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Tech Workers Think Silicon Valley and Startups Are Losing Their Luster (qz.com)
An anonymous reader shares a Quartz report: The job site Indeed.com found Silicon Valley's hold on tech workers is slipping as opportunities, and the cost of living, changes the equation for living and working in one of the priciest places in the country. "There is more opportunity for tech professionals in more places than ever before," wrote Terence Chiu, vice president of Indeed Prime by email, citing cities such as Austin, Boston, Seattle, and New York City. "Obviously the San Francisco Bay remains the largest tech hub [but] what has made it so attractive has also made it expensive." Indeed's most recent survey of professional tech workers found more than 66% of tech workers say living and working in Silicon Valley is either "not that important" or "not at all important" for a career in technology. Just 12% consider it "very important." Opinions were split on generational lines. About half of millennial tech workers say it's important (26.5%) or very important (19%), but the number declined to 10.2% among the Boomer generation. "Seasoned talent is often searching for opportunity elsewhere," stated the report. New employees may see the high cost of living as an acceptable tradeoff for building up a reputation and experience in the Bay Area, but that seems to fade over time.Recently, Google co-founder Sergey Brin advised people to not come to Silicon Valley to start a business for the very same reasons.
When you're fresh out of college, cost of living really isn't on your mind, or at least it wasn't for me. I wanted to live in the area where I knew there were all the things I wanted, from food to entertainment to job opportunities. Fast forward a bit, and I realized that the area I was in was ridiculously expensive for no good reason, had insane traffic that would never get better, and that I could get 90-95% of the things I wanted in a far, far cheaper area, cutting my housing costs all but in half.
It should be no surprise that the older people get, the less they're willing to put up with the kind of things you have to suffer through in the SF Bay area. Living 4 to an apartment is fine in your early 20s, but when you get older, you want a place of your own, nevermind the space to have a family.
Well yeah, of course. Look at the situation of a young college grad today; they're entering the workforce loaded on with $80,000+ dollars of debt, in an extremely cutthroat environment that pays minimum wage on entry, and for companies that lower pay and outsource year after year. Silicon Valley is frankly just not really viable for starters anymore, it's too expensive and cutthroat, and I wouldn't move to San Francisco in that kind of a climate either. Furthermore, Silicon Valley is dominated by experienced people who've worked numerous high profile projects, and often have a whole rainbow array of certifications and degrees.
If you're just starting out, you're hammered between the minimum wage jobs in China and India that take away your entry level positions, and you can't compete with the existing crowd because they outclass you in experience, titles, and existing reputation in almost every way (even after accounting for the whole age thing). Honestly, young people in many jobs face a similar problem - it's not exclusively a tech industry problem, we just see it to the strongest degree at the moment - It's a serious issue, and if we don't start to do something about it and soon, we are going to slowly but surely strangle off our workforce.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
Being in Silicon Valley makes sense if your goal is to obtain VC money. If your goal is to make a successful tech business, though, Silicon Valley hasn't been the place to be for a very long time.
Artificial is to change the measure so that your GDP appears to grow faster than it really does. Inflation scales down the GDP growth rate, and calculating inflation is - as you rightfully point out - a fairly fuzzy function. However, if you want to talk about ending a recession, or the "best GDP growth in decades" you should use the same measures and ways of calculating your variables - not change them from Administration to Administration.
If we used the 1980 inflation metric, we'd see inflation is not at the 1% level claimed now, but around 9%. That brings the GDP growth way down, especially over the last several years, and we'd find that rather than having a GDP growing by 2-3% per year as claimed, we'd actually have a slowly shrinking GDP. Meaning we'd still be in a recession (as defined pre-1990s). That would change the narrative in the media - and might be politically untenable for the current group of fools in DC.
I think a LOT of the tension in the US right now is because of the constant media narrative of "we're doing great! See how wonderful DC is to the rest of you?" versus the actual results felt by the average person. Stagnant wages, ever-increasing costs, lack of jobs. It's a LOT easier, emotionally, when you're struggling but you also know everyone else is as well, and you're all trying to work for something better. When all you're told is that everything is fine, there is not problem, and YOU lose your job or your house or start missing payments on bills - it feels like it's just YOU and it's you against everyone else.
An honest, consistent metric for inflation would show that.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
. Startup culture isn't for the young either; you really have to have the fraternity/sorority member personality type to work there so as people age they're less likely to trade salary for beer pong or free dinner.
I disagree that it is not for the young. They want people who can work 70-100 hours a week. Those people do not have families. If they do their wife does not work. Or if they both work then they have no kids. Startups should have no problem with a 30% turnover rate or higher.
They want people who appear busy for 70-100 hours a week. 70-100 hours a week implies between 10 to 16 hours a day (depending of whether you work 6 days or work without taking a day off.) Then add 1-2 hours of commute, we are talking 10 to 18 hours a day.
No matter how young you are, it is physically impossible to do *actual* work at that rate for more than a few weeks (or months at most.) From experience (and purely anecdotal), the physical and psychological upper limit seems to be 60 hours a week (less if you count commute times). And that translate to 10 to 12 hours every day (whether you work 5 or 6 days) sustained to no more than 8-12 months.
After that, attrition inevitably follows. I've seen companies having attrition rates of 50-60% (and worse) when they force their workforce through that type of grind for more than a year or two.
Unless you are building the next rocket to Mars or some other incredibly cool shit, you are an idiot if you subject yourself to that. You do not need that to gain valuable experience.