San Francisco Poaching Tech Talent From Silicon Valley

jfruh writes "Silicon Valley, including San Jose and the chain of suburbs running north from it along the San Francisco Peninsula, has long been the epicenter of the tech business and startup scene. San Francisco itself, just a few miles to the north, has always been in the Valley's orbit — but now, more and more, the center of gravity is shifting to San Francisco, and the move seems to be hitting a tipping point. The reason: the young talent companies want to attract would rather live in a hip city than in suburban sprawl, and don't want to commute 45 minutes to work."

Comments

the business has changed, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Issues of sprawl and crappy commutes notwithstanding, the people developing cool apps for smartphones want to live in SF because they are hipsters. These are not the same kinds of folks that "made" silicon valley. They were far nerdier, more interested in hardware, chip design, etc -- basically infrastructure stuff and they were NOT hip. They weren't quite as drawn to SF.

SF also has girls.

I still think the Peninsula and South Bay are far superior if you like outdoor activities: running, hiking, climbing, biking.

Psh. I like the old farts better than the new kids.

Re:the business has changed, too

[fiannaFailMan]

The gay city, right?

Right. There's still a better male:female ratio in SF than in "Man Jose". Subtract the gay guys from that and it gets even better. Trust me on this. For every girl that walks into a Silicon Valley bar there's at least ten guys with her. Your odds are much better in the city.

Re:Hip City?

[i kan reed]

Guess what? In ancient Rome, they called Rome, "the city" and in England, they call London "the city", and it's similarly true elsewhere in history and the world. The condescension is imagined on your part.

Can we stop using the term 'poaching'?

[dkleinsc]

The problem I have with the term is that it suggests that there's something morally wrong with offering somebody more salary / benefits / perks to change jobs, or with that somebody choosing to make the move to greener pastures.

Employment is a 2-way street: My boss can choose to fire me at any time, I can choose to quit and do something else at any time. I understand that many employers would not like employees to be able to do that, but they can, and that's because they're your employees rather than your slaves.

Not Really

[BadPirate]

the "Young Talent" companies only make up a small part of the tech industry out here. Silicon valley still has the largest and most successful of the tech industry at the moment in Software (Apple, Google) and even the older struggling giants (Yahoo), which represent a MAJOR force for employment, Apple's new campus in cupertino will hire and bring in more bodies to the valley then the next 100 SF startups (even assuming that by the time 100 startups have formed 50 of them haven't flopped).

Years ago when I moved to Silicon Valley the ratio and rate was the same. There were "artsy" or "fun" gaming startup jobs (a few) available in SF, and there were startup jobs available here in SV. But the real hiring was being done by the big players, and those guys will never move to SF. The hub will remain. There is no "tipping point". Article is an opinion puff piece by a hipster looking San Francisco dweller - https://twitter.com/cscott_idg who is obviously as biased about the subject as I am.

Moving on.