complex math. Seeing how the symbols interact with their meaning is a good thing.

I recently introduced my 5 year old to Dragonbox. She picked up algebra quickly, without the formalities, of course. I was pretty amazed by how quickly she understood it, too.

Playing with numbers is a really a great way to learn the meaning of formulas. There are entire schools of thought, such as Montessori, that believe numbers should be taught in this tactile way. Seeing it first hand, and comparing it to my own struggles as a child, I'm inclined to see great value in drawing 72 little circles out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This actually looks like a much better way to learn how division works—taking a number out of another number some number of times. While it may be less efficient than the other method, if we really cared about efficiency we would just teach division with calculators.

EDIT: Ooph, he's running for the House of Reps in my state ([http://www.bongino.com/](http://www.bongino.com/))

<comment><USER15> I find the Facebook comments interesting - lot's of "I can't figure this out". I suspect, strongly, that a lot of people learned the traditional manipulation but never understood why they were doing it. This just make it explicit: 4 ten's, and so on.

Now, if children are being forced to use this technique throughout their education something is wrong. If this is a step on the way to the standard technique, then so much the better. I recall pre-calc: we were forced to do a bunch of cumbersome math to compute limits before being taught the 'easy' way, because the easy way, being symbolic manipulation, could obscure what is going on and keep you from learning the concepts behind limits. Same thing. I rarely do any math the way it is initially taught. When is the last time you wrote -3 = -3 on both sides of an algebraic system to move a 3 to the other side of an equation?

<comment><USER16> > I find the Facebook comments interesting - lot's of "I can't figure this > out". I suspect, strongly, that a lot of people learned the traditional > manipulation but never understood why they were doing it.

If you really want students to understand _why_ they are doing it, I see no other way than teaching methods for proving the correctness of algorithms, i. e. Hoare logic: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoare_logic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoare_logic)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This example is overly conservative, but the approach is sound.

Yes, one should expect students to know that you can fit eight five times into 43, but things start being different fast when doing trickier divisions. For example take 903/13\. I don't have to think to know 6 times 13 equals 78 and 7 times 13 equals 91, but the average student? Forget it.

I would be happy to see the average student take out a 5 first (903 = 50 * 13 + 253), then another one (903 = 50 * 13 + 10 * 13 + 123). From there, I would have to think a bit to realize that one can take out a 9 (123 is very close to 113). The typical student? Forget it.

And that gets increasingly difficult when the divisor gets larger. What's the first digit of 9230/131?

So, yes, this strategy isn't optimal from a # of operations viewpoint, but for many students, it probably is the best way to get an answer. What would you prefer, a student who doesn't get the answer, or one that gets the right answer in a suboptimal way?

For me, the main question is what the teacher taught: did (s)he only tell students about this slowest, sure-fire way, or did she teach them the 'right' way and told them "if you aren't sure what digit to take next, pick one that you are sure about"?

<comment><USER18> For the reasons you said, I don't think that this is a general algorithm they are teaching. May be it is a stepping stone to get to understanding of what division means first and then they'll teach them long division. Clearly this is an inefficient method for larger numbers, so I don't see how this can be expected to be useful as a go-to algorithm for calculating division.

<comment><USER19> I doubt she has been taught to repeatedly take off 10x8s.

I find it more likely she been taught that it doesn't matter what she takes off: as long as she gets to the end without error, her answer will be correct.

I imagine that she has reasoned that taking off 50x8 is difficult because she doesn't yet have instant access to 5x8 (which would be rare for her age group) but she can confidently subtract 8s without error (also rare). Perhaps she reasoned this earlier and has been consistently using an inefficient version of the method when she doesn't need to. In that case, she will likely be able to fix this herself when she realises.

[ _Edited to add:_ I interpolate this because I am a schoolteacher who teaches math. It's a big part of my job to recognise what support a student needs: here, most likely she needs 8-times-table support.

The method that I describe is well-enough established in the school system that university entrants use it. Of course, it's possible that her teacher has taught her an inefficient method, but that would be unusual. There _are_ bad math teachers in elementary school, but that's not a typical teaching error.]

<comment><USER18> That's a bit of interpolation there. I will admit that we are given very little to work on, just a piece of paper with the algo partially done on it by a child... I'm assuming you think that because of the "10x8" on the side and it could be easily "20x8". It looks like they are teaching it by places, and the 10x_ represents the order of magnitude that is currently being operated, and she was to see how many "8"'s in that magnitude are in the number. That was my assumption, at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have tutored a lot of math in university. Mainly college algebra, trig, the basics that you probably should have learned in highschool but didn't care to, wasn't offered, or was taught poorly.

Out of maybe 30 students I've tutored, only 1 could do long division. It seems that students learn it, forget it, briefly relearn it when learning to do polynomial division, then forget it again.

<comment><USER21> So in your opinion, would replacing long division by iterative subtraction (what I'm calling this - I don't know what it's called) improve the situation?

In this case it looks like you still need to understand multiplication and subtraction to complete the exercise, so I am not really sure what's gained by switching to this method.

<comment><USER19> Despite claiming you don't understand the gain, you just said it: students gain a more complete understanding of how multiplication and subtraction are related to division, which is the primary goal of this stage of math education.

<comment><USER16> If this is your goal you better teach the student about how to define addition and multiplication using the the formalization from the Peano axioms, i. e.

      +(0, y) = y for all y in N
      +(S(x), y) = S(+(x, y)) for all x, y in N
      *(0, y) = 0 for all y in N
      *(S(x), y) = +(y, *(x, y)) for all x, y in N

I know no way that states more clearly how addition and multiplication are related. Division is than simply stated as: for given a, b in N find x such that

      *(b, x) = a.

This states clearly how multiplication (obvious) and addition (by definition of multiplication) is related to division.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> In hindsight, I think it would have been helpful if the schools I went to introduced the concept of an _algorithm_. I remember we spent a lot of time learning Lattice multiplication ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattice_multiplication](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattice_multiplication)) and I would get frustrated having to draw all the little boxes when the "traditional" way was much faster for me. It would have been beneficial if they stressed the concept of algorithms and showed me there are, in fact, many more ways to multiply numbers together.

<comment><USER23> Lattice, I never heard of it when I was in school. When I first came across the term about two years ago, I realised I had already worked out the algorithm a few months beforehand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The daughter is correctly conceptualising number by following this method (and, although I cannot see the answer, her method is executed correctly up to the point I can see). She doesn't seem confused.

Her method is not perfect but is very well developed if we compare her handwriting. If the father genuinely thinks that this is an easy problem for her age group, then her handwriting is behind where it should be.

So, Daniel Bongino, what's your problem with this? Your child is developing her number skills just in the same way that she is developing her fine motor skills. That's great.

</comment><comment><USER24> I find it interesting how all of the people who complained about how terrible math education was when they were kids turn into grownups who wish they would just go back to the traditional way of teaching math.

My sister is an elementary school teacher, and she's posted some videos on her Facebook page explaining how common core teaches - and they look so much BETTER than the way I learned to do math.

As far as I can tell, the old system was some combination of "memorize times tables" and "structured brute force the answer." The new system tries to teach kids ways to think about numbers and simplify them so that they can use mental math.

The people who developed the standards came up with them by studying which approaches to teaching actually got kids to learn math. I don't think "we did things a certain way for hundreds of years before we started looking at it scientifically" is a strong refutation of that approach.

</comment><comment><USER25> The problem here is not the method the students are learning. The problem here is that they are learning long division at all. Does ANYBODY care the method by which children learn to divide large numbers?

I would be willing to bet that behind the vast majority of those outraged comments is an adult that hasn't used long division in decades.

</comment><comment><USER26> Learning to sum, subtract, multiply and divide in your head is pretty important, e.g. to be able to work with money, so that's a super useful thing to learn in primary school. But doing long division on paper is not useful imho. It's not even useful for high level math, or programming (except for CPU design). Why do they teach it in primary school? I always wondered that, since I never needed it (at least not in decimal).

<comment><USER4> It absolutely is important to learn the long division _algorithm_ for programming. How else do you deal with integer division?

(Yes, _integer_ division, which people refer to as "big number" division for some bizarre reason.)

<comment><USER27> $ python

>>> 523 / 6

87

>>>

I can't remember any time when I've been called upon to write an algorithm for integer division.

<comment><USER4> 1\. Perhaps you should start now, since your Python interpreter gave you the wrong answer. It should be obvious that 523/6 is not an integer.

2\. That is kind of like saying, "I can't remember any time when I have been called upon to implement merge sort, therefore there is no point in teaching the algorithm!!"

<comment><USER27> It's not _wrong_ it's just the result of integer division where the remainder has been dropped. What makes you say it is "wrong?" Were you expecting a floating-point result?

To your point #2, you didn't argue that teaching these concepts aids in the general understanding of how to create algorithms, you said, "How else do you deal with integer division?" To which my answer is: You don't. It's a solved problem.

<comment><USER4> I would expect either a pair of integers, either a rational number or a quotient and remainder. 523/6 is not 87.

As for "solved problems," it is not at all unusual to be asked to re-implement an algorithm that is already implemented elsewhere. Maybe there is no implementation for your platform. Maybe you are writing a new language. You could find yourself implementing integer division just as much as you could find yourself implementing a sorting algorithm, a hash table, etc.

[Edit: Also worth noting is that in the context of education it is common to ask students to re-implement known algorithms and build up systems on their own.]

<comment><USER27> In the context of education, I agree, but you strech credulity with this:

> Maybe there is no implementation for your platform.

I challenge you to find me a single example of a platform that does not already have an implementation for integer division. This functionality is _basic_.

Edit: Also, you seem to have strange expectations with respect to results of integer division. Many languages in common use will give the result above. If you want the remainder, you're expected to use modulus.

For example:

>>> '%s %s/%s' % (523 / 6, 523 % 6, 523)

'87 1/523'

>>></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple owes Steve Jobs $37.91 - <AUTHOR> http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/12/09/apple.jobs.unclaimed.property/ <comment><USER2> But Apple is only about 35 years old. Maybe one time he borrowed $2.91 for a cup of coffee.</comment>


Ask HN: An Apple App Store strategy - <AUTHOR>

I've been an Apple shareholder for a while and I've been thinking about their iPhone/iPad business and the threat from Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, etc. Currently, an iOS competitive advantage is the large number of high quality apps in the App Store. However, this could change if iOS continues to slip in market share and developers focus their efforts on other platforms.
What if Apple allowed developers to enter into an agreement with them wherein Apple's cut of the revenue would be only 15% if their apps were exclusive to iOS? This would incentivize developers to focus their development on iOS which could be more profitable than having the app on multiple platforms (as far as I know iOS is still the better platform for monetizing apps). App Store revenue is an immaterial amount to Apple and it would likely be worth it to strengthen the moat around iOS.
My question is would such an arrangement be considered anti-competitive by regulators? I can't think of any precedents related to this other than exclusive games for PS3/Xbox 360, though I'm unsure if Sony or Microsoft does anything to incentivize it or if it's simply developer choice. <comment><USER2> It's not an antitrust concern, n But those sort of deals, unless you are talking BIG developers,means additional expense for very limited benefits. Company A promises to make it's app exclusive to iOS... that means enforcement, monitoring other markets etc. For less money. And the marginal benefits in increased individual customer numbers probably isn't worth it. How many more people would buy an iPhone if Angry Birds was an iOS exclusive? Is the money you would make from them ofset not just by the lost revenue, but the uses that that revenue could be put (additional advertising, increased resources for developers, etc).

If Apple sees a company that it wants to make exclusive, it's better off just acquiring it. And that's just what it does. In fact, I expect to see at least a few companies that make goverement or enterprise software for iOS to be acquired in the coming year, because locking in institutional customers to a single platform IS a moneymaker.

</comment><comment><USER3> Amazon has a 90 day exclusivity contract for books. But to be frank the gain in revenue would probably be never enough to make it viable.

The best way for Apple to achieve the outcome of attracting the best apps is to deliver the best Platform, which is increasingly questionable.

</comment><comment><USER4> But there are already Apps that are exclusive to iOS: The ones that Apple already makes. In this sense Apple is doing (or trying to do) what Microsoft did with Windows and Office.

Sadly the other trend I see is that if a small shop makes a great app that they'll be purchased by Apple or Google or someone else. Of course there are entertainment and social media apps, but that world can change quickly so it's not worth an investment.</comment>


You Are Not A Product – So stop treating yourself like one - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/personal-growth/you-are-not-a-product-61acb6d208c5 <comment><USER2> If you allow yourself to be treated as the product, then you are indeed the product.

Don't use "free" services if you object to the designation, because to the owners of those services, you are literally nothing but a product sold to whomever is paying for you to receive that free service.

Every "free" email, search engine, repo, etc., isn't a product to the end user, even if it mimics one. It is a way for advertisers and data miners to access the site owner's product -- your eyes and info.</comment>