8 things that are not worth living in Silicon Valley
Disclaimer 1 : I have been living in the valley for 4 years already, where I work as a programmer in the main office of Google.
Disclaimer 2 : I know that sometimes the valley is called Silicon, sometimes Silicon. I personally prefer Silicone, although both options are correct.
The most important disclaimer : Everything described below tells only about the shortcomings - this article was originally conceived as one-sided. In the Valley there are still a lot of advantages, about which I do not write here. And for so many (including me) these advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Therefore, we do not pack our bags, but stay here to live.
')
Important Update : This is a one-sided article, only about the flaws. There are virtues in the Valley, and I also wrote about them , just separately. Just later I had to remove the link, as my site fell victim to habraeffect.
Not so long ago I wrote about a job search for a programmer in the United States . And the first place that comes to mind when talking about the US and programmers is of course Silicon Valley. It has a rich history, there are undeniable advantages, and salaries for programmers there are quite decent. But there are no ideal places, and the valley also has its drawbacks. About them today and will be discussed.
So let's get started ...
About the price, how much in this word? So, let's say you want a house in a good area, with good schools. How much does such a house cost? Let's try to find a house with a maximum price of 1 million in Palo Alto:
I found it. Adyn pieces:
Vidocq at home is at least dubious:
How much is a relatively normal house? Expanding the price range to 1.25 million - another house appeared:
In general, I will not torment you for too long - 1.7 million lower limit, when at the sight of the house you do not want to quickly close the page in the browser. However, Palo Alto is a very good area. If you look at areas a little worse, but still reasonably close and with good schools (important for those who have children), then the lower bound will fall to 1.2 million for “nothing special, you can live”. In general, all the same dohrenischa.
Here you have to compare what you can buy in Maryland for 1 million. And this is the first house I came across - I didn’t even look for much. By the way, the schools there are all 10 out of 10, in contrast to the above mentioned houses:
So what about real estate here. If you want to:
1) Safe area with good schools
2) Not very far from work (<40 minutes by car on a weekday)
3) In order for the house to be at least aesthetically acceptable and larger than a shed,
then cook at least 1.5 million. If you want something closer to a million, then choose any two points from the above three.
Taxes here too - Mama Do not Cry! Not only the federal tax (which is paid by all Americans), but also 13% state tax will be deducted from your salary. And then you still pay almost 9% of VAT in the store (although food doesn’t fall under VAT - that’s good). Incidentally, California has the highest state tax:
And at the same time, California is all in debt like silk.
Here is a typical view of the valley in summer:
Everything is yellow, the grass is dry, there is almost no green. And so everywhere. Because there is very little rain here - they go from November to February. In the remaining months, this is almost an incredible event. However, after a couple of years of life here you begin to even understand and love this particular “beauty”.
By the way, if you have a small garden at home and you want it to be green and in the summer - hello water bills! It will be necessary to water your garden every day, and everything will dry up.
Fortunately, California is not France with its strikes and historically socialist culture. But, for some reason, people who consider communism to be a very correct world order, I meet quite often. And not drunk philosophical homeless in the doorways, and quite successful engineers at Google.
Still, with all democracy, when all points of view are equal - some points of view here are all the same "more equal". If I start saying that same-sex marriage is unnatural ( I don't care ), that the American people made a mistake by choosing Obama ( it is quite possible ), that women are actually less adapted to the position of manager than men ( rather not ), and that every embryo has the right to life from the moment of conception and abortions should be banned ( probably not ) - I think that at least I will get the glory of a strange person with views from the Stone Age.
Therefore, if I really thought so, it would be unwise to spread about it . Freedom of speech, cho.
This is a typical daily traffic jam:
I feel very sorry for those who live in San Francisco and get to Google every day to work and then back. I lived so, and in order not to fall into strong traffic jams, I had to go to work at the latest at 6.45 in the morning. And from work at the earliest at 7 pm. The alternative was to go for 1.5-2 hours one way.
Now I live from work closer, but I still regularly stood in traffic jams. Even leaving the house at 7.30 am. In the end, I switched to the bike, at least for the summer. Yes, drive longer, but no traffic jams are guaranteed. And the views are much better.
In any case, the people here all goes and goes and goes. And literally units are leaving. And the infrastructure at all is no longer enough to grab.
Once upon a time I read an article that seemed very nice to me. Some product director at a good company was crying that he wanted to get on the school board at his daughter's school. And that the annual salary he has 500 thousand dollars. And that he was refused, and all this because the council is all at least vice-presidents and CEO, and they earn at least a million dollars a year.
True or not true - I do not know. But for those for whom title is important, prestige, level in society - in the valley of high positions is difficult to achieve. Around you there will always be a bunch of people who will earn an order of magnitude more than you, have success and position in society an order of magnitude better than yours. And almost all your friends will know such people personally, so you will not hit anyone with the phrase "I earn $ 500,000 a year." However, most likely you will earn at times less.
You earn $ 100,000 a year, or $ 1,000,000 - it does not matter. If you are not Larry and Sergey, you will never feel at the top of the social ladder, or even close to it.
I constantly read news stories that write something like, “Silicon Valley is one big bubble. Soon it will burst, and everything in the valley will be very, very bad. ” I think that these news appear with enviable regularity for a couple of decades, and if they irritate me sometimes, it is not very strong. Even very slightly.
But now, if I had to make a decision - whether to buy property here for $ 1 million (mediocre house), then I would need a lot more nerves. Or if I already had such a property. And suddenly a bubble? And tomorrow it will burst and my millionth estate will be covered with a copper basin.
Yes, surely some of those who have expensive real estate and mortgages for 30 years for fabulous sums, sometimes sleep badly at night and try not to read much news, especially about bubbles.
In the valley it is very difficult to get rid of the feeling "Maybe I am missing something in my life?" Startups grow like mushrooms, sometimes some of them even sell for 16 billion to large companies , while others get hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars for some kind of garbage.
Many of those who work in large and stable companies read this news, and they think: “can they drop everything and go to a startup?”. But usually they don’t go anywhere, since children have to pay for a kindergarten, save for Stanford, pay exorbitant mortgages. And in startups, salaries are usually not the same anyway. But the level of happiness from the current work of these permanent "and maybe" lower significantly, I think.
On the other hand, those who sit in startups - often not the first, just the previous ones went bankrupt - are sleeping and they see how they will work for a big solid company and finally buy themselves a normal home. But, on the other hand, they are being held by “maybe this startup will shoot out anyway?”, And it’s very difficult to give up the perspective of a crane in the sky for the sake of a bird in the hand. What, however, does not negate the constant doubts - what, maybe, to quit these roller coasters nafig, and go to work in a normal company?
In general, the people here live in the sense that they are probably missing something in their lives. And no matter how great the situation is, there are always plenty of examples around where the situation is even better. This makes it difficult to enjoy life.
Disclaimer 2 : I know that sometimes the valley is called Silicon, sometimes Silicon. I personally prefer Silicone, although both options are correct.
The most important disclaimer : Everything described below tells only about the shortcomings - this article was originally conceived as one-sided. In the Valley there are still a lot of advantages, about which I do not write here. And for so many (including me) these advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Therefore, we do not pack our bags, but stay here to live.
')
Important Update : This is a one-sided article, only about the flaws. There are virtues in the Valley, and I also wrote about them , just separately. Just later I had to remove the link, as my site fell victim to habraeffect.
Not so long ago I wrote about a job search for a programmer in the United States . And the first place that comes to mind when talking about the US and programmers is of course Silicon Valley. It has a rich history, there are undeniable advantages, and salaries for programmers there are quite decent. But there are no ideal places, and the valley also has its drawbacks. About them today and will be discussed.
So let's get started ...
Property prices
About the price, how much in this word? So, let's say you want a house in a good area, with good schools. How much does such a house cost? Let's try to find a house with a maximum price of 1 million in Palo Alto:
I found it. Adyn pieces:
Vidocq at home is at least dubious:
How much is a relatively normal house? Expanding the price range to 1.25 million - another house appeared:
In general, I will not torment you for too long - 1.7 million lower limit, when at the sight of the house you do not want to quickly close the page in the browser. However, Palo Alto is a very good area. If you look at areas a little worse, but still reasonably close and with good schools (important for those who have children), then the lower bound will fall to 1.2 million for “nothing special, you can live”. In general, all the same dohrenischa.
Here you have to compare what you can buy in Maryland for 1 million. And this is the first house I came across - I didn’t even look for much. By the way, the schools there are all 10 out of 10, in contrast to the above mentioned houses:
So what about real estate here. If you want to:
1) Safe area with good schools
2) Not very far from work (<40 minutes by car on a weekday)
3) In order for the house to be at least aesthetically acceptable and larger than a shed,
then cook at least 1.5 million. If you want something closer to a million, then choose any two points from the above three.
Taxes
Taxes here too - Mama Do not Cry! Not only the federal tax (which is paid by all Americans), but also 13% state tax will be deducted from your salary. And then you still pay almost 9% of VAT in the store (although food doesn’t fall under VAT - that’s good). Incidentally, California has the highest state tax:
And at the same time, California is all in debt like silk.
Weather
Here is a typical view of the valley in summer:
Everything is yellow, the grass is dry, there is almost no green. And so everywhere. Because there is very little rain here - they go from November to February. In the remaining months, this is almost an incredible event. However, after a couple of years of life here you begin to even understand and love this particular “beauty”.
By the way, if you have a small garden at home and you want it to be green and in the summer - hello water bills! It will be necessary to water your garden every day, and everything will dry up.
Radicals of all stripes
Fortunately, California is not France with its strikes and historically socialist culture. But, for some reason, people who consider communism to be a very correct world order, I meet quite often. And not drunk philosophical homeless in the doorways, and quite successful engineers at Google.
Still, with all democracy, when all points of view are equal - some points of view here are all the same "more equal". If I start saying that same-sex marriage is unnatural ( I don't care ), that the American people made a mistake by choosing Obama ( it is quite possible ), that women are actually less adapted to the position of manager than men ( rather not ), and that every embryo has the right to life from the moment of conception and abortions should be banned ( probably not ) - I think that at least I will get the glory of a strange person with views from the Stone Age.
Therefore, if I really thought so, it would be unwise to spread about it . Freedom of speech, cho.
Infrastructure
This is a typical daily traffic jam:
I feel very sorry for those who live in San Francisco and get to Google every day to work and then back. I lived so, and in order not to fall into strong traffic jams, I had to go to work at the latest at 6.45 in the morning. And from work at the earliest at 7 pm. The alternative was to go for 1.5-2 hours one way.
Now I live from work closer, but I still regularly stood in traffic jams. Even leaving the house at 7.30 am. In the end, I switched to the bike, at least for the summer. Yes, drive longer, but no traffic jams are guaranteed. And the views are much better.
In any case, the people here all goes and goes and goes. And literally units are leaving. And the infrastructure at all is no longer enough to grab.
Social ladder
Once upon a time I read an article that seemed very nice to me. Some product director at a good company was crying that he wanted to get on the school board at his daughter's school. And that the annual salary he has 500 thousand dollars. And that he was refused, and all this because the council is all at least vice-presidents and CEO, and they earn at least a million dollars a year.
True or not true - I do not know. But for those for whom title is important, prestige, level in society - in the valley of high positions is difficult to achieve. Around you there will always be a bunch of people who will earn an order of magnitude more than you, have success and position in society an order of magnitude better than yours. And almost all your friends will know such people personally, so you will not hit anyone with the phrase "I earn $ 500,000 a year." However, most likely you will earn at times less.
You earn $ 100,000 a year, or $ 1,000,000 - it does not matter. If you are not Larry and Sergey, you will never feel at the top of the social ladder, or even close to it.
Bubble again?
I constantly read news stories that write something like, “Silicon Valley is one big bubble. Soon it will burst, and everything in the valley will be very, very bad. ” I think that these news appear with enviable regularity for a couple of decades, and if they irritate me sometimes, it is not very strong. Even very slightly.
But now, if I had to make a decision - whether to buy property here for $ 1 million (mediocre house), then I would need a lot more nerves. Or if I already had such a property. And suddenly a bubble? And tomorrow it will burst and my millionth estate will be covered with a copper basin.
Yes, surely some of those who have expensive real estate and mortgages for 30 years for fabulous sums, sometimes sleep badly at night and try not to read much news, especially about bubbles.
Well, where we do not
In the valley it is very difficult to get rid of the feeling "Maybe I am missing something in my life?" Startups grow like mushrooms, sometimes some of them even sell for 16 billion to large companies , while others get hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars for some kind of garbage.
Many of those who work in large and stable companies read this news, and they think: “can they drop everything and go to a startup?”. But usually they don’t go anywhere, since children have to pay for a kindergarten, save for Stanford, pay exorbitant mortgages. And in startups, salaries are usually not the same anyway. But the level of happiness from the current work of these permanent "and maybe" lower significantly, I think.
On the other hand, those who sit in startups - often not the first, just the previous ones went bankrupt - are sleeping and they see how they will work for a big solid company and finally buy themselves a normal home. But, on the other hand, they are being held by “maybe this startup will shoot out anyway?”, And it’s very difficult to give up the perspective of a crane in the sky for the sake of a bird in the hand. What, however, does not negate the constant doubts - what, maybe, to quit these roller coasters nafig, and go to work in a normal company?
In general, the people here live in the sense that they are probably missing something in their lives. And no matter how great the situation is, there are always plenty of examples around where the situation is even better. This makes it difficult to enjoy life.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/228047/
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