What is stopping NoVA from reaching SV level prices?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[quote=Anonymous

If you are creating a product or service people actually want to buy or use, you won’t need to kiss a politicians ass.

All the big SV firms have representatives in greater DC, to kiss pols asses.

Not to the same extent as the beltway bandits.

The beltway bandits are serving the SV firms (and other firms around the country)

The point is that if kissing Pols asses means you don't have a product of service people want to use, then no one has such product or service.

The bigger point is that most products or services sold by companies in DC would not be bought by anyone other than the government, so that is why you need to kiss their ass.

To give you an example - the Obamacare website cost $1.7B to build, and it's crap. You wouldn't be able to get away with this shit if you're a normal company.

While SV firms kiss ass to be able to trade personal data, or to have monopolies, or to get employees on H1B visas, or whatever. The point is they are still kissing ass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[quote=Anonymous

If you are creating a product or service people actually want to buy or use, you won’t need to kiss a politicians ass.

All the big SV firms have representatives in greater DC, to kiss pols asses.

Not to the same extent as the beltway bandits.

The beltway bandits are serving the SV firms (and other firms around the country)

The point is that if kissing Pols asses means you don't have a product of service people want to use, then no one has such product or service.

The bigger point is that most products or services sold by companies in DC would not be bought by anyone other than the government, so that is why you need to kiss their ass.

To give you an example - the Obamacare website cost $1.7B to build, and it's crap. You wouldn't be able to get away with this shit if you're a normal company.

While SV firms kiss ass to be able to trade personal data, or to have monopolies, or to get employees on H1B visas, or whatever. The point is they are still kissing ass.

Are you kidding me? I see horrible private sector websites all the time. Don't just compare elite major companies like Google or Apple, look at the smaller and mid-sized companies as well. Lots of them are awful or have very little content on them.

As far as quality of products and services go: Again, don't just compare elite companies. I've bought plenty of stuff on Amazon that broke very quickly, and at least half the items at the supermarket is bad for my health. For every one product that I find helpful, the private sector produces 10 that I find totally useless, banal, and even detrimental from a natural resources perspective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is a shity southern state with as much swampland around its one draw (DC). Traffic sucks so there is a race to be close but the rest is mediocre. Who would look at Springfield and think this deserves to be nice?

Was about to say something similar. SV has the Pacific on one side and gorgeous mountains on the other side + bay.

Nova is ugly as shit humid swampland.

NOVA is what it is, granted no oceans and views. But it is invigorating the Mid Atlantic in TECH plus politics. Being just outside of the heart of Congress doesn't exactly hurt and many of my neighbor lawyers and lobbyists live hear for precisely that.

If you are creating a product or service people actually want to buy or use, you won’t need to kiss a politicians ass.

Talented people have choices and choosing not to live in an expensive swamp is obviously one most make.

Actually we have a product that no one is willing to pay for, want to use for free, then trade their personal information for its use, then politicians do matter

Good point, but not all SV companies have made money this way.

Facebook, Google do, and Apple and Amazon sell services and hardware built on the back of the first two.

If we didn’t have Facebook, Google on our phones what would we do, if we actually paid for apps b/c they couldn’t harvest personal info, I suspect usage was plummet.

And AWS is backbone of Amazon profits, and SV companies are biggest customer (though DoD could be next)

Apple and Amazon are built on back of Facebook and Google? Okaaaay. Care to elaborate?

There are also companies like Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb... not to mention companies like Cisco and Oracle. Adobe. Agilent. HP. Intel etc etc

+eBay, Netflix, Tesla, Xilinx

In other words.. companies where being a worthless bureaucrat just won’t cut it

Um many of these companies are profitable solely because they decided to run with a business model that flouts regulations. You are delusional if you think they don't value government bureaucrat experience.

-- SV tech worker and former fed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[quote=Anonymous

If you are creating a product or service people actually want to buy or use, you won’t need to kiss a politicians ass.

All the big SV firms have representatives in greater DC, to kiss pols asses.

Not to the same extent as the beltway bandits.

The beltway bandits are serving the SV firms (and other firms around the country)

The point is that if kissing Pols asses means you don't have a product of service people want to use, then no one has such product or service.

The bigger point is that most products or services sold by companies in DC would not be bought by anyone other than the government, so that is why you need to kiss their ass.

To give you an example - the Obamacare website cost $1.7B to build, and it's crap. You wouldn't be able to get away with this shit if you're a normal company.

While SV firms kiss ass to be able to trade personal data, or to have monopolies, or to get employees on H1B visas, or whatever. The point is they are still kissing ass.

The very simple idea of extent is lost on you as is the idea that lots of companies (not facebook or google) can create products or services that have wide commercial appeal. This explains why you are stuck in a swamp.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is a shity southern state with as much swampland around its one draw (DC). Traffic sucks so there is a race to be close but the rest is mediocre. Who would look at Springfield and think this deserves to be nice?

Was about to say something similar. SV has the Pacific on one side and gorgeous mountains on the other side + bay.

Nova is ugly as shit humid swampland.

NOVA is what it is, granted no oceans and views. But it is invigorating the Mid Atlantic in TECH plus politics. Being just outside of the heart of Congress doesn't exactly hurt and many of my neighbor lawyers and lobbyists live hear for precisely that.

If you are creating a product or service people actually want to buy or use, you won’t need to kiss a politicians ass.

Talented people have choices and choosing not to live in an expensive swamp is obviously one most make.

Actually we have a product that no one is willing to pay for, want to use for free, then trade their personal information for its use, then politicians do matter

Good point, but not all SV companies have made money this way.

Facebook, Google do, and Apple and Amazon sell services and hardware built on the back of the first two.

If we didn’t have Facebook, Google on our phones what would we do, if we actually paid for apps b/c they couldn’t harvest personal info, I suspect usage was plummet.

And AWS is backbone of Amazon profits, and SV companies are biggest customer (though DoD could be next)

Apple and Amazon are built on back of Facebook and Google? Okaaaay. Care to elaborate?

There are also companies like Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb... not to mention companies like Cisco and Oracle. Adobe. Agilent. HP. Intel etc etc

+eBay, Netflix, Tesla, Xilinx

In other words.. companies where being a worthless bureaucrat just won’t cut it

Um many of these companies are profitable solely because they decided to run with a business model that flouts regulations. You are delusional if you think they don't value government bureaucrat experience.

-- SV tech worker and former fed

and you are delusional if you think that the typical fed making $130K in DC can cut it as an employee (even junior level) at one of these SV companies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[quote=Anonymous

If you are creating a product or service people actually want to buy or use, you won’t need to kiss a politicians ass.

All the big SV firms have representatives in greater DC, to kiss pols asses.

Not to the same extent as the beltway bandits.

The beltway bandits are serving the SV firms (and other firms around the country)

The point is that if kissing Pols asses means you don't have a product of service people want to use, then no one has such product or service.

The bigger point is that most products or services sold by companies in DC would not be bought by anyone other than the government, so that is why you need to kiss their ass.

To give you an example - the Obamacare website cost $1.7B to build, and it's crap. You wouldn't be able to get away with this shit if you're a normal company.

While SV firms kiss ass to be able to trade personal data, or to have monopolies, or to get employees on H1B visas, or whatever. The point is they are still kissing ass.

The typical beltway bandit company has to be proximate to DC in order to survive; such is the extent of the ass kissing required to get business. If they pick up and move someplace else, the business won't survive.

Companies like Apple and Netflix do not have to be in the DC area. The need to have the capability to attract talent (who have choices and choose not to live in a swamp) exceeds the need to be located near feds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Companies like Apple and Netflix do not have to be in the DC area. The need to have the capability to attract talent (who have choices and choose not to live in a swamp) exceeds the need to be located near feds.

From all I can gather firms like netflix located in SF bay because of the concentration ot talent because there are so many other firms there, and because of access to venture capital, not becaue of the living conditions - or they would be in Portland or Boulder or someplace like that.

Apple has been in SV since the days of the homebrew computer club in the 1970s. Wozniak was working for HP, which was cofounded by someone who came from Bell Labs

[Anonymous]

Somebody is just making noise that DC is losing somehow in this? Hmm, wonder who that might be?

This is no indictment of DC. It’s true that we don’t have enough ad or film jobs that would make lateral moves possible for people in that industry. Makes sense that those workers would be hesitant to be relocated here. Doesn’t mean that HQ2 isn’t happening, though. Some bitter anti-government trolls are persistent in their hatred of everything and everyone who doesn’t want the current cleptocracy kept in check. If they destroy DC, and the mechanisms of checks and balances and oversight, who can stop them?

[Anonymous]

former fed who now works in SV at a tech company and DH is tech in SV as well. DC, due to the kissing ass of government, tends to attract risk averse people. SV is all about failing and failing fast. DH who is an entrepreneur hated the types of people he met in DC in the tech scene, saying even the private sector folks had a risk averseness about them that would not be successful in startups. I loved DC but at a general level he is right. there is a close mindedness and a base level of complacency in the DMV area that isn't here in the Bay Area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:former fed who now works in SV at a tech company and DH is tech in SV as well. DC, due to the kissing ass of government, tends to attract risk averse people. SV is all about failing and failing fast. DH who is an entrepreneur hated the types of people he met in DC in the tech scene, saying even the private sector folks had a risk averseness about them that would not be successful in startups. I loved DC but at a general level he is right. there is a close mindedness and a base level of complacency in the DMV area that isn't here in the Bay Area.

any opinions on cities with a more balanced blend of open mindedness and risk taking without the extreme mania of the bay area?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:former fed who now works in SV at a tech company and DH is tech in SV as well. DC, due to the kissing ass of government, tends to attract risk averse people. SV is all about failing and failing fast. DH who is an entrepreneur hated the types of people he met in DC in the tech scene, saying even the private sector folks had a risk averseness about them that would not be successful in startups. I loved DC but at a general level he is right. there is a close mindedness and a base level of complacency in the DMV area that isn't here in the Bay Area.

The risk aversion is b/c much of DC are striver transplanted from poorer parts of country where if they fail fast they end up on the street penniless.

Bay Area is mostly UMC brogrammerss who have daddy’s safety net when they fail.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:former fed who now works in SV at a tech company and DH is tech in SV as well. DC, due to the kissing ass of government, tends to attract risk averse people. SV is all about failing and failing fast. DH who is an entrepreneur hated the types of people he met in DC in the tech scene, saying even the private sector folks had a risk averseness about them that would not be successful in startups. I loved DC but at a general level he is right. there is a close mindedness and a base level of complacency in the DMV area that isn't here in the Bay Area.

The risk aversion is b/c much of DC are striver transplanted from poorer parts of country where if they fail fast they end up on the street penniless.

Bay Area is mostly UMC brogrammerss who have daddy’s safety net when they fail.

spoken like somebody who has never set foot in SV where most startups are led by 1st generation immigrants with very little safety net.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:former fed who now works in SV at a tech company and DH is tech in SV as well. DC, due to the kissing ass of government, tends to attract risk averse people. SV is all about failing and failing fast. DH who is an entrepreneur hated the types of people he met in DC in the tech scene, saying even the private sector folks had a risk averseness about them that would not be successful in startups. I loved DC but at a general level he is right. there is a close mindedness and a base level of complacency in the DMV area that isn't here in the Bay Area.

The risk aversion is b/c much of DC are striver transplanted from poorer parts of country where if they fail fast they end up on the street penniless.

Bay Area is mostly UMC brogrammerss who have daddy’s safety net when they fail.

spoken like somebody who has never set foot in SV where most startups are led by 1st generation immigrants with very little safety net.

Please I went to school with them. 1st generation immigrants have parents who managed to get them educated and into a foreign country. My coworkers parents wee alcoholics who never held a job. The poor ‘immigrants’ are still in their home country.

Don’t get me wrong being born in US is good advantage, but these aren’t country peasants off a boat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anybody who asks this question hasn't lived in SV and fundamentally doesn't understand the unique mix of economic conditions that have resulted in what it is today. No city is even a close 2nd.

OP here, I grew up in Palo Alto and Went to JLS, Gunn High. I saw my parent's shitbox go from 600k to 2.5 million in real time.

Small world! I grew up in MP, moved away for school then returned for a 15 year career in venture capital. I’m looking at relocating my family to DC now, hence my presence here.

Silicon Valley operates on a “gold rush” mentality. Every year 10s of thousands of mostly young people move here because they have a chance to “strike it rich” that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world at this scale. I have a dozen acquaintances who moved here within the last 5 years essentially penniless and are today worth several hundred million dollars, some no doubt on their way to the billions. Stories like theirs keep hope alive in the minds of the masses. Where else does that exist? Nowhere. Seattle gained traction as a tax haven for early Facebook execs around 2009 and then other companies followed. Amazon provides a broad base of employment in Seattle but their stock isn’t a gold rush of the same magnitude.

People here work 24/7 with faux social lives that are really just professional networking events on steroids. Surreal and inhuman lives that wouldn’t be tolerated anywhere else. Why do you think the homeless crisis will never be solved? Partly because nobody really treats this as a place to live any more. It’s just the largest mining camp in the history of the world.

There are other structural reasons why prices became elevated - proposition 13 is probably the most impactful, without which 80% of my neighbors would have sold and moved by now. There are also extreme limits on density. You could easily build 100k new condo units south of SF to SJ but municipalities prevent it (for now). By contrast, from what I’ve seen the DC area lives to build up.

I’m bullish on tech (and personally heavily invested in tech) so unlike others I won’t predict a tech crash or down turn. Unfortunately I think SV will become a victim of its own success and devour itself from the inside. Just in the past year I’ve noticed attitudes about raising a family here start to shift. It’s too ambitious, too cutthroat, too lacking in humanity. If you’ve been here awhile you likely know the family of a teen suicide. Families in my network have started to move elsewhere - north to Santa Rosa, east to Tahoe, Dallas, Wyoming, or in my case DC.

So I’m confident that the underlying conditions that have created SV are unlikely to occur in any other major tech hub, least of all in DC. But apart from the self interest of some real estate appreciation, trust me you wouldn’t really want them to.

I grew up in the Bay Area and have lived here for most of my adult life and consider this post to largely be a bunch of exaggerated nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anybody who asks this question hasn't lived in SV and fundamentally doesn't understand the unique mix of economic conditions that have resulted in what it is today. No city is even a close 2nd.

OP here, I grew up in Palo Alto and Went to JLS, Gunn High. I saw my parent's shitbox go from 600k to 2.5 million in real time.

Small world! I grew up in MP, moved away for school then returned for a 15 year career in venture capital. I’m looking at relocating my family to DC now, hence my presence here.

Silicon Valley operates on a “gold rush” mentality. Every year 10s of thousands of mostly young people move here because they have a chance to “strike it rich” that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world at this scale. I have a dozen acquaintances who moved here within the last 5 years essentially penniless and are today worth several hundred million dollars, some no doubt on their way to the billions. Stories like theirs keep hope alive in the minds of the masses. Where else does that exist? Nowhere. Seattle gained traction as a tax haven for early Facebook execs around 2009 and then other companies followed. Amazon provides a broad base of employment in Seattle but their stock isn’t a gold rush of the same magnitude.

People here work 24/7 with faux social lives that are really just professional networking events on steroids. Surreal and inhuman lives that wouldn’t be tolerated anywhere else. Why do you think the homeless crisis will never be solved? Partly because nobody really treats this as a place to live any more. It’s just the largest mining camp in the history of the world.

There are other structural reasons why prices became elevated - proposition 13 is probably the most impactful, without which 80% of my neighbors would have sold and moved by now. There are also extreme limits on density. You could easily build 100k new condo units south of SF to SJ but municipalities prevent it (for now). By contrast, from what I’ve seen the DC area lives to build up.

I’m bullish on tech (and personally heavily invested in tech) so unlike others I won’t predict a tech crash or down turn. Unfortunately I think SV will become a victim of its own success and devour itself from the inside. Just in the past year I’ve noticed attitudes about raising a family here start to shift. It’s too ambitious, too cutthroat, too lacking in humanity. If you’ve been here awhile you likely know the family of a teen suicide. Families in my network have started to move elsewhere - north to Santa Rosa, east to Tahoe, Dallas, Wyoming, or in my case DC.

So I’m confident that the underlying conditions that have created SV are unlikely to occur in any other major tech hub, least of all in DC. But apart from the self interest of some real estate appreciation, trust me you wouldn’t really want them to.

I grew up in the Bay Area and have lived here for most of my adult life and consider this post to largely be a bunch of exaggerated nonsense.

Your experience is likely very different from someone who moves there as an adult seeking work and doesn't have family or lifelong friends already in the area.