Why the hell do businesses start up in California?

The BBQ Pit
21

[QUOTE=Miller]
Compared to blizzards, tornados, or hurricanes, the occasional tremblor every other year or so is practically a pleasant diversion.
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I’m certainly not a fan of hurricanes or tornados, but I love’s me a good blizzard. I couldn’t imagine living in a place where there wasn’t snow on the ground at least 3 months of the year.

But to the OP, there are lots of great startups here in the Boston area because of the colleges and grads (who tend to stay around). There is critical mass of the kind of people we need to hire in order to grow successfully and quickly. The more successful startups there are, the more attractive it is for other startups to launch here. People jump jobs fairly often so you need to be flexible in hiring.

People are willing to put up with high housing prices or long commutes (or both) for a good job with a promise of downstream reward. But places like Boston and SF are also great places to live with culture and events and nightlife.

22

In a popular area like Silicon Valley, the presence of plenty of competitors in a similar industry works in the employee’s favor, as well. My husband used to work for a southern California biotech whose name rhymes with Damngen, and they laid him off. We were pretty screwed, as there were no other biotechs in that area for him to move to. That’s why we came to Silicon Valley. There are plenty of biotechs, and if one is bought out by another or has a layoff, there are many others to which he may go.

23

[QUOTE=Derleth]
How cold does it get there in August?
[/QUOTE]

52 degrees, at worst. As a former resident of Boston and downstate Illinois, hearing what my neighbors here in the Valley consider freezing is always funny.

The biggest problem is that old house like mine don’t have air conditioning, so the one week a year we could use it is a pain.

24

[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
Maybe, but at least in Virginia, the earth itself doesn’t actually hate us and want to kill us. It stays where it is instead of moving around.
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Actually, earthquakes can appear all over, even the heartland. They are rarer, impossible to predict ( even compared to ours ), spread farther ( the lack of faults improves the transmission of shockwaves ), and can be quite powerful. Plus, your buildings aren’t built for it. For example, the San Madrid Earthquake

[QUOTE=CNN]
During the winter of 1811-1812, at least three powerful earthquakes (believed to be magnitude 8 or above) and thousands of aftershocks were felt in America’s heartland, in what’s known as the New Madrid Seismic Zone. The region impacts parts of eight states, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas and Mississippi.

“They were felt into Canada, up in the Montreal region and that would be almost 1,200 miles away,” said Arch Johnston, director of the Earthquake Research and Information Center at the University of Memphis.

< snip >

“The comparable size 1906 San Francisco earthquake was barely felt outside the state of California. That’s not because the New Madrid quakes were so much larger than the San Francisco quake. But our crustal rock transmits seismic waves a lot more efficiently,” Johnston said.
[/QUOTE]
You might be safe out in Virginia, you might not; I’ve heard New York is close enough to be in danger. Or a cinder cone volcano could erupt in your backyard instead of an earthquake.

Really, if you want to live in a place without natural disasters, you have to go live in one of those deserts that are so geologically dead they have balancing stones. Anywhere more active, you’re at danger from something.

25

Los Gatos is lovely, the company if they want you will know about the costs associated with living in CA and should be paying you accordingly. You can get by reasonably on $60K but to be saving for your future you’d want more than that and should expect more than that once you’ve proved your worth. If there is nowhere to rent in or near Los Gatos, then the commute may be quite difficult as it is in the foot hills.

26

[QUOTE=Bippy the Beardless]
Los Gatos is lovely, the company if they want you will know about the costs associated with living in CA and should be paying you accordingly. You can get by reasonably on $60K but to be saving for your future you’d want more than that and should expect more than that once you’ve proved your worth. If there is nowhere to rent in or near Los Gatos, then the commute may be quite difficult as it is in the foot hills.
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Well, I’ve got a phone interview with them on Thursday. Assuming that goes well, they’ll fly me out for an interview. At that point, I’ll see what they think of me telecommuting, since I don’t think they can pay me enough to live in the Bay Area. Dunno if they’ll go for that… but damn, I want that job. I just can’t take a paycut to get it.

27

You’re crazy to actually live in LG on a nromal salary. OTOH, just nearby is Cambell and San Jose, where rents are much more reasonable. Say, $700 to $1000 for a 1 bdr apt.

Lodging is expensive here, sure. But everything else is about the same cost, maybe just a little higher.

Lightnin’- how much is your rent now? How much do you feel you need to own a house? How much do you earn now?

Note that Computer companies often offer pretty good stock options, and if the company goes public, you can be an intstant millioaire- which is about what you’d need to buy a house. A decent house in a nice area is about $700K. :eek: Yeah, that is crazy.

Condos can be had for $400-500K.

28

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
I expect the people making those decisions are thinking “Where would I like to live ?”, rather than about what’s good for the company or you.
[/QUOTE]
You’d be wrong in that expectation, but that shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to you. As others have noted, one usually opens shop where you can find qualified employees, plus an established network of support business. One usually doesn’t open shop and hope these things will come to you.

29

[QUOTE=Lightnin’]
Well, I’ve got a phone interview with them on Thursday. Assuming that goes well, they’ll fly me out for an interview. At that point, I’ll see what they think of me telecommuting, since I don’t think they can pay me enough to live in the Bay Area. Dunno if they’ll go for that… but damn, I want that job. I just can’t take a paycut to get it.
[/QUOTE]

Definately take the oportunity to visit. If they want employees then they must pay enough to live in the area or they won’t get anyone at all. Of course if you have extraordinary expenses they may not be able to provide enough to cover them as well as living in the area. Check out the french patisserie called Chocolate on the main thouroughfare in Los Gatos, they do the most authentic french desserts I’ve found in America.

If you don’t take the job, tell the dopers about it, a chance to live in Los Gatos may well be worth the hassle of moving to some of them.

30

[QUOTE=Derleth]
… The University of Washington near Seattle spawned Microsoft…
[/QUOTE]

Huh?

Gates and Allen were at Harvard when they called Ed Roberts of MITS and said they had a BASIC compiler for his Altair. They signed a deal, went to Albuquerque where the newly formed Micro-Soft developed software for the machine.

After a few years Gates and Allen, ex-residents of Seattle (where they grew up) decided to move the company to Seattle because of their familiarity with the location, the fact that it was not in Silicon Valley, and they felt that Boeing gave the city some high-tech cred.

I have no doubt that MS works closely with the U of WA and that they hire many of their graduates. But UWA did not spawn MS in the way that Stanford spawned Cisco (for example). Not even close.

31

[QUOTE=Lightnin’]

However, their office is in Northern California… Los Gatos, to be precise. I’d have to relocate- telecommuting isn’t an option. Looking at an online wage calculator, I’d have to almost double my current wages in order to break even.

[/quote]

Awwright, Los Gatos! I grew up there! My entire generation is priced out! (When I was a kid, it was Just Another Nice Northern California Town. Some time during the 80s and especially the 90s, it turned into The Ultimate Yuppie Suburb!!!one!!1!.)

Some strategies adopted by friends of mine:

  • Live way the hell up in the mountains. It’s still relatively cheap there, not to mention gorgeous. Be prepared, though, for a life far more isolated than is common in the Bay Area–I had high school friends with one hour commutes to school.

  • Look into Campbell. There are some sketchy parts, but overall it’s gentrifying at an alarming rate–and it’s very close to Los Gatos.

  • If you’re prepared to go further afield, Mountain View or Hayward. In general, East Bay towns tend to be more affordable than Peninsula towns. The commute will suck, though.
    Traffic on 17 flows NORTHBOUND in the morning, SOUTHBOUND in the evening. Ditto 85. Look for places where you’ll be going counter to the flow.

Good luck if you do move. Los Gatos is a great place to raise a family, and the public schools kick ass.

“Education” is one common reason. Startups form in the Bay Area because there are several excellent universities (and Stanford, too :cool: ). Grad students in particular like to set up shop near where they go/went to school.

32

Lightnin’, try www.craigslist.org for rentals (and, really, anything else).

Los Gatos is a beautiful town, I worked there for several years in a gorgeous building overlooking Vasona Park. There are lots of great places downtown to get lunch.

33

The calculator I just used (moving.com) says the cost of living in the Bay Area is 522% higher than where I’m living now, and that my current salary is only 16% of what I’d need to live comparably there.

Um…

Suck!?

If anyone has a better calculator they’d like to recommend, I’m all eyes.

34

[QUOTE=ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]
The calculator I just used (moving.com) says the cost of living in the Bay Area is 522% higher than where I’m living now, and that my current salary is only 16% of what I’d need to live comparably there.

[/QUOTE]

Exactly! That’s what’s so frightening. I’m making good money, but apparently it’s nowhere near what I’d need to live the sort of life I’ve gotten used to… and I don’t live all that high on the hog as it is. I don’t understand how anyone can live in places that expensive.

35

Are you talking about Cryptic Studios, ie, my current employer? If so, COME WORK HERE. It’s an awesome company.

I live in Santa Clara, which is about a 20-minute commute, and is nice enough, if fairly nondescript, without being as expensive as one of the super-expensive parts of silicon valley.

36

[QUOTE=Lightnin’]
Exactly! That’s what’s so frightening. I’m making good money, but apparently it’s nowhere near what I’d need to live the sort of life I’ve gotten used to… and I don’t live all that high on the hog as it is. I don’t understand how anyone can live in places that expensive.
[/QUOTE]

I didn’t get if you were willing to live someplace other than Los Gatos. 10 years ago, when we were house hunting here, we insisted on a real estate agent showing us someplace in Los Gatos we could afford. (We had a house in a reasonably expensive part of New Jersey.) She showed us a shack on a hillside, not quite as nice as places I camped when I was in the Boy Scouts. We wound up buying quite a large house in Fremont.

If you’ve got time after your interview, call a real estate agent and take a look at the options. The housing stock is increasing, and sales times are getting longer. (Prices aren’t going down much quite yet.) You might have the opportunity to get a bargain in a year or so.

Gas and electric is high here - on the other hand you rarely need heat or air conditioning. (We don’t have a/c, and we mind about one week a year.) Food prices are reasonable.
To answer your question, though, the reason businesses start here is because the people are here. When I switched jobs the only impact on my family was that my commute was better.

37

[QUOTE=Telemark]
I’m certainly not a fan of hurricanes or tornados, but I love’s me a good blizzard. I couldn’t imagine living in a place where there wasn’t snow on the ground at least 3 months of the year.
[/QUOTE]

See, that’s just clearly unnatural. If man were meant to live in snowy climes, we’d still have fur.

38

[QUOTE=D_Odds]
You’d be wrong in that expectation, but that shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to you. As others have noted, one usually opens shop where you can find qualified employees, plus an established network of support business. One usually doesn’t open shop and hope these things will come to you.

[/quote]
Except, of course, I don’t think I’m wrong. What makes you think that the people who make the decision for a company are motivated by anything other than their desires ? If a businessman is faced with a choice between a location with great employees and supporting business, but bad schools for his kids and a crappy lifestyle, or mediocre employees and support businesses but great schools for his kids and plenty of things he like to do, which do you think he’ll choose ? The second.

That’s why communities all over the country keep following the pattern of handing over tax breaks and other incentives to businesses, and watch them walk away anyway. They make the same mistake you do; they treat the business as if it was in charge, acting for it’s own self interest, but it’s not. It’s not aware, it’s not a person, and it has no self interest. It does what the people who run it want. A good golf course will attract business better than a tax cut.

And before you argue that they will act to benefit the business because it’s in their own long term self interest, don’t delude yourself. Business owners and managers aren’t any more prone to intelligence, competence, long term thinking or general enlightened self interest than anyone else.

39

[QUOTE=Bippy the Beardless]
Check out the french patisserie called Chocolate on the main thouroughfare in Los Gatos, they do the most authentic french desserts I’ve found in America.
[/QUOTE]

::foodie niggle::

It’s Fleur de Cocoa, and you’re right, BtB. Monsieur the baker is Parisian and I haven’t had better croissants even in France.

40

[Quote=chappachula]

…if you dont mind freezing to death in August. Wearing a heavy coat on a summer night just don’t make no sense..

[QUOTE=Derleth]
How cold does it get there in August?
[/QUOTE]

[/quote]

I went to a couple of Grateful Dead shows at the Greek Theater in Berkeley back in May 1982. Me and a friend flew in from New Jersey for our big bike trip down the coast and a couple of NJ friends drove up from LA. It was the first time in the Bay area for any of us. Sunny California, right? We’re sitting up on the hillside watching the show and the sun goes down. All of a sudden everybody starts pulling out these heavy jackets and battening down the hatches and we’re looking at each other like “what the fuck?”. We froze our asses off that night!