If you want to go to one of the great schools there or want to start a company, the ecosystem and resources are unbeatable, so for that reason alone it's often worth it. Great food, especially ethnic food. I could run or play tennis in shorts and a t-shirt pretty much year round, it doesn't rain a single day from May to Sep, a handful of days above 85 in the summer and a couple weeks total of rainy 40s days in the winter, so weather-wise second only to San Diego. You can be hiking in the redwoods or surfing within an hour, skiing in 2-3 hours...on subsequent days. Public schools are generally good, despite prop 13. Traffic sucks if you try to cross a bridge, easily avoidable if you can afford to live where you work, especially if you can bike/mass transit. Homeless in SF are ridiculous, although you only notice it when you go back after not being there for a while. It's a liberal area and an intellectual area, for those who build their lives around being the opposite it might be uncomfortable. But the overwhelming negative is how insanely expensive everything is, so it's a personal call if it's worth it for any given person. I'd say if you're into the startup thing it may very well be that good of a place, otherwise the cost and the rest could easily outweigh the benefits. For me it was worth it when I lived there for 5 years without kids for the experience, and the two years I was going to grad school with kids were worth it only because of the school. I don't live there now by choice, and on the whole I'm OK with the compromises of where I am at least until the kids finish school, but might find myself back there at some point.
Don't do it unless your're young and don't care about where you live..If you get hired by the usual suspects you will be sleeping at the office anyways..rent a boat or sleep in a van . Once they chew you up and spit you out then you can decide if you want to live there full time.
I believe properties in the valley are expensive. I agree it's in bad form for founder CEOs to bathe in luxuries early on until after they've made their initial investors whole. Somehow I can't see someone with that mindset and in that position will live a really frugal lifestyle. With Bezos for example, you could see it. Even he will tell you he was a little nerdy and didn't care about that image stuff. He wore baggy dad pants and drove a beater when he was a billionaire. But with image obsessed people, I find it harder to believe. Turtle necks. Glamorous ballroom gowns to high profile public events. Really nice company HQ before they've reached critical mass. Contrast this with Amazon, which were still officed in plain jane commercial spaces even after they've reached a certain level of success. But my main point is I doubt after all this she is destitute. So after all is said and done, if someone concocted a thing like this and be OK financially after the thing comes crumbling down, then they've done pretty well for themselves then.
How does the food compare to New York? The weather is a positive. I’m trying to figure out if San Fran has become overbid. Virtually everyone in my wife’s bschool is now in San Fran. For 2mm those houses should have Miele coffee makers and wolf stoves. In NYC the prices are high but because of that people furnish the apartments well. Why not add luxurious amenities for an extra hundred K when you are paying 2000/sqft?
https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2018/comp-pr2018-41-theranos-holmes.pdf Employees' feedback: https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewar...fall-according?utm_term=.tpVejK3Z8#.ga5kQOPg6
The best news of this whole saga: "J Law is tapped to play E. Holmes in the movie version of this, "Bad Blood." Going to be directed by director of Big Short. " Jen Law in a turtleneck, yummie!!!! https://www.vanityfair.com/news/201...as-elizabeth-holmes-in-a-movie-about-theranos
I'm not sure which year you're comparing to Amazon but I use to live in Seattle when Amazon first started. In fact, I lived in a condo (old warehouse converted into condos) very near to their headquarters while their warehouse was not too far away...a 5 - 10 min drive between the headquarters & warehouse. It was near an industrial area but their timing (business & location) was unbelievable. Offices in that area was located in prime real estate but not many businesses wanted to begin in that area...south of Downtown Seattle near the old Kingdom. Yet, it was slowly becoming popular to live in that area and start a business in that area by yuppies & wealthy artists/celebrities. Seattle had begun pouring a ton of money into that area to revitalize it. I dated an account rep at Amazon for a few years during the first few years of Amazon...often her and I would meet at a nearby local microbrewery. I remember she would come by sometimes with some of her co-workers...I couldn't tell the difference between their lifestyle, they way they dress and the lifestyle of a few of my friends that were lawyers getting off from work. I would joke and say here comes the "suits" when they arrived...often we ended up talking about the financial markets. They seemed to have an unusual interest in Wall Street and the financial markets beyond just working for an online bookstore. It was during a time when Seattle was seen as the best alternative for any startup businesses in comparison to California that was becoming over priced and too competitive. In fact, a lot of people were moving up from California to the Seattle area because they could afford to live in Seattle while barely getting by in California. So yeah, the offices on the outside looked like plain Jane commercial building as you coined in your message. Yet, it was prime real estate for the wealthy that knew it was undervalued and soon would no longer be that way. Things changed fast in that area when they tore down the old kingdom and begin building the new kingdom. Today, only the wealthiest can afford to live in that area or start a business in that area or you were already established wealthy business that were smart enough to buy the property they had their business located at back in those days...following the example of businesses that did such back in the 70s & 80s...buy the land and then build your business on it. Anyways, that Bezos guy is a genius not just running Amazon...picking the location to start his business was absolutely brilliant. The rumor at the time was that the location was picked because it was near the main delivery/pick-up hub of all the major delivery businesses like Federal Express, Purolator and UPS...all located at Boeing Airport. I remember doing my morning jogs and would see tons of students going to work at Amazon and other businesses like Starbucks...cheap labor but better pay than the jobs at/near their universities. Too bad I broke up with that account exec from Amazon...high class woman. That was another brilliant thing the businesses was doing in that area...they offered wages just a few bucks higher than the wages at/near the universities that students traditionally would get. In fact, I think Amazon picked up that employment tactic from the other businesses in that area...they had already been doing such since the 80s and it continued into the 90s when Amazon was founded. I heard (it was true) they were sending recruiters to the university campuses and offering jobs just like other famous businesses from that area (industrial area). Thus, they didn't have to compete with the growing traffic problems in Seattle to get their packages sent out all over the United States. Therefore, that warehouse was staffed with a lot of college students from the universities in the Seattle area. So yeah...at that time...Bezos didn't act high class but those around him did behave high class, drove expensive cars and had this style about them that fit in with the theme of businesses at that time...startup businesses by the rich...that knew how to do it as cheaply as possible. People that often rolled up their sleeves of those expensive dress shirts to get dirty with everybody else...a blue collar attitude. They did bath in the luxuries but it just didn't seem like a luxury to those looking in from the outside at that time. A road map to success still being used today by other businesses all over the U.S. and Canada. Seattle was a city of entrepreneurs, self employed and I witness the growth of companies like Amazon, Starbucks...it was mind boggling especially while living in the exact same area as it was happening...just a few blocks away. Oddly, it was also a time when many from Wall Street were relocating to the Seattle area...it was when I met 3 former institutional traders from Wall Street that had relocated to Seattle...one of them a former roommate in undergrad school in the midwest that knew about my trading background although my undergraduate degree had nothing to do with business or finance. It was a time when many from Wall Street were relocating into other businesses in the Seattle area. I believe that was Bezos academic background...Wall Street and he came to Seattle with a ton of money along with the right connections to finance a business startup. One of my trading buddies would say he "heard about Bezos" back in New York...prior to Bezos relocating to Seattle. I never met the guy (Bezos) but I understood what he was about...went to college with the types, dated women that worked with the types and then I married one that too had relocated to Seattle from a financial district in Europe. P.S. Starbucks started in the early 70's but split their headquarters from Pike Place market area to the industrial area during the dot.com days when Amazon came to the industrial area of Seattle...early years of the revitalization project in Seattle.
Wow. Hollywood sure move fast don't they. And makes sense. They look alike and are practically identical twins. I just hope they do a better job then the Tonya Harding movie. No universe out there can tell me that Margot Robbie can pull out playing a 15 yo version of herself. It ruined the movie for me.
I haven't lived in NYC so not really qualified to comment on the comparison, but when did that ever stop anyone on ET The ethnic food, especially Asian and Latin American, is really good. When I lived there I was either on a military salary or a student, so we tended to hole in the wall spots and there were a lot of good ones. I'd guess that when you talk Michelin Star spots NYC would have SF beat, and the Peninsula for sure, and if you're a true foodie you could probably find reason to complain. But you'll never be searching for good food, and more importantly good wine and beer are a much bigger thing there. Pretty much everyone in my B-school class never left, so if you can afford it and you probably can, like NYC it's a great place. It is odd how run down so many houses are, it's not uncommon to see a 70's house with original shag carpet and avocado green tiling, sink, and toilet...for $2.5M! I think the housing bubble is relatively recent (80s on), which coupled with Prop 13 means that people who bought their houses pre-bubble don't leave their house until it's a terminal move to FL or Seattle. So the new owners do put in the luxury stuff, if they can afford it after paying $3M for what would be a $200K house anywhere else. Apartments, which also start at over $1M, tend to have more of that stuff than the mid-level houses. Of course the over $5M places will mostly be fully decked out unless it's an old Atherton place that's being rented out to 10 Stanford students.