Sergey Brin: Come to Silicon Valley to scale a business, but not to start one

Re:Sergey Brin: Come to Silicon Valley to scale a business, ... by cylinder on Monday June 27, 2016 @05:05PM (#11989479)

That doesn't make sense though. They could still provide the same benefit by renting the apartment and giving it to the employee. Unless you think VCs should be betting on real estate, because that's the only advantage - they get the upside if the property goes up in value.

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Re:Sergey Brin: Come to Silicon Valley to scale a business, ... by superuser2 on Monday June 27, 2016 @05:58PM (#11989864)

Currently, VCs must fund salary increases to keep pace with rent hikes. Renting apartments for employees just shuffles the numbers around. VCs could buy their way out of exposure to this phenomenon by owning their employee's homes and not increasing the rent.

Yes, this is a bet on rising home prices in the Bay Area, but that seems basically equal to a bet on the Bay Area tech ecosystem, which is already their core business.

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Re:Sergey Brin: Come to Silicon Valley to scale a business, ... by TylerE on Monday June 27, 2016 @11:28PM (#11991294)

I dunno, maybe it makes sense, but there seems to me to be something incredibly demeaning about living in housing owned by your employer. Very....19th century. Is there a company store?

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Re:Sergey Brin: Come to Silicon Valley to scale a business, ... by yen223 on Tuesday June 28, 2016 @03:36AM (#11992095)

"Here's some Amazon credits. Knock yourself out"

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Re:Sergey Brin: Come to Silicon Valley to scale a business, ... by burger_moon on Monday June 27, 2016 @06:45PM (#11990116)

This is something that has existed before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town

I've lived in 'man camps' on remote jobs where it was easier to just put up trailers for workers than put them all in hotels. Or sometimes there isn't any temporary housing options available so you get to stay in the man camp. Pretty sure programmers aren't going to fall into line for that option though.

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Re:Sergey Brin: Come to Silicon Valley to scale a business, ... by superuser2 on Monday June 27, 2016 @07:25PM (#11990316)

This wouldn't be remote, though - there'd be a few dozen such company towns on overlapping geography. True, you'd need to move to change employers, but it could just be across the street.

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Re:Sergey Brin: Come to Silicon Valley to scale a business, ... by st3v3r on Monday June 27, 2016 @05:23PM (#11989606)

Houses are comfier to live in than apartments?

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