One thing Townsend seems to have missed entirely is the presence of women in the workforce. The typical person being moved today is part of a two-career family. The other half of that equation is probably not being moved, so the corporate move comes down hard on the couple’s relationship at a very delicate point. It brings intolerable stress to bear on the accommodation they’re both striving to achieve to allow two full-fledged careers. That’s hitting below the belt. Modern couples won’t put up with it and they won’t forgive it. The company move might have been possible in the 1950s and 1960s. Today it is folly.
Even in the sixties, organizational moves didn’t make much sense. A case in point is the decision by AT&T’s Bell Laboratories to move the 600-person ESS project from New Jersey to Illinois in 1966.
[...]
Years after the ESS cutover, I arranged to interview Ray Ketehledge, who had run the project. I was writing some essays on management of large efforts, and ESS certainly qualified. I asked him what he saw as his main successes and failures as boss. "Forget the successes," he said. “The failure was that move. You can't believe what it cost us in turnover." He went on to give some figures. The immediately calculable cost of the move was the number of people who quit before relocation day. Expressed as a percentage of those moved, this initial turnover was greater than the French losses in the trenches of World War I.
[...]
And that accounts only for the initial loss. In the case of Bell Labs, there was another large exodus starting about a year after the move. These were the people who had honestly tried to go along with the company. They moved and, when they didn’t like the new location, they moved again.
(Source: https://www.dallasnews.com/business/local-companies/2018/07/...)
I don't know if there's any easy generalizations to suss out. Probably every case will be very specific to the work being done, the environment it's done in, and the people it's done by.
How? Short of some background, this could easily be a massive assumption.
The economic and political messes of sudden expansion can be an absolute mess.
The idea that when you buy a house, that you’re somehow paying for your neighbourhood/city to perpetually remain in a state that personally satisfies you is behind most of our housing problems. Enabled by the almost universal dysfunctionality of local democracy.
In SF's case the external pressure just was to huge and they should have given up long time ago keeping it a low built city.
Yeah, and why bother making the country a mess by letting foreigners into your country?
People moving for opportunity is a fundamental part of what America is. To deny others opportunities that you have by virtue of birthplace is nativism, and it's ugly.
Sure, it sounds relatively harmless when it's "just your town", but you can look at the bay area and see what happens when everyone behaves this way for their neighborhood or city. Massive rents, struggling families, hideously long commutes: all the result of NIMBYism.
I mean, that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? And unless you’re a proponent for open borders, you advocate a similar position - just a different scale. I’m also not really a fan of the “deny others opportunities” grandstanding. I mean you do it right now. I bet someone wants the job you have. Why not give your money away so others have opportunities? It’s easy to talk the talk with that. We all, by nature of our global system, deny others opportunities. The Swiss deny me an opportunity to move to Switzerland since I don’t have a million bucks. New Zealand requires me to invest half a million. Canada has a points system for immigration.
> People moving for opportunity is a fundamental part of what America is. To deny others opportunities that you have by virtue of birthplace is nativism, and it's ugly.
Well, like towns, you shouldn’t expect the idea of America to not change. There is like 350mm people here. Personally I think that’s plenty and the Statue of Liberty mindset just reminds me of 2nd Amendment arguments. I don’t want to end up like India, China, or Bangladesh with crowds and crowds of people (whether they are here due to immigration or birth). I think the US is overpopulated as it is. My idea of America is a lot of untamed wilderness, clean air, national parks, peace and quiet. Increases on population don’t really fit my vision (but that’s mine).
> Massive rents, struggling families, hideously long commutes: all the result of NIMBYism.
And this isn’t solved by building skyscrapers and having more people. It’s solved by having fewer people and jobs less concentrated in specific areas.
PG talks about taboo topics. Population is one of those I think, for me. I feel uncomfortable saying anything about it publicly, and I feel as though people have largely been indoctrinated that growth=good and you shouldn’t challenge that. I really just don’t see the value in adding more and more people to the US (birth or immigration). If we could have fewer, better educated people and less wealth disparity this could be an even better place to live. Imagine getting rid of jobs that people don’t want to do and then paying people a lot more money to do jobs they do want to do? Pay a barista $100,000/year instead of two business analysts making $50,000. It’s not like we’re going to add enough jobs to keep up with the pace of growth, unless we add mind-numbing bullshit jobs or create another TSA.
But I think the whole raison d'être for everything here in this tiny post is that our economy is built on a growth model. It’s a huge Ponzi scheme (in function not intention), so if we don’t increase the population or increase global population and sell to them, the whole thing falls apart. But it’s also this growth mindset that’s destroying the pristine wilderness we have, causing global warming, and contributing to nonsense wars and terrorism.
I don't know about TulliusCicero, but I agree with their comment and I think open borders would probably be good. The US's historically high levels of immigration have been very positive for the country and I think we could let more people in.
> My idea of America is a lot of untamed wilderness, clean air, national parks, peace and quiet
The US is enormous, and people who want to move here are primarily interested in living in the major cities. If we allow building dense cities we can easily continue to have very large fractions of the country set aside as wilderness.
> If we could have fewer, better educated people and less wealth disparity this could be an even better place to live.
You're only considering the interests of the people who already live here. Keeping people out doesn't make fewer people, just fewer people here, just like it doesn't decrease wealth disparity only wealth disparity here. Lots of people around the world would love to come here and have the same opportunities we have. I think we should generally let them.
My take on that is that it’s a naive, anarchist position. I’m also unsure that anyone can anticipate the potential downsides as well. I see so many problems it’s hard to even get a start. And it’s not about not letting in “bad” people, but that infrastructure would be absolutely overwhelmed and it would be an unmitigated disaster. We wouldn’t have like a couple million more people moving in, it would be tens, maybe hundreds of millions. They all won’t fit in NYC and SF - they’ll move to Columbus, and Pittsburgh, and they’ll move to suburbs, and shanty towns. I just don’t see positives outweighing negatives unless we really just skyrocket prices - but on a macro level that’s no different than how things are.
To me it’s like putting your oxygen mask on before you help someone else. We can’t even solve problems in this country now. But I do imagine mega corps would love this since they’d have a much higher pool of workers, and an expanded market that is easier to get access to, which kind of gets back to my last point about growth-mindset.
> You're only considering the interests of the people who already live here. Keeping people out doesn't make fewer people, just fewer people here, just like it doesn't decrease wealth disparity only wealth disparity here. Lots of people around the world would love to come here and have the same opportunities we have. I think we should generally let them.
I appreciate your comment but I don’t think it’s a fair one. To start, I think GLOBAL population is far too high, and I’d apply the same principles to the US that I am suggesting but globally, but we were talking about the US. I also think that this is a case where it’s easy to say “oh but if they only had the opportunity” because it sounds great while also ignoring how it affects others. Generally I don’t think we should let people in to the US, because it doesn’t really solve any problems. It certainly doesn’t help the rest of the world. Am I lucky that I was born here? You bet. But that’s it. I’m also lucky to not be born with a disability, I’m also not lucky since I wasn’t born wealthy.
The last point I’ll add is that the vast majority of the world disagrees with open-borders and I think for good reason. Even the most liberal countries (broadly speaking) don’t do it.
Thanks for your discussion points here. I’d love to hear more of what you think - and I hope what I said doesn’t come off too poorly. It’s hard with text and not in-person.
Modern USA was created by migrants. But when the country was being settled, those migrants were faced with having to either provide for themselves, or die. The US has also seen a lot of growth from continuing to import immigrants. But those immigrants were all selected based upon a relatively strict criteria to evaluate whether they would be providing value to the country.
> Why bother make your town a mess in the name of growth.
Local government elections don’t have any influence over population growth. The forces that influence that are beyond the control of local government (and to a lesser extent, beyond the control of government in general). If the local population increases, the only thing local government can control (in relation to housing) is what choice it makes between preserving character or prices. The typical NIMBY response to dealing with population growth is that it should happen elsewhere, because they like where they live, and don’t want it to change.
That’s true on matters of zoning, schools, libraries, fire stations, or whatever other decisions the town faces. There’s a process for amending zoning rules; there’s usually a process for getting a variance from zoning rules that are unduly burdensome in regards to an individual parcel. What about this democratic process is dysfunctional, other than some people not liking the outcome?
Solving the political problem is much harder.
My initial quip was to point out that (as I suspect @anonymoushn was alluding) the problem isn't technological. Rather it's one of incentives, politics, and market structure.
This is a problem of policy and social engineering - technology can and will help, but it won't solve it.
https://about.google/locations/?region=asia-pacific&office=s...
Does anyone know what proportion of their workforce is not in California?
A question to Googlers and those who have worked there, is it possible to move to say Boulder within Google easily?
Pay depends enormously on the local market for your skills. NYC and Boston pay almost as much as Mountain View, while (ex) London pays much less. People moving between offices are often offered large increases/decreases. A strategy of joining in Mountain View and then transferring to a lower-paying office isn't generally going to give you much higher pay at the new office (though you'll of course have the money you put away while in Mountain View).
(Speaking only for myself)
I think it's about half.
> is it possible to move to say Boulder within Google easily?
Reasonably. You need to find a team at the other office that has openings for someone with your skills, but I know many people who have done it (Mountain View -> Cambridge, NYC -> Seattle, Cambridge -> Pittsburgh, Mountain View -> Boulder among others).
Surely the locals already have their houses in KC and would benefit more than they'd suffer, as renters, sellers, shop owners.
(See Auckland as well)
It also raises prices which means local shops and places to eat would be booming.
But if they're a local and not getting one of these high paying jobs ... they're going to have a hard time finding a place they can afford.
In the short term, sure, but there's plenty of room in KC.
FWIW, my old company added a Seattle office a few years ago. Sure, some people moved, but it was pretty negligible.
They'd probably just move to the wealthier suburbs or send kids to high quality private schools.
Longer term, having a solution for schools that doesn't create such radical disparities between districts mere miles apart would be in everyone's interest, but that's a broader national problem.
I'm curious what your guess is? I'm not talking about opening a new satellite office in a cheaper area (they've already done this, for example Pittsburg) but actually moving their headquarters. Tens of thousands of roles moving from Mountain View / Sunnyvale to Kansas City.
Most of these roles are occupied by people who have a lot of options and don't want to move across the country. Even if they were up for moving and the company was offering to keep the same (far above market for KC) pay, they'd be very nervous about entering a situation where their employer would have so much more leverage over them.
(My totally blind guess would be about half of your guess, which would be plenty high enough for your point to still stand)
That said, corporate headquarters get moved frequently enough that this is probably a question that Google could and would model out were such a move actually under consideration.
There are tons of places I’d move to easily if I could keep my current SF salary.
Google’s profit clearly has to do with salary because salary is a negotiation between employees and employers, and “my work allows you to make $x more dollars than if I hadn’t done the work” is a basic tenet of salary negotiation.
But this is a negotiation. If Google moved to a lower cost-of-living location, they’d be making themselves available as an employer to new employees, for whom their current locations are undesirable. So if there are other potential employees who are willing to do the work for less salary, Google has the option to hire them instead.
Sure. But negotiating for a piece of the action comes in the form of deciding on stock options and grants. Salaries don't go up and down with profits.
It objectively the case that salaries vary with profits. Are you just saying you think they ought not?
If the company is losing money, you can bet raises will be harder to come by. When Facebook was poaching a lot of Googlers in the late aughts and early teens, base salaries went up a bunch to make the job more competitive. But if Google hadn't been profitable there would have been no headroom to make that change. Those are two (of many) ways that salaries vary with profits.
Salaries are a function of the perceived value of the particular employee to the company. If the salary is too low, he'll be poached by another company. If it's too high, he's likely to be laid off or otherwise pushed out.
For example, if an employee contributes $100 in value to the company, his ideal compensation would be $100 minus the opportunity cost of the money, which is about $15.
This has nothing to do with the profit of the company as a whole.
It is true that companies often have a lot of difficulty computing what the actual dollar value of a particular employee is, but there is no doubt that the company will do badly if it gets it too far wrong too many times.
Companies falling on hard times that try to cut salaries across the board (or limit raises, same thing) do so at great peril - the underpaid (relative to their contribution) employees leave and the overpaid stay. I.e. this can result in a vicious death spiral. A much harder, but far more effective strategy is to identify the overpaid ones and get rid of them.
The problem for the hypothetical KC Googler is that there are substantially no other high paying tech jobs in KC. There's Cerner, but they pay seniors ~1/3rd what Google pays (and it seems to get further from Google comp as you go up the ladder). So if you want to negotiate with Google to increase your pay, you have no credible best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA). If you want to work for any other high paying tech company, you have to leave town. Google, knowing they are the best game in town, would face less upward pressure on wages.
I mean, as a matter of simple fact, Google does not pay the same in different metros. Nor do any other large companies I'm aware of. The pay is adjusted to what is required to attract talent in those metros.
On the other hand this means areas with lower costs of living but strong tech job markets can be a very good deal: Pittsburg is one people often bring up.
Boston isn't as cheap as Pittsburg, but it's far cheaper than the Bay Area with pay that's nearly as high. I'm very happy here.
Also, pegging your salary to corporate profits has its downsides. At Boeing, a good chunk of the worker bees negotiated their bonuses to be pegged to the quarterly profits. They were pretty unhappy about this when the 737MAX problems tanked profits, and the bonuses vanished.
But anyway to me the math isn't about win/win but just supply and demand. If they can afford to pay it and were willing to before, it's not like you can't make the same amount (if not more) and have better future prospects without the stress and cost of moving.
I think a more realistic take would be a more decentralized approach to labor in general and allow many smaller satellites to pop up (which they already have) in many places and allow their people to move freely with minor salary adjustments. That way the costs and benefits even out in the long run, mass relocation to a single location probably isn't great for anyone involved long term.
I have no doubt, likely more unhappy at lost bonuses than the fact they contributed directly to many lives being lost.
People with the 150k-300k salaries FAANG provides would be making a surgeon's salary in Kansas City.
(Admittedly, when I was looking at SF / Silicon Valley before, I was looking at startups; having a Big N as an employer might have just made it work, but we'd still have been losing out on closer family ties.)
I also have a family and have no interest in ever living in Silicon Valley or New York. I'm at Google and absolutely love being in Seattle.
Unlikely. A lot of the reason the pay here is so good is because of the high cost of living.
London is a great example: high cost of living, low market rates for top talent, low pay from the FAANGs.
Pittsburgh is an example in the other direction: low cost of living, relatively high market rates, relatively high pay from the FAANGs. Still lower than the Bay though.
These factors are intertwined.
If a large company was doing a mass-migration of employees to a new, lower-cost city, it might make sense to keep salaries consistent. But let’s not kid ourselves and think that new hires at that new location would still be hired at the SF rate.
And as others have pointed out, if the salary did remain that high and you left, it’s almost guaranteed that your next job would not have that kind of salary.
Personal anecdote: when I moved from NYC to Seattle, I didn’t take a pay cut (I was switching industries), but the recruiter knew my Seattle market-rate was lower than my NYC market-rate. She tried to console me with promises of lower-cost of living (in fact, I pay more in rent now, but in fairness my equivalent apartment in Seattle would be 25% higher in NYC) — which wasn’t really true. But the tax difference was/is so massive, that it really does offset the salary difference, even at market rate. And if I were to transfer from Seattle to NYC, I would insist on getting a pay increase to offset those higher costs.
I don’t like employers lowering salaries if an employee moves to another lower-cost city (mostly because in many cases they are already paying hire taxes in those expensive markets and it feels punitive to get to pay less taxes and a lower salary for the same work/person), but it’s very common. That said, I don’t think it’s possible for very large companies to follow the Basecamp approach of universal salary structure based on being in the top X% of SF median or mean salaries (I forget which). As nice as that is for a smaller company, if you’ve got 100,000 employees (not counting contractors) potentially paying people 4x market rate doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t scale.
That said, there are always exceptions. If a person is valuable enough to the business, that person can get whatever salary they want regardless of location.
[0] "I wont move to SF if you dont give me enough to pay rent"
If Google opened up a new large office in a place like Kansas City with no salary cut and a strong internet presence and some other tech companies (ICE exchange for example), I bet enough Google employees would want to move there to make it worthwhile. Cheaper cost of living, better schools, better for families etc. plus alternatives If you get tired of working at Google but probably not since your lifestyle would be so much better than the Bay Area.
I know a lot of people that are very sick of the Bay Area, especially those with kids.