patrick.net

What a BS article lol

Fucking peasants! Complaining about America's Garden of Eden!

The article tells us that a married couple with a single full-time worker parent (at Apple) and a stay-at-home parent raising family can't make it in silicon valley. The worker is presumably making $157k/year (plus great healthcare subsidies for the whole family), but can't make ends meet after buying a $700k shack.

But can that family make it elsewhere? That might sill be tough. Sure, they could move to a low-cost part of the country, but what happens if the new job pays $70k/year? That might be better, but it's not the clear win of getting silicon valley salary and living with non-silicon-valley costs.

Fact is, the supply -vs- demand for nerd-herders (a.k.a.: project manager) doesn't favor the herders in silicon valley or anywhere else in the country. I know a dozen people in that position. They are either single and renting or they are married to an engineer making $220k/year.

Job requirements for a nerd-herder:
• English written and verbal skills (Hindi and Chinese language skills a plus!)
• basic computer skills (word processing, email, Jira, charting, etc)
• "good with people"

There are literally millions of unemployed or underemployed people with those job "skills." Those job skills don't support a non-working spouse plus kids plus a home. I don't know if there was ever a time when a "glorified secretary" job could support such an opulent lifestyle.

If anything, there should be an article: US citizen with basic secretary skills can come to silicon valley, make $157k / year, live frugally for 20 years, and retire to Florida. If you're female and even marginally desirable, thousands of local men will want to date you, too.

157K a year in San Jose puts you in a 1000 sq ft house you paid 800K to 1 million for. You can’t park on the street because all the other houses are rented out as crash pads for 5-10 people per house. The public school your kid is assigned to sucks so you get to pay 10k per year to send them to a not great private school. And you still have an hour commute to work everyday. What a sucker this family is for moving, they don’t know how great they had it!

But 100% guarantee this woman still votes Democrat when she moves to Texas.

The greater the concentration of high value added people, the more productive these people are.
The more low weights incomes are thrown out by centrifugal forces, the greater the gravity pull for the smartest people.
This is why silicon valley remains the place to be for tech entrepreneurs.
Even if it requires renting a bunk bed. This is not a place for family life. This is a place where smart people work their tails off at the expense of everything else.
Once you get a family: pick a steady job and work remotely. or go to Austin.

OccasionalCortex says

less bullshit meetings overall.

For the win! Just because you're all in the same building doesn't mean you need a weekly or fucking daily meeting to talk about work. If you find disciplined workers, the remote thing works wonders for a business. Less office space/furniture and the same shit can still get accomplished. Also, happier employees in most cases unless you have a micro manager that wants to know your every move when working from home. That's when it back fires or you get the lazy employee that doesn't get much done working from home.

Also, the idea you can't get the same pay for the same skill in a different area of the country is laughable to me when you factor in cost of living. You're not skilled enough then.

Wouldn't renting a flat be a lot cheaper? Rent and wait for prices to crash or till you get a better deal elsewhere

Fuckyouasshole says

Wouldn't renting a flat be a lot cheaper? Rent and wait for prices to crash or till you get a better deal elsewhere

That generally seems to be the case. Renting is much cheaper (at the moment) then buying. The only way buying at today's prices is a good idea is if the prices continue to go up. However, prices are so high right now that it's hard to believe they will go higher. Even absurdity has its limits.