Some of you are going to love this one:

 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/silicon-valley-gets-same-bus-every-day-innovation-needs-tom-foremski

 

 

Yeah, as a Bay Arean, I agree with all of this.

 

The anti-growth, greed-driven politics here are disgusting and have destroyed nearly all the diversity. This will be Silicon Valley's downfall. Openness to outsiders is what made the Bay so successful. As it becomes a gilded society, it will lose out on new ideas. San Francisco and Oakland are rapidly becoming monocultures. Innovation rarely comes out of such places. New York City is way more diverse since it's more pro-growth and has plenty of affordable urban neighborhoods compared to the Bay. Everybody around me in Oakland is filthy rich now and I'm a freak for having a job. I'm one of the few people in my neighborhood who hasn't retired yet from tech money or trust funds used for venture capital. People in "real America" have no idea how insanely rich most of the kids in the Bay have become. This youth wealth is like nowhere else in the world. And half of the companies they got rich from are imploding as we speak. I haven't dated anyone with under a six-figure income or without a trust fund in years. In fact, it's getting really rare to meet such people under 30. I've got to go to LA or New York City for that. People in the Bay also tend to stick to their class more, so the class mixing you see in other cities just isn't happening much here anymore. The opportunities are fewer and further between since transit is under-built and housing is a zero sum game.

 

The classism and inequality has reached epidemic proportions in Oakland (I'd say it's much worse than SF now). These rich kids have no idea what the real world is like outside of their wealth bubbles. Their idea of poor people is their volunteer safari to Africa or Ecuador. They have no idea what poor people are like in Detroit. How can they make mass market products? The answer is they need to hire people with some connection to the real world in order to market a product to the real world. A company won't last long if only the 1% uses it. These apps might work in the Bay since most people are 1%, but as soon as they try to scale in other cities, they hit walls. Those walls are called real people. A lot of tech in SF and Oakland has failed to scale outside of the Bay (the apps the rest of America sees are only a fraction of what exists in the Bay), which is why so many tech start-ups are imploding right now (even some of the big ones are in deep trouble). Layoffs have hit Twitter, Lyft, and even Zenefits. This tech bubble is blowing. And the bubble is biggest in Oakland, not San Francisco. Oakland's insane rents and property values are not sustainable the way San Francisco's are sustainable. Historically, Oakland always gets hit harder when the bubble blows, and this is the first bubble that attracted tech workers in mass to Oakland. I feel bad for all the Oakland transplants who paid millions of dollars for housing in questionable neighborhoods. They'd be underwater if they didn't pay all-cash for their houses.

 

My neighborhood would never have hyper-gentrified and kicked out about 90% of its black residents if it weren't for all of the Google busses. I now see some of the those black residents homeless in the park across the street. It's all in the name of greed for property owners in Oakland. We've had over 10,000 evictions a year in Oakland lately. In a city of only 400,000-500,000 people, that's insane (though no one knows the actual population due to all the illegal living situations). As bad as the eviction crisis got in San Francisco, it doesn't hold a candle to what's happening in Oakland.

 

*Also, we use the term "Google Bus" loosely in the Bay. It can be any corporate shuttle.

 

**To give some perspective on how crazy things have gotten here, I make well above median income in the United States, and I now qualify for subsidized housing in San Francisco and Berkeley. I'm considered Low Income status in Berkeley and Moderate Income status in San Francisco. My best bet is winning one of the below-market-rate housing lotteries.

 

When people that would be considered upper middle class in almost any other city (even New York) are living with strangers off craigslist, that is not sustainable. That will kill off innovation as people go into survival mode.

I've never been to the Bay Area, but the article reads almost exactly like Jane Jacobs circa 1961. Amazing to see the same mistakes play out over and over again.

^Yeah, there is a long history here of fighting mass transit and fighting urban housing construction. The weird thing is this opposition comes almost entirely from people who live in dense urban neighborhoods. It's all about greed since California locks in your properties taxes at much lower levels than in other states. Prop 13 and rent control are both big influences in the anti-housing protests. This is what makes the Bay so unique. In New York, property taxes are through the roof despite the presence of rent control. That makes people more likely to support housing construction. Old folks, who are by far the most reliable voters, can get priced out if their property values get too high. In the Bay, the strongest anti-urban protests are coming from urbanites. It's insane. We've had large-scale riots in Oakland against new development. Almost all of these rioters are trust fund kids or people in power positions (homeowners, people with rent control, etc.). We have holes in the ground all over Oakland where construction projects have stopped due to protests and arsons. Arsons have also hit housing construction sites in San Francisco.

 

If you're locked into low property taxes while your property value goes up 20-40% year, you have no reason to support housing construction. If you have rent control, and can gouge roommates or make a killing off Airbnb, you have no reason to support housing construction. After a few years of this stagnant housing supply in the land of easy millionaires, your neighborhood is nothing but rich people.

 

And transit is already strained, so we really need to expand BART before building this much-needed housing. It's a catch-22 leading to this crisis in the Bay. We can't handle much more population until BART is beefed up. :| It's a greedy, corrupt political mess...and Democrats here are 100% responsible for it. Republicans are now the more progressive ones in San Francisco and Oakland. A lot of Democrats are really DINK's here. They tend to be far more libertarian than liberal. You are more likely to find pro-urban, pro-transit liberals in the local Republican parties. The Bay really is its own world...

 

Silicon Alley and Silicon Beach will steal the thunder in the future.

I disagree with the premise of the article. "Bus ride diversity" might be an important factor for an artist, but an typical artist is typically the polar opposite of an typical engineer. An engineer would probably be looking at their shoes the entire bus ride anyway. Social interactions are not what make a typical engineer tick.

 

Maybe I am speaking from too much a Midwestern point of view, but an engineer is typically a problem solver that makes something perform to a set of specifications. Rigorous and quite often tedious processes are employed to do this. "Innovating" and taking risks are not typical parts of the workday. Indeed that kind of direction is often set by other parts of the company.

Also if things really worked entirely like the author says, why isn't New York already the center of tech? Silicon Valley is mostly suburban office parks without much diversity (speaking about general "life" diversity not racial diversity,) how did it become the center of tech?  Shouldn't they have been "out innovated" years ago? My understanding is that mellenial engineers taking the bus in from San Francisco is a newer phenomenon that would be actually adding to the diversity experienced by engineers because at least they are living in San Francisco now.

^San Francisco is much less diverse than San Jose/Silicon Valley. That's what he's talking about. San Francisco and Oakland have become theme parks for the wealthiest millennials. There is virtually no diversity among young people in the Inner Bay Area anymore. Almost everyone is rich, White/Asian/Indian, single, and "well-educated" (spent a lot of money on education and/or studied abroad in fancy locations). A huge number also have trust funds. I'm one of the few people I know of in the Bay who came from poverty and didn't end up homeless. There just aren't many people left with grit or real world perspective. This is what happens when cities don't build enough housing and don't build enough mass transit. There is very little cultural diversity left in SF/OAK other than bro versus hipster. San Francisco is bro. Oakland is hipster. This culture is likely starting to suffocate innovation, and it makes people tone-deaf to real world problems. To give you an idea of how crazy this economy has gotten:

 

1. The only working class people I meet are homeless.

2. I haven't seen a baby in over nine months.

3. I haven't met a new married person in three years.

4. I never see children or families except for tourists.

5. I watch neighbors get evicted and end up homeless across the street.

6. I see trust fund kids riot in the street to protect their power positions.

7. I know people sleeping 6 to a 2-bedroom apartment.

8. I know people paying $1000 a month to sleep on a floor in a living room.

8. I know people who retired because they have rent control and can live solely off Airbnb income.

9. I know people who have retired at 25 from stock options.

10. I date girls at "non-profits" who make $150k a year.

11. I date 22-year-old marketing reps who make $200k a year.

12. I date girls who make six figure incomes who don't even know what their job actually is.

13. I constantly meet people who believe tech will solve all of the world's problems.

14. I know people making six figure incomes who are homeless chasing the dream of getting rich in tech.

15. We have a dating app called "The League" that is the most discriminatory dating app in history.

 

These extreme living conditions that only the wealthiest people on earth can afford have greatly altered the Bay Area's culture. Many of the new apps today are ridiculous and don't have a chance in the real world. Washio? C'mon, how can that scale? Five years ago that app never would have been funded. This is a culture that is starting to breed idiocy. Twitter? Is Twitter even going to be around in three years? Do they have any realistic plan to make a profit? It's likely the next MySpace. A lot of new companies here are operating at insane P/E ratios and burning cash at rates never seen before. People who should know better constantly say things like "this time is different" or "who gives a S**t about P/E ratios?" or "We'll worry about sales and profits five years from now."

 

A lot of these unicorns are going to turn into unicorpses as people say in the Bay. San Francisco will be fine, but Oakland is going to get hit incredibly hard. Most of its new companies are artisanal smoke and hipster mirrors.

 

San Jose is where the last of the middle class is at. Suburbia is where the diversity is in the Bay. The vast majority of Latinos and other minorities live there among the remnants of the middle class. Luckily, San Jose and the original Silicon Valley have more institutional tech companies that are now ancient by Bay Area standards. They've lasted this long for a reason. Except for maybe Hewlett-Packard, most of them will be around in the future too. You're not going to get as rich working at Apple, Intel, or Adobe, but they've got real business models and have proven themselves.

 

*New York City is starting to land more start-ups. So is Los Angeles. So is Seattle. The exodus has begun...

 

The difference this time is that NYC/LA/SEA used to be back offices for San Francisco. That's not the case anymore. Some of the most influential apps have come out of LA recently. Tinder is the most important dating app in history, and is from West Los Angeles. Snapchat is from Venice Beach. Venice has become a growing cluster of A team tech.

 

NYC launched Buzzfeed, Elite Daily, Refinery 29, Bustle, Gawker, and many other slow-pitch new media sites that wiped out traditional journalism. While blogs don't make anywhere near the money of an Uber or Airbnb, they do influence broader culture.

 

**What the author clearly missed was that San Francisco is the center of start-up culture because it's the center of wealth. It has the highest per capita number of millionaires and billionaires in the world by a huge margin. When people have this much disposable wealth, they are far more likely to make risky investments. When you're rich, you can take bigger risks with your career and investments. When you're rich in your 20's, your options really open up. New York City lacks the venture capitalists of San Francisco. While there is no infrastructure needed for these start-ups, the VC's, advisors, business developers, and marketing minds are critical. San Francisco still beats New York City in these areas, but it's losing its edge. The majority of the world is not one-percenters. That's how apps like Washio end up getting big in the Bay, but have no chance of scaling.

I disagree with the premise of the article. "Bus ride diversity" might be an important factor for an artist, but an typical artist is typically the polar opposite of an typical engineer. An engineer would probably be looking at their shoes the entire bus ride anyway. Social interactions are not what make a typical engineer tick.

 

Maybe I am speaking from too much a Midwestern point of view, but an engineer is typically a problem solver that makes something perform to a set of specifications. Rigorous and quite often tedious processes are employed to do this. "Innovating" and taking risks are not typical parts of the workday. Indeed that kind of direction is often set by other parts of the company.

 

We're talking about brogrammers in the Bay, not stereotypical nerdy engineers. This is the Burning Man generation of "engineers." And engineer is a really loose term in the Bay. Sales reps are called engineers here. Customer service reps are "Success Engineers." You can't go by job title. Probably about half of the young people in the Bay have inflated job titles that say "engineer" in them. You don't have to be the best engineer to make a boatload of money here. You need to be able to sell and outsource the things you don't do well. At a lot of tech companies in the Bay, the majority of new jobs are sales, marketing, biz dev, legal analyst, regulatory analyst etc. Many of the start-ups that are the most famous are not heavy on engineering. San Francisco is a marketing machine before anything else. It's the world's ultimate hype maker.

 

Keep in mind the sharing economy is built on breaking existing laws and regulations, so a team of ace lawyers and marketing reps is more critical than a team of ace engineers...

This article kind of sums it up best in regards to the social dynamics taking over San Francisco and Oakland. The League could not have started in any other city. And this begs the obvious question- how can an app that's this exclusive in its user base ever become profitable? This is the kind of crazy crap I'm talking about with new start-ups in San Francisco and Oakland. Is there actually room for Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, Happn, and the hundreds of other dating apps to succeed? Tinder has the numbers. Bumble and Hinge have a shot in hell, but what about all the other ones?

 

Dating apps are an area where LA is beating the Bay, and they're doing it in a far more democratic, less shallow fashion.

 

Tinder is downright innocent and emotionally deep compared to this...

 

Dating App CEO: I'm Not an Elitist, Just an a$$hole

Sam Biddle

10/21/15 5:40pmFiled to: THE LEAGUE

 

The League isn’t for elitists. Ignore the fact that the dating app hosts a party for white people on Montauk, uses LinkedIn to filter out your inferiors, and can only be joined with a digital “ticket.” CEO Amanda Bradford says that doesn’t make her elitist, just “alpha.” There’s another word for that, Amanda!

 

Never mind that The League, with its over $2 million in VC funding, used a photo of a bunch of people in a Depression-era breadline in a blog post about its own waiting list—

 

—right above an ad for a “preview party” at New York’s very expensive Jane Hotel. Forget all of that! You’ve got it all wrong. The League isn’t about dating elitism, it’s about being with people who are better than most other people. Just listen to Amanda, who posted her self-apologia on LinkedIn, The Platform of The People:

 

When I got an academic scholarship to Carnegie Mellon to study computer science, I never thought twice about how education and career would affect my dating life. I worked incredibly hard to graduate early and build my resume, network, and pedigree working in all-male teams at name-brand tech companies. After finishing it all off with an MBA, I started to realize that with every promotion or degree I collected, I embodied more and more the definition of ‘alpha female’.

 

Never mind that Bradford’s major was actually Information Systems, which is part of CMU’s school of humanities and social sciences. Never mind that caring and talking about one’s “pedigree” and then going to business school are two pastimes of the elite.

 

CONTINUED

http://gawker.com/dating-app-ceo-im-not-an-elitist-just-an-a$$hole-1737896774

I disagree with the premise of the article. "Bus ride diversity" might be an important factor for an artist, but an typical artist is typically the polar opposite of an typical engineer. An engineer would probably be looking at their shoes the entire bus ride anyway. Social interactions are not what make a typical engineer tick.

 

Maybe I am speaking from too much a Midwestern point of view, but an engineer is typically a problem solver that makes something perform to a set of specifications. Rigorous and quite often tedious processes are employed to do this. "Innovating" and taking risks are not typical parts of the workday. Indeed that kind of direction is often set by other parts of the company.

Their phone, not their shoes.  :)

 

Seriously, engineers are heavily involved in the innovation process because we understand what can be done.  Most Japanese CEOs come from engineering, not finance.

 

Never mind that Bradford’s major was actually Information Systems, which is part of CMU’s school of humanities and social sciences. Never mind that caring and talking about one’s “pedigree” and then going to business school are two pastimes of the elite.

 

What used to be called Library Science....

^Yeah, her LinkedIn article is legendary in the Bay and has made her a feminist icon here. It has to be read to be believed. Notice too how her sales jobs are labeled as engineering positions. That's standard issue in San Francisco. She is dead serious that creating The League makes her an alpha female. I hate to drive traffic to her LinkedIn page, but it's a must-read article into the mind of modern-day San Francisco. I don't think her app has a chance of scaling. Real America isn't this full of itself:

 

I’m Not An Elitist, I’m Just An Alpha Female

Oct 20, 2015233,031 views3,270 Likes807 Comments

 

In less than a month from today The League turns 1 and I turn 31. As I reflect back on my first year as a single founder (yes, the pun is intended), my biggest regret is that for nearly a year I’ve held my tongue on voicing the mission behind The League, and instead let the press write their own story about a dating app exclusively for good-looking rich kids. I told myself I was just obeying wise adages: ‘ignore the critics’, ‘focus on your users and your product’, and ‘no press is bad press’, but by refusing to respond, I essentially let the media go on to corrupt our concept into one so superficial and optimized for clickbait that it’s nearly unrecognizable to me now.

 

Why did I hold back? Truthfully, I was worried that if I shared my real vision behind The League I would alienate some of our user base -- particularly the men -- which a dating app clearly needs to survive. This, in turn, could further segment our already-smaller-than-Tinder addressable market, and could hurt our chances at getting traction and raising funding. But ironically, by downplaying my mission, I was actually suffering from the very same type of complex I am determined to eradicate.

 

And at 31, it’s time for me to stop worrying about what other people think and start worrying about moving the needle.

So if you’ll bear with me while I get on my soapbox for a few minutes, I’d like to finally explain why I started The League.

 

CONTINUED

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/im-elitist-just-alpha-female-amanda-bradford

 

*The sad thing is I'd still date this girl because she's a cute San Francisco stereotype and only half as douchey as the trust fund hipsters in Oakland. She did work hard to get where she is at, so I can respect that. She's about as down-to-earth and real as people get in the Inner Bay today...

 

**And she's rich. I need an alpha female to survive the housing market. So I guess that makes me just as shallow as she is. Ain't nothing wrong with becoming a kept man for a rich girl in the Bay!

Well for an "alpha female" she's not a very good speaker.  Not funny, not enthusiastic.  Not even that confident. 

I disagree with the premise of the article. "Bus ride diversity" might be an important factor for an artist, but an typical artist is typically the polar opposite of an typical engineer. An engineer would probably be looking at their shoes the entire bus ride anyway. Social interactions are not what make a typical engineer tick.

 

Maybe I am speaking from too much a Midwestern point of view, but an engineer is typically a problem solver that makes something perform to a set of specifications. Rigorous and quite often tedious processes are employed to do this. "Innovating" and taking risks are not typical parts of the workday. Indeed that kind of direction is often set by other parts of the company.

Their phone, not their shoes.  :)

 

Seriously, engineers are heavily involved in the innovation process because we understand what can be done.  Most Japanese CEOs come from engineering, not finance.

 

Companies LOVE engineers that have sales and people skills. Clients really do want to talk to the engineers to learn how the process went about.

Well for an "alpha female" she's not a very good speaker.  Not funny, not enthusiastic.  Not even that confident. 

 

She has standard SF vocal fry and uptalk, but other than that, she is above average for the Bay. Some CEO's here really need voice coaches. Vocal fry and upward inflection are out of control in the Bay. It's even worse with the soft white men here than with the women. I can't stand the voices of most young white men in Oakland. They come off as unsure and unmasculine. The people who sound professional to me in Oakland are older Black and Latino men of baby boomer age. There was no accent in the Bay back then, and they sound way more professional than most millennials. Tech companies would be smart to hire some of these older guys to send out to meet with clients around the country. They also seem to have better grammar and stronger presentation skills. Public speaking is a weak area for Gen Y, and it is critically important in business leadership positions. You don't hear this vocal fry and upward inflection as much in Manhattan or Chicago business settings. Both men and women seem to talk better in those two cities. We are finally forming a widespread accent in coastal California (not just San Fernando), and it is not good. I'd say the Bay is worse than LA now, but this is a nationwide issue with Gen Y:

 

"If you hear it from younger women you suspect of being excessively insecure, though it's not intended as such it can be interpreted as a form of conversational weakness," says Liberman. That's something Collins agrees with.

 

"It's a bit meek; a bit everyman," Collins says. "To me it's not the language of business and power. But a lot of people are using it now, including men."

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28708526

 

*I could see this accent eventually hurting the Bay's credibility (if sketchy, over-the-top marketing doesn't hurt it first). On a global stage, people from New York City and Chicago generally sound more professional. I'm not sure how San Francisco fell behind in this area since it is the most "highly-educated" city in the country, possibly the world. I find it to be a very real issue that is starting to cause problems for start-ups.

 

**Young people in Portland and Seattle are starting to talk the same way as young people in the Bay, so it could hurt them too. This accent is becoming the norm everywhere on the West Coast, and it's arguably most pronounced with white men. It is dead wrong to call vocal fry and uptalk a white girl accent. Feminists have tried to argue attacks on the accent are "sexist," but that's not fair since the accent is every bit as common on Bay Area white men.

 

***I think our language is starting to fall apart in America like an Idiocracy, and this issue is not getting anywhere near enough attention. I'm amazed at how unintelligent some of my most intelligent friends sound when they speak. And any criticism of the new speech patterns makes you "sexist" or "outdated." Nonsense. I'm a millennial and hate this accent. Not all of us speak like this....yet.

I disagree with the premise of the article. "Bus ride diversity" might be an important factor for an artist, but an typical artist is typically the polar opposite of an typical engineer. An engineer would probably be looking at their shoes the entire bus ride anyway. Social interactions are not what make a typical engineer tick.

 

Maybe I am speaking from too much a Midwestern point of view, but an engineer is typically a problem solver that makes something perform to a set of specifications. Rigorous and quite often tedious processes are employed to do this. "Innovating" and taking risks are not typical parts of the workday. Indeed that kind of direction is often set by other parts of the company.

Their phone, not their shoes.  :)

 

Seriously, engineers are heavily involved in the innovation process because we understand what can be done.  Most Japanese CEOs come from engineering, not finance.

 

Companies LOVE engineers that have sales and people skills. Clients really do want to talk to the engineers to learn how the process went about.

 

Yeah, no doubt. An average programmer who can speak well and demo to clients usually goes further in the Bay than a top programmer lacking in these skills. Client relations are very important. This isn't just a tech thing. It's an every business thing.

 

Amanda Bradford talks about this in the video. She gives a good overview of the Bay Area job market. I've got to give homegirl credit. She understands how things work in San Francisco.

Well for an "alpha female" she's not a very good speaker.  Not funny, not enthusiastic.  Not even that confident. 

 

 

*I could see this accent eventually hurting the Bay's credibility (if sketchy, over-the-top marketing doesn't hurt it first). On a global stage, people from New York City and Chicago generally sound more professional. I'm not sure how San Francisco fell behind in this area since it is the most "highly-educated" city in the country, possibly the world. I find it to be a very real issue that is starting to cause problems for start-ups.

 

 

 

Believe it or not, the last study I saw on that said that Eindhoven, Netherlands was the most highly educated city in the world with the number two being... Columbus.

 

She has standard SF vocal fry and uptalk,

 

 

You know what that is good for? Selling glass-related services. There used to be commercials for an auto glass shop here in the '80s and '90s and I always remember it when I hear that kind of talk.

The first wave of tech entrepreneurs was laden with people on the highly functional end of the autism spectrum and that almost certainly included Bill Gates and probably Steve Jobs as well so it reached the very top.  They did their very damnedest to minimize the importance of “soft skills”.  In many cases they not only lacked those skills, they mistrusted those who had them because people with what used to be called “Aspergers” are often easily conned. 

 

They succeeded to a degree, especially in their own industry but within society as a whole as well.  They remade the world in their image.  Hence the public speaking thing, the above is true it hasn’t been seen as a crucial skill for quite some time.

 

Their influence continues (look at Mark Zuckerberg as an example) but the first wave is retiring or stepping back and the people with those skills they lack are making a comeback.  Their skills still have heavier influence in places like government and finance.  People who can deal with both are at a premium, and even those who only fake the tech knowledge are regaining influence.

 

You'll see another wave of innovation as the retirees and perhaps the younger spectrum crowd regains influence, but I doubt it will be based in the Valley.  Near Austin, Texas is my bet.

Not Steve Jobs at all. He was the guy who pretty much single handedly taught the tech industry the importance of soft skills.

 

He may have been a touch on the sociopathic spectrum though.

Not Steve Jobs at all. He was the guy who pretty much single handedly taught the tech industry the importance of soft skills.

 

He may have been a touch on the sociopathic spectrum though.

I would say it's way more likely that he was autistic than sociopathic, especially if he tried to pull the industry in a softer direction.  Sociopaths disdain others even privately, aspies empathize but don't show it because it leads to awkward and uncomfortable situations.

 

I don't think one can really understand the tech revolution without getting that last part.

Steve Jobs was more known locally in Palo Alto as a sociopath lacking in empathy. He also was known for firing people in public at Apple. In no way was he an Aspergers "introverted nerd" stereotype. He was a ruthless business shark with a sharp eye towards the over-the-top marketing we now take for granted in the Bay. Also, in terms of public speaking, he was above average. Most CEO's are above average. Marc Benioff is good in public. Larry Ellison is good in public. Travis Kalanick is good in public. So is Elon Musk, and the list goes on. Mark Zuckerberg is the last of the geeks, but I've seen him at parties, and he's pretty normal. Frat bros and sorority girls took over tech in San Francisco.

 

While not a bro, Steve Jobs ushered in the new era of heavily-marketed consumer tech. Apple deserves a ton of credit for its excellent marketing campaigns and eye towards design. Product development, UI/UX, and design are where San Francisco is strongest. But it all has to be backed up by business development, marketing, and customer service. And risk taking with new products has always been a key element of Silicon Valley product development. This is where client relationships are most critical since they give you the best feedback. It's not just about technical skills. The soft skills matter. Steve Jobs was good in interviews from the start and had solid public speaking skills. That helped Apple:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQKis2Cfpeo\

 

Also keep in mind the largest skyscraper being built in the state of California right now is for Salesforce. Nothing about that company is nerdy. Sales accelerators and cloud companies are typically heavy on sales people. It's very fratty and very sorortastic. If you've ever been to Dreamforce, you know what I'm talking about. It's a really good time since it's almost like Greek Week for adults.

 

The Greek Life influence in the San Francisco tech boom 2.0 is why it has been so much bigger and more successful than previous tech booms. It's also why they have largely been able to avoid the public markets. Somebody at these companies is very good at public speaking and demos if they can get this many rounds of venture capital.

 

I know San Francisco sorority girls who do these client pitches for a living, and they're not nerds whatsoever. They're almost always in critical business development or sales roles. Amanda Bradford is the face of modern tech, not Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook is ancient by Bay Area standards, but it will be around a lot longer than Twitter.

 

*The problem today is that frat bros and sorority girls from big universities are entirely priced out of the housing market. It's much harder to hire this talent when real trust fund kids are outbidding them on housing.

Marc Benioff is pretty much the gold standard in San Francisco for client management. He's very good with customers:

 

 

And the recruitment video has been a big part of this tech boom. Notice how back in 2012, Airbnb downplayed how many engineers they had:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdDisQuqIAg

 

And Tinder's LA video was legendary. CEO Sean Rad is total frat bro:

 

 

Tinder has really nailed its marketing too. SF could learn a few things from LA. The beauty of Tinder is the fact it's open to everyone and isn't full of ridiculous limitations like Bumble, Happn, Hinge, and SF's notorious The League:

 

 

LA could beat out the Bay in the next tech boom...socially, Los Angeles is stronger than San Francisco, and magnitudes stronger than Oakland. The fact that an insanely overpriced, violent hipster dystopia like Oakland is landing all this venture capital is terrifying. Oakland should never have been a tech hub...it doesn't belong in the big leagues with San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, and Seattle.

 

If it comes down to moving to Oakland or moving out of the Bay entirely, companies would be wise to leave the Bay for much cheaper, superior cities.

***I think our language is starting to fall apart in America like an Idiocracy, and this issue is not getting anywhere near enough attention. I'm amazed at how unintelligent some of my most intelligent friends sound when they speak. And any criticism of the new speech patterns makes you "sexist" or "outdated." Nonsense. I'm a millennial and hate this accent. Not all of us speak like this....yet.

 

Speaking as someone with a Masters in Linguistics; I have to point out that any attempts to direct language, especially spoken language, are futile. You can only describe language phenomena, not prescribe them. 

 

On the other hand...

 

Speaking as a member of the human race and someone with hopes and expectations about the society we all live in; I agree with you 100%!!

On the whole sociopath thing:

 

That's also a big part of San Francisco culture. Living in that city does make you somewhat of a sociopath since it's a zero sum game in regards to housing. You've got to watch out for yourself before anyone else (still, SF people tend to be nice enough to keep attracting tourists). Oakland is magnitudes worse. Oakland's entire political culture is built on radical sociopathy. I think the lawlessness and total lack of social norms in Oakland is part of what's attracting so much tech money. Oakland is the city to really test laws and regulations, not San Francisco...you can literally get away with anything in Oakland, hence why it's such a hotbed for crime.

 

The sociopathy thing also carries over heavily into dating. San Francisco and Oakland are the most polyamorous cities in America:

 

I have a fiancé, a girlfriend and two boyfriends

by Laurie Segall  @LaurieSegallCNN

January 28, 2015: 11:21 AM ET

 

 

http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/25/technology/polyamory-silicon-valley/

You can't force anyone to, but plenty of people can and do overcome undesirable speech patterns.  Not if they don't want to though, not if they decide that uptalk and vocal fry are values to be protected, or badges of gender pride.  The latter is especially ridiculous.  I once read an article on Slate defending that idea, after which I stopped reading Slate. 

LA could beat out the Bay in the next tech boom...socially, Los Angeles is stronger than San Francisco, and magnitudes stronger than Oakland. The fact that an insanely overpriced, violent hipster dystopia like Oakland is landing all this venture capital is terrifying. Oakland should never have been a tech hub...it doesn't belong in the big leagues with San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, and Seattle.

 

It won't be in California.  It's got to be becoming impossible to focus and concentrate out there, and that's key to truly breakthrough tech innovation.

 

Portland, Boise, or Austin I am thinking.  Most likely the latter.  The early days techies I know that have moved there love it.  Some are getting bored and working with the latest generation of computer geeks.

***I think our language is starting to fall apart in America like an Idiocracy, and this issue is not getting anywhere near enough attention. I'm amazed at how unintelligent some of my most intelligent friends sound when they speak. And any criticism of the new speech patterns makes you "sexist" or "outdated." Nonsense. I'm a millennial and hate this accent. Not all of us speak like this....yet.

 

Speaking as someone with a Masters in Linguistics; I have to point out that any attempts to direct language, especially spoken language, are futile. You can only describe language phenomena, not prescribe them. 

 

On the other hand...

 

Speaking as a member of the human race and someone with hopes and expectations about the society we all live in; I agree with you 100%!!

 

It's futile to even worry about it.  It's like bemoaning changing trends in music or fashion.

 

I'm old enough to remember when "ain't" was considered uneducated and "sucks" was taken literally and considered quite offensive.  Slang is the driver for colloquial speech and slang changes rapidly almost by definition.

walking around saying "vocal fryyyyy" to myself today. I hope I don't pick it up

walking around saying "vocal fryyyyy" to myself today. I hope I don't pick it up

 

LOL I had to look up what it is and we just discussed it in another context:

 

" Vocal fry is also used in metal music, usually in combination with air from the diaphragm, in order to create a "growl" or "scream" which sounds aggressive and harsh."

Marc Benioff is pretty much the gold standard in San Francisco for client management. He's very good with customers:

 

 

 

Isn't Marc Benioff and his firm based in Indianapolis? Might explain why he's more "real world" than the rest of the porcelain dolls in Silicon Valley.

walking around saying "vocal fryyyyy" to myself today. I hope I don't pick it up

 

LOL I had to look up what it is and we just discussed it in another context:

 

" Vocal fry is also used in metal music, usually in combination with air from the diaphragm, in order to create a "growl" or "scream" which sounds aggressive and harsh."

 

 

Welcome to the Jungle's got it

walking around saying "vocal fryyyyy" to myself today. I hope I don't pick it up

 

LOL I had to look up what it is and we just discussed it in another context:

 

" Vocal fry is also used in metal music, usually in combination with air from the diaphragm, in order to create a "growl" or "scream" which sounds aggressive and harsh."

 

 

Welcome to the Jungle's got it

 

As do at least half the non-ballad hair-band hits of the 80s.

Marc Benioff is pretty much the gold standard in San Francisco for client management. He's very good with customers:

 

 

 

Isn't Marc Benioff and his firm based in Indianapolis? Might explain why he's more "real world" than the rest of the porcelain dolls in Silicon Valley.

 

Marc Beniofff is actually a rare San Francisco native in tech, and he has always lived in the Bay. But he's old school. I think the reason he has such good real world perspective is because he is of an older generation that had experience with "Real San Francisco". His public speaking skills are excellent and he is very heavily involved in the San Francisco community. Besides throwing Dreamforce, which is one of the largest trade shows/conventions in San Francisco, he also supports a lot of civic institutions.

 

*Salesforce bought a marketing company in Indianapolis, ExactTarget (now the Salesforce Marketing Cloud), so Salesforce is Indiana's largest tech employer with about 2,000 employees in Indy. Their corporate headquarters is in Financial District San Francisco, but they're building the 1070-foot Salesforce Tower right now by the Transbay Transit Center. It will open in 2018 and be the tallest skyscraper on the West Coast. Salesforce is one of the largest employers in San Francisco and it's a great company that is the gold standard in terms of philanthropy.

LA could beat out the Bay in the next tech boom...socially, Los Angeles is stronger than San Francisco, and magnitudes stronger than Oakland. The fact that an insanely overpriced, violent hipster dystopia like Oakland is landing all this venture capital is terrifying. Oakland should never have been a tech hub...it doesn't belong in the big leagues with San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, and Seattle.

 

It won't be in California.  It's got to be becoming impossible to focus and concentrate out there, and that's key to truly breakthrough tech innovation.

 

Portland, Boise, or Austin I am thinking.  Most likely the latter.  The early days techies I know that have moved there love it.  Some are getting bored and working with the latest generation of computer geeks.

 

Austin is huge in tech due to SXSW, but judging by recent housing values, I'd keep banking on Portland and Seattle. The number of San Francisco and Oakland transplants working remotely up there from the Bay is simply remarkable. Every flight I take has people from the Bay moving up there. Bay Areans have also brought bid war culture with them, which tends to anger Pacific Northwest natives. The key difference is that Seattle and Portland are building tons of housing to make sure they don't turn into San Francisco and Oakland. It will never get as bad up there. They are way more progressive and a lot less classist.

 

*As an urban center, Seattle destroys Austin on every level. Portland also wipes its floor clean. Oakland does too, but Oakland is way more expensive and way more violent. Right now, the split is companies either move to Oakland or they leave the Bay for somewhere else on the West Coast. Both Seattle and Portland are vastly superior cities to Oakland with way higher quality of life, but Oakland is technically more functionally urban due to BART. And being 15 minutes from SF by train is its huge (and only) selling point over the Pacific Northwest. If Oakland weren't so violent and prone to riots, it would already have a larger downtown than Portland, and probably would be on Seattle's level. :|

 

Instead, Downtown Oakland is littered with empty storefronts, broken windows from riots, holes in the ground where skyscrapers were killed by protests, and a bunch of overpriced third wave hipster bars. But Downtown Oakland has seen explosive tech investment and a massive flood of tech workers. It's easily the most dead neighborhood in America with a heavy rail subway, obscene amounts of wealth, and so much population density. The 9-5 feel and weak nightlife is directly a result of crime and riots. The thinking in the East Bay is that Oakland will magically "change" if enough millionaires move in to the ghettos. So far, the millionaires have moved in, but the crime is still second to Detroit. Nobody is voting to hire enough cops or maintain a functional school system. The majority of voters vote with their wallets before anything else.

 

**I forgot the other huge selling point of Oakland for tech companies- Burning Man. Nothing is more important to the tech scene than Burning Man, and Oakland is the de facto hub of it. The mayor of Oakland drives around in a Burning Man car, and the city is where all the fabrication is done for it. It also has arguably the strongest regional scene. The influence of Burning Man on tech cannot be overstated. That's really what's pulling in the rich kids to Oakland. About 25% of applicants to my flat are Burners. 25% are UC Berkeley undergrads. 25% are 20-something retirees. And the remaining 25% are mid six-figure 20-somethings working in tech.

 

***Austin is going to need to get something like the Burner scene going to compete with Oakland for the highest-paying jobs, venture capitalists, and big tech HQ's. There is a reason companies like Uber are picking Oakland over Austin...

 

Austin's airport is also tiny and lacks a lot of key flights on business development routes (though it's a cute airport). Even OAK offers better service for tech companies. SFO and SEA are two of the biggest airports in the country. PDX is also way better than AUS. Airports are a big deal for corporate HQ's. The Bay benefits big time by having heavy rail access to both SFO and OAK, and if you live in either city, you can get to either airport easily.

 

Basically, there are a lot of infrastructure and cultural reasons why Austin has remained a back office to the Bay. Tech workers do tend to love it (though they might be basing too much on SXSW), but it lacks effective mass transit, density, and Burning Man. It's also extremely conservative compared to the Bay. You can't do drugs in the street, and it has a long way to go in liberalizing sex trade. The political culture is night and day compared to the Bay. Austin is sane. There is nothing weird at all about it. Austin's big sell point is Sixth Street, which is almost as trashy and fun as Athens, Ohio. Austin's music scene also blows San Francisco and Oakland out of the water. Austin has strengths for 20-somethings, but I'm not sure how this fixes major infrastructure problems. :|

 

****And I didn't even cover Los Angeles, which beats every city on the West Coast except San Francisco. It's also a fraction of the cost of the Bay. LA is now cheaper than Seattle too.

 

When you've got all these affordable alternative cities with tons of commuter flights to SFO/OAK like Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, etc., it's going to be tough for middle America to compete. You can't just go by housing costs. You've also got to look at utilities (cheap on the West Coast), talent pool, local universities, mass transit, flight costs, etc.

 

I'd bank most on Los Angeles, New York City, Seattle, and Portland. New York City is a good East Coast bet because it has tons of cheap commuter flights to SFO. There are also hundreds of strong urban neighborhoods left to gentrify in NYC. It's nothing like the situation in SF/OAK where every single functionally urban neighborhood is long past its affordability crisis point. Silicon Valley could also use a good dose of no-bullshit New York realism, which could keep the questionable marketing tactics in check. I never thought I'd say this, but Wall Street seems more honest than the Bay these days (certainly more honest than Oakland). NYC has the safe, affordable urban neighborhoods for young people. Transit in NYC blows every American city out of the water, so not nearly the same Uber budget is needed to survive there. The original premise of the article arguing for Silicon Alley is dead-on. New York City beats the Bay on every quality of life metric except weather and food. San Francisco is just a slice of a slower, wealthier part of Manhattan, and Oakland is Newark with 10x the cost of living.

 

I don't get how New York City has failed to poach more companies from San Francisco. The culture shock is huge coming from California, but NYC seems to have softened up quite a bit...

^^  All that’s true, and of course the office politics and social competition is getting heavy in those areas.  The Winklevosses and their ilk are beginning to take over with their marketing and business (or library sci…..errr…..information systems) degrees and that’s making things uncomfortable for the code-and-electrons types that founded their own companies in part to get away from all that.  The thing is, they are the ones who cajole the laws of physics into doing new and different things.  When it’s all said and done, marketing is packaging, or the application of technology to new areas.

 

Now, all this is strictly secondhand, but my understanding is a lot of these folks in their 40s and 50s opted out and bailed to the Austin area because it’s warm, housing prices are more Midwest than coastal, and because as it’s Texas’s liberal reservation you get the best of both worlds.  These were “Reagan kids”, they were culturally libertarian and fiscally conservative even when they were in college, and as they have money that certainly does not change. 

 

My guess is enough of them are close enough to the edge of tech skills to be relevant, and when they are bored they’ll tinker around without any constraints and state of the art equipment.  Keep in mind they first got into computers as a hobby, it wasn’t a way to make money or please their parents.  They love doing this stuff and there’s enough of a critical mass down there for a few to work together on thornier problems.

And there’s a major university close by.

 

I could be way off, but I’m thinking this is an area to watch as far as true technological breakthroughs happening.  Which is how Silicon Valley happened to begin with.

 

^I don't know, Austin comes off as pretty right wing socially conservative with leftist fiscal liberalism compared to Oakland. The rich people in Austin get taxed to hell compared to the rich people in Oakland. I think the anti-tax, morally bankrupt, anti-cop, anti-school, pro-poly, pro-drug, self-centered environment of Oakland is far more in line with traditional libertarianism. Oakland is truly a "I got mine! F**k you!" kind of city. SF has some of this attitude too, but it's not as pronounced since it invests a hell of a lot more money into public infrastructure like parks and annual parties (without admission). San Francisco is much looser with the purse strings since it wants to maintain its tourism levels. San Franciscans will vote for levies to maintain the city's beauty, safety, and major events. Oakland barely invests anything in infrastructure or any sort of public good. There is nothing like San Francisco's Bay To Breakers, Chinese New Year, Pride, Carnival, etc. in Oakland. It would be completely impossible to do that kind of stuff in Oakland. Even a smaller, weaker event like Oakland's Art Murmur has taken a lot of hits lately. Oakland is designed as a low tax environment with huge sacrifices in basic civic services. Again, I think this is what most libertarians want in their cities. Oakland is probably as close to the ideal as possible without open warfare in the streets. The belief in Oakland is that rich people can hire their own police, and that's exactly what's happening in wealthy Oakland neighborhoods. The privatization of policing is well underway:

 

Citizens of Oakland are Crowdfunding a Private Police Force (UPDATED)

http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/citizens-oakland-crowdfunding-private-police-force/#ixzz3y0gvoChA

 

With Robberies Up, Oakland Residents Turn To Private Cops

Updated November 15, 201312:16 PM ET

http://www.npr.org/2013/11/15/245213687/with-robberies-up-oakland-residents-turn-to-private-cops

 

You'll notice that in that second article, people argue "Oakland Police can't take care of the city due to lack of funding". That lack of funding is directly the result of low taxes. Guys like Rand Paul love this stuff, which is why he flew out to Silicon Valley for a lot of his fundraising. Oakland is as close to the libertarian ideal as any city in America and this libertarianism has no doubt played a role in attracting the young libertarian 1% to Oakland. Overall, it probably has the lowest tax burden in California. The schools are an underfunded wreck, the police force is half the size it should be, and everyone feels it will work out due to trickle down economics and declining birth rates.

 

*The biggest issue in Austin is lack of venture capital. San Francisco and Oakland have higher median net wealth than anywhere else in the world, hence all the venture capital. Seattle is pretty wealthy too, so it has a lot of venture capital. Los Angeles is overwhelmingly middle class, but it still has some institutional wealth from Hollywood. Portland is small and middle class, but it can easily pull money from Seattle and the Bay. New York City has Wall Street and a lot of old money.

 

Burning Man is a critical difference maker in the Bay, and this Burner culture is strongest in Oakland. That's why despite its extreme levels of crime, Oakland is landing all these young tech workers:

 

Burning Man becomes a hot spot for tech titans

Like moths to a flame, Burning Man is drawing more CEOs and venture capitalists to the playa for high-powered networking. Welcome to the business bacchanalia.

http://www.sfgate.com/style/article/Burning-Man-becomes-a-hot-spot-for-tech-titans-4756482.php

 

A Line Is Drawn in the Desert

At Burning Man, the Tech Elite One-Up One Another

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/fashion/at-burning-man-the-tech-elite-one-up-one-another.html?_r=0

 

Why the Rich Love Burning Man

Burning Man became a festival that rich libertarians love because it never had a radical critique at its core.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/burning-man-one-percent-silicon-valley-tech/

 

Debauchery in the desert: Wife-swapping. Orgy tents. Drugs on tap. How billionaires and Hollywood stars are flocking to a festival that makes Glasto look SO tame

Annual Burning Man festival attracts upwards of 70,000 people each year for a week-long party binge in the desert. Public nudity, especially by women, is actively encouraged, and orgies, partner swapping, and threesomes is rife. The festival in the Nevada desert is a free-for-all of art, music, fancy dress and outrageous behaviour

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2736228/Debauchery-desert-Wife-swapping-Orgy-tents-Drugs-tap-How-billionaires-Hollywood-stars-flocking-festival-makes-Glasto-look-SO-tame.html#ixzz3y0ZMcT41

I don't know about Austin but when Toyota announced that they were moving their North American headquarters from Northern Kentucky to Dallas I looked up their local taxes and was shocked to see that property tax is often *double* what it is in the Midwest.  This drives up mortgage bills and rent by hundreds per month on even the most modest home.  The lack of a state income tax means the state pushes a lot of "state" tasks down on the localities, and so the localities then have to raise sales and property taxes to cover basic stuff that the state should be paying for with a skim of corporate profits and a state inheritance tax. 

^Yeah, Austin's taxes are insane, and they also don't have the tech tax breaks like companies get in Mid-Market San Francisco. Keep in mind San Francisco has no city or county income tax. Most of its tax revenue comes from use taxes- parking fees and sales tax. Use taxes almost always benefit the rich the most since their effective tax rate goes down. Low taxes and cheap utilities are two areas where San Francisco and Oakland have done a lot to encourage business development. The lack of childbirth also greatly lessens the need for future taxes. Nobody has to subsidize public schools.

 

Companies avoid $34M in city taxes thanks to ‘Twitter tax break’

By Marissa Lang Updated 8:41 pm, Monday, October 19, 2015

 

Businesses in San Francisco’s Mid-Market district skirted nearly $34 million in city payroll taxes last year thanks to a controversial incentive program known as the “Twitter tax break” intended to keep tech firms from fleeing for Silicon Valley.

 

That sum, published in a report released Monday by the San Francisco Controller’s Office, increased by about $30 million from 2013 and is five times greater than the amount of taxes companies avoided in the two previous years combined.

 

The increase can be attributed, in part, to the fact that the city includes stock options in its payroll tax calculations, city officials said. Several Mid-Market companies have gone public since the incentive went into effect in 2012, including Twitter in 2013 and Zendesk last year. The 2013 figures didn’t include Twitter’s $25 billion initial public offering nor Zendesk’s $100 million IPO.

 

CONTINUED

http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Companies-avoid-34M-in-city-taxes-thanks-to-6578396.php

California does not permit municipal earnings taxes in any city.  Same thing for Illinois (Chicago) and some other big cities.  Philadelphia has the highest (4%) and NYC is a close second with 3.6% for earnings above $60,000. 

^Levies can be passed to fund schools, police, and other things though. That has been a big issue in Orange County since there are so many kids there. Property taxes can vary greatly across the state. San Francisco and Oakland have insanely low property tax rates with Prop 13 protections on top of that (most people bought when home prices were a fraction of what they are today, and then they later became landlords). San Francisco and Oakland both vote against tax levies for the most part. As a whole, SF and OAK are anti-tax compared to cities in Ohio.

 

The reliance on property taxes is also why the public schools have gotten so bad in California. Coupled with Prop 13, there isn't enough money to keep public schools open. But, as I've heard people in Oakland say, "If people want to have kids, they can send them to private schools."

 

*Plenty of tech companies have threatened to leave the Bay for lower-coast environments, but cities here step in to pass tax breaks to get them to stay. These tax breaks and incentives get a ton of coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle, but it's not part of the national narrative.

 

**In the future during tech boom 3.0, the housing costs of San Francisco and Oakland will be an issue. Berkeley released a study arguing this hyper-gentrification is just getting started. We all know things are only going to get worse here since most of the rich folks will continue to fight tooth and nail against housing construction:

 

More gentrification, displacement in Bay Area forecast

By Kathleen Maclay, Media relations | AUGUST 24, 2015

 

The San Francisco Bay Area’s transformation into a sprawling, exclusive and high-income community with less and less room for its low-income residents is just beginning, according to UC Berkeley researchers who literally have it all mapped out.

 

The interactive Urban Displacement Project map, released today by a Berkeley team, indicates the displacement crisis is not yet half over, as rising housing prices and pressure on low-income residents to relocate to the outer suburbs accelerate.

 

CONTINUED

http://news.berkeley.edu/2015/08/24/more-gentrification-displacement-in-bay-area-forecast/

Well it's not just the new companies, it's the legacy companies.  Anybody who has worked at Apple since 2003 and bought the company stock is a multi-millionaire.  That's when shares traded at $6.  One share from 2003 is now 14 shares and trade for $100.  So if they have $10,000 in Apple shares from 2003 (which someone who started working there in 2000 almost certainly would) they now have over 20,000 shares thanks to the splits.  So do the math -- right now about $2 million.  No doubt there are many Apple employees with ordinary jobs -- accountants, even janitors -- who have over $20 million in company stock. 

^Yeah, I know a guy from San Francisco who invested $10,000 in Apple stock back in the 90's, and he got $6 million out of it. He never even worked there. There are tons of people like that all over the Bay. What I would do for a time machine...a lot of these IPO's today don't have the same potential. Just look what happened to Twitter. Many tech companies are already overvalued by the time they hit the market. Case in point would be the Square and Box IPO's of 2015. Companies are staying private for as long as possible today. The reason that's possible is because of all the venture capital/wealth in the Bay.

 

Apple IPO makes instant millionaires, December 12, 1980

 

On December 12, 1980, Apple launched its IPO (initial public offering) of its stock, selling 4.6 million shares at $22 per share with the stock symbol “AAPL” on the NASDAQ market.

 

The shares sold out almost immediately and the IPO generated more capital than any IPO since Ford Motor Company in 1956. Instantly, about 300 millionaires, some 40 of which are Apple employees and investors, are created. That is more millionaires than any company in history had produced at that time. Steve Jobs, the largest shareholder, made $217 million dollars alone.

 

CONTINUED

http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/edn-moments/4403276/Apple-IPO-makes-instant-millionaires--December-12--1980

Some indicators that the Bay may be in a publicly-financed bubble too. These are P/E ratios for dominant Bay Area industries as of 1/22/2016:

 

Application Software: 53.90

Biotechnology: 165.80

Computer Based Systems: 141.80

Internet Software & Services: 333.60

Multimedia & Graphics Software: 91.40

Technical & System Software: 62.80

 

http://biz.yahoo.com/p/industries.html

 

*The P/E ratio right now for Technology as a whole sector is 23.36. There are some wild valuations in the Bay right now beyond just the private equity markets...

 

The global stock markets in general seem overvalued, and we could be heading for a crash. Hopefully it's not as horrendous as 2008...China for sure is in a huge bubble, and it's going to drag down a lot of US companies relying on sales there as well. :|

 

**The Bay's tech bubble will re-inflate at warp speed after any crash similar to what happened after 2008. The real money floating around today in San Francisco and Oakland is the highest it has ever been in history. That's why most home sales in these two cities are all-cash. There is unlimited private equity in SF. What a market crash might do is weed out the real companies from the fakers. And then the next tech bubble will begin shortly after. The 2001-2010 economic lull in San Francisco was an historic aberration and probably won't happen again. Lots of people in the Bay were literally wiped out after the first tech bubble started to blow in 2000. That won't be the case with this bubble since there is so much more venture capital. Investors in the Bay can afford to take big risks and there were more fakers in 1999 than today...

I agree that any boom in Oakland is a huge warning sign the Bay is in a bubble. This happened in the late 90's tech 1.0 bubble and it happened again during the California housing bubble of the mid-2000's. Then after the market crash of 2008, Oakland homeowners lost almost all of their equity (but if they held on, they soon got it all back and then some). Oakland ghetto real estate is wildly overvalued compared to any other city on earth. Even world class San Francisco neighborhoods might be overvalued now too...

 

7 reasons the tech sector should be scared

By David R. BakerJanuary 22, 2016 Updated: January 22, 2016 7:00am

 

Has the tech bubble already burst, and we just haven’t figured it out?

 

It’s the nature of market bubbles that the pop only becomes clear in hindsight, often months after the fact. Until then, the world hurtles on like Wile E. Coyote running off the cliff, legs pumping even though there’s nothing underneath. Eventually, he notices. Gravity does its thing. But for a time, he just hangs there, eyes on the prize, unaware that his feet no longer touch solid ground.

 

Any San Franciscan who lived through the dot.com implosion probably remembers that Wile E. period. Tech stocks peaked in March of 2000 and began what would turn into a very deep slide. The layoffs, scattered and small at first, snowballed until, by the end of 2002, more than a quarter million jobs had been wiped from the Bay Area economy.

 

But for most of 2000, you wouldn’t have known it.

 

The city was awash in money, people and bad business plans that somehow found funding. Office space grew scarce at any price. Apartment showings drew polite, desperate mobs, even for shoddy spaces that probably violated a dozen building codes. Gentrification fights raged. Startups threw so many Svedka-drenched parties at Ruby Skye and Jillian’s that any given weekend felt like New Year’s Eve.

 

...We heart Oakland. And we’ve noticed that somehow The Town gets left out of economic cycles until the very end. Which, being the end, isn’t all that helpful.

 

Renters and homebuyers priced out of San Francisco are now pouring across the Bay Bridge. And Oakland’s long-dormant downtown is about to get a big new resident. Ride service Uber — the boom’s most successful startup, worth an estimated $62.5 billion — bought the former Sears building at Broadway and 20th Street last year. Uber, which is still hiring staff while others cut, plans to pump $40 million into renovations and occupy the 7-story building in 2017, adding 2,000 to 3,000 employees to Oakland’s core.

 

Oh, and a month earlier, Oakland officials approved a developer’s plan to build a 33-story, 345-unit residential tower across the street. Both projects are controversial in a community grappling with rapid gentrification. Both represent serious investment in the city.

 

But remember what happened during the dot.com days. By the time capital started flowing into Oakland, mostly for new housing development, the bust was nigh.

 

FULL ARTICLE (Good read on economic conditions here in the Bay)

http://www.sfchronicle.com/technology/article/Has-the-tech-bubble-popped-and-we-just-haven-t-6775865.php

I think the big change we're going to see in tech bubble 3.0 is that venture capital will pour into much cheaper markets like Los Angeles, Seattle, New York City, and Portland. If a housing crash is coming, it will be the perfect time to invest in those four cities. All of them are well-positioned for the next round of start-ups. The next bubble will include a lot more cities, and spread around the wealth a little more. Of course SF and OAK will get the lion's share of investment due to their local VC firms, but they won't be hoarding venture capital in tech bubble 3.0 to the degree seen in tech bubble 2.0.

 

Having all these start-ups in the most expensive housing market in the world with the most expensive office space in the United States is not sustainable. It arguably leads to poor business practices too since it creates such an opportunistic environment with no loyalty (this can apply to both relationships and jobs). While many view the high job turnover rate of the Bay's start-ups as a strength, you need key long-term staff members to keep business relations strong and growth moving along. The turnover rate at some of these start-ups is astronomical, and I don't think strong companies in it for the long haul can do well with such high turnover.

 

Some turnover is natural and exists in every sector, but what's happening in San Francisco where many people in tech have 2-3 jobs a year is not sustainable. I get why people do it since you need constantly huge raises just to survive if you don't have rent control, but it's not a good long-term strategy. I've had some roommates leave stable positions at big companies to work at questionable start-ups that dangled big equity carrots. Luckily, these roommates were already rich...

 

Rich kids can afford to take those kinds of risks. That's also why a market crash won't reduce housing prices (current zoning laws make sure that won't happen). Most of these kids are likely to stick around since they have the money to stick around for years without working. That's a big difference from 2000. Older folks tell me you couldn't even rent a U-Haul back then, and the stream of trailers crossing the Bay Bridge out of San Francisco lasted for two years...

 

San Francisco Office Rents Most Expensive In The Country

January 11, 2016 10:18 AM

 

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — San Francisco has become the most expensive place in the country to do business. It costs more to rent office space in The City than pricey Manhattan.

 

Offices are renting for $72.26 per square foot in San Francisco, compared to $71.85 a square foot in Manhattan, according to a report from CBRE, a real estate research company based in Los Angeles. Not since the dot-com boom has the cost office space in San Francisco been higher than New York.

 

Industry analysts say it is a classic case of short supply and high demand. The mass-migration of tech companies has made inventory scarce in a market that was tight already.

 

Colin Yasukochi, CBRE’s director of research and analysis says tech tenants occupy nearly a third of San Francisco’s occupied office space, nearly double the percentage during tech boom of the 90s.

 

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/01/11/san-francisco-office-rents-most-expensive-in-the-country/

Some indicators that the Bay may be in a publicly-financed bubble too. These are P/E ratios for dominant Bay Area industries as of 1/22/2016:

 

Application Software: 53.90

Biotechnology: 165.80

Computer Based Systems: 141.80

Internet Software & Services: 333.60

Multimedia & Graphics Software: 91.40

Technical & System Software: 62.80

 

http://biz.yahoo.com/p/industries.html

 

 

 

 

Ugh, not the ticket for Value Investing. This is how those old crotchety pros that have been in the market for 60 years sit back and watch the young hungry guys lose their asses.

^Yeah, I hear that. All of the local tech investors I know in their 20's tend to belief that P/E ratios are "for old people" or "from a very different era." Or my oft-quoted favorite, "The time is different. Tech is eating the world and there will never be another bubble in the Bay again." This reminds me a lot of what people were telling the media before the Titanic launched. "This ship is unsinkable!"

 

I agree with tech investors that P/E ratio is not the only (or even most important) metric to go by, but you've got to look at it in combination with sales growth, conversion rates, competition in the industry, and many other important factors. To just flat out ignore those metrics is dangerous. Right now, as a whole in the Bay, P/E ratios are out of whack. In private equity, the situation is much, much more extreme...

 

Far too many start-ups are getting series A and series B right now that aren't going to be able to convert user base to revenue. The focus on user base growth above all else reminds me a lot of the late 90's. I was just a little kid back then, but I was a voracious news junkie. I remember reading all of those crazy articles about Silicon Valley. Older folks at Fortune 500 companies in Michigan and Ohio were saying it was nuts. "Those guys will need real sales if they think they can survive." I bet even to this day, Midwesternern business leaders have that attitude towards the Bay...

I was a business student in the late '90s and my professors were sarcastic about all that "New Economy" stuff. I didn't go to a research university for undergrad, so these guys had successful 30-year careers in insurance, banking and at P&G prior to teaching.

^Yeah, I hear that. All of the local tech investors I know in their 20's tend to belief that P/E ratios are "for old people" or "from a very different era." Or my oft-quoted favorite, "The time is different. Tech is eating the world and there will never be another bubble in the Bay again." This reminds me a lot of what people were telling the media before the Titanic launched. "This ship is unsinkable!"

 

If people are really starting to say stuff like that then I think a bubble might be nigh.

 

Its kind of weird but bubbles only happen when most people start getting irrational about such things with statements like there won't be a bubble (on a side note the sheer level of negativity towards OTR in Cincy right now being overvalued is giving me the opposite instinct - it will grow for many years to come too many people think it is a bubble).

^Yeah, I hear that. All of the local tech investors I know in their 20's tend to belief that P/E ratios are "for old people" or "from a very different era." Or my oft-quoted favorite, "The time is different. Tech is eating the world and there will never be another bubble in the Bay again." This reminds me a lot of what people were telling the media before the Titanic launched. "This ship is unsinkable!"

 

If people are really starting to say stuff like that then I think a bubble might be nigh.

 

Its kind of weird but bubbles only happen when most people start getting irrational about such things with statements like there won't be a bubble (on a side note the sheer level of negativity towards OTR in Cincy right now being overvalued is giving me the opposite instinct - it will grow for many years to come too many people think it is a bubble).

 

We saw this with Tech Bubble 1 and the housing bubble.  The more people involved who aren't coming up ways to improve the product rather than sell it, the more likely a bubble is.

 

I'm not sure if this would be publically available, but I would think an E/M ratio (engineering/marketing) would predict companies that will be breaking through versus those trying to ride a wave.