Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?

Re:Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area? by komali2 on Wednesday December 14, 2016 @02:07PM (#13178744)

I never understood this mindset here, maybe because we didn't have it in Houston where I grew up before moving out to the Bay Area for an engineering job. I found a nice small but profitable company and am quite cozy here, but people are always telling me I need to do the 2 year startup hop. It seems like gambling to me - 2 years of my life again and again in the hopes I'll strike gold? I'd rather slowly and steadily squirrel away savings and grow my 401k and other investments while actually enjoying my work.

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Re:Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area? by yourapostasy on Wednesday December 14, 2016 @03:47PM (#13179506)

> I'd rather slowly and steadily squirrel away savings and grow my 401k and other investments while actually enjoying my work.

I call this the startups::"active investment" versus slow-and-steady::"index investment" comparison. For the majority of software engineers who are not rock stars with commensurate 400K+ total annual compensation plans, it's not clear to me participating in the startups/SF-Bay ecosystem is statistically worth the financial instability risks, just as for the majority of retail investors, index investing is currently the most statistically consistent path to wealth accumulation.

If you are a "retail" engineer (perhaps there is a signaling indicator like if you aren't negotiating a compensation package directly with VC's or founders and not their representatives, then you're "retail"), then like most retail products, the vast majority of your value, half and more, is reserved for capital holders. It is your call whether or not if there is any statistically increased long-term job precariousness involved with accessing that startup/SF-Bay ecosystem, and if the tradeoff is worth it to your personal situation.

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Re:Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area? by ryandrake on Wednesday December 14, 2016 @06:07PM (#13180608)

The way I look at it: Your career is time boxed like a baseball game. You only get a few at-bats then you're done. So you can use your chances to swing hard for the home run, or you can go for the safe base hits. But you don't get 100 chances.

Investors on the other hand get thousands of at-bats. They're only limited by the amount of money they want to invest, so they can diversify all they want.

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