I’ve had several meetings, either in Twitter office or around it, and the street scene is very bad in that part of SF. If the claim is that this is a motivation for the move, it certainly passes the sniff test for me.

I rode by their office in SF daily in 2015-2018 and even back then it was pretty rough. I've heard things have gotten only more difficult since.

I interviewed there around then, I remeber getting off at civic center bart station on my way in wondering to my self if I really want to do this commute everyday and what kind if effect it would have on me. Then I got the offer and was like, I'll figure it out hah. Sketchy mornings watching all the drug dealing happening hoping I wouldn't accidently look at the wrong person the wrong way or something.

Isn't van ness station closer to Twitter?

If he was going via BART, Van Ness doesn’t have a BART station. If he was going via MUNI, technically yes but not by a lot.

Oh wow, my bad. I thought there was a BART station down there. (I used to be a regular muni rider, not a regular bart rider).

It is an easy mistake to make because Van Ness is a strange station to have been built. It’s past the point where the BART tracks turn towards Mission and is close enough to Civic Center to seem redundant; but I guess a ton of civic buildings are directly on Van Ness and it is a major North-South transit corridor.

The Van Ness station is not particularly pleasant either. Come out of the subway and see this: https://x.com/sfdsrvsbttr/status/1809986173844279305?s=46

It gets much much worse than that at night (even as early as 7pm) so it would be pretty valid to not want to be in that area and have to leave the office and take public transportation. I wouldn't want my spouse or child to have to walk through that den of hell at night... it's extremely sketchy. Check this out for example: https://www.instagram.com/p/C-RuONoqOeP/?utm_source=ig_web_c...

Maybe, I used to live closer to a Bart station and it was faster so I always took that down town if I could.

That’s fair, I never visited the office. But if that was the only issue maybe they’d consider a different part of SF, which would be easier for current employees.

... a literal sniff test? from what I hear (not having been there in more than a few years), it's become quite a problem.

So you've been able to gauge life and the street scene in SF based on several meetings? That's super interesting. I would argue the Embarcadero is fairly nice and I live here, but what do I know.

Only visited for a few days for a conference, but I think if you live there you may have become desensitized to the situation. It's really really not normal to have all the stores boarded up and security guards at the entrance. It's really not normal to be outnumbered by fent addicts nodding off on the street. The worst vibes of any city i've ever been to in my life (Including many people would describe as shitholes). This is so messed up to everyone who hasn't been beaten into acceptance of it

I am nobody important living in rural middle of nowhere, but visited SF twice for work, and it was the most horrific city I have ever been to. I am a big man and didn't feel very safe.

The last time I visited SF for a conference, I witnessed first-hand more crime in two weeks than I have in my entire life before or since, and this was all during broad daylight.

About 20 years ago I was visiting SF for work and, in a moment of weakness, let someone else book me a hotel - they booked me into a rather rough hotel on Geary. When I got into a taxi at the airport the driver said "Do you really want to go there?".

lol

I visited Fisherman’s Wharf last year after dark and it was pretty poorly lit and not that clean. Maybe for a company where employees are expected be “extremely hardcore” (i.e. long hours) that is a consideration.

(Although if you’re truly hardcore you don’t care what the street looks like, you sleep under your desk.)

This is disingenuous. Twitter is located in Civic Center, which is a different neighborhood. From the ferry building at the Embarcadero to Twitter HQ is about 1.8 miles away, or 3 BART stops.

Given the density of SF and how quickly spaces can change you cannot realistically compare the two.

My wife and I have lived in SF for over a decade and I go to the Fitness SF next door to this building at least twice a week these days. We can all play this game where we try to pretend that this area is really nice to people not from here.

But what that guy said was "the street scene is very bad in that part of SF." and he's dead right.

I love this city, but misleading people on the Internet is not right. Tell them the truth. I've lived here as long as I have because I think the benefits outweigh the pains. But not because there are no pains.

I don't know what you know, but one thing you apparently don't know is that Twitter HQ is nowhere near the Embarcadero.

SF has had some cleaner parts - including north parts of Embarcadero, Presidio, etc. but the center and Market St. areas can be pretty scary to a person who's not used to it. As a large ugly dude, I didn't really feel _that_ threatened there, even if a bit uneasy, but I can only imagine how, for example, a woman would feel navigating it, especially at later hours...

Statistically speaking, women are almost never physically attacked by strangers, it is almost always someone they know.

Men are attacked by strangers at a much much higher rate than women are.

I would also say woman fear strangers much more than somebody they know.

Maybe what’s the reason they can avoid getting physically attacked by strangers better than men.

I'm not sure what your point is to be honest, are you saying women are safe in that area at that time of night because of global statistics?

"I didn't feel that threatened, but I can only imagine how X group would feel" doesn't make much sense if X group is actually at a lower risk.

I don't know if they're right at all, but the point seems pretty clear. And they're not saying anyone is safe.

I was in the Embarcadero area for one month for work and I genuinely have felt much safer in developing countries. The reason we(other Americans) critique SF so hard is out of tough love. The east coast has its rough spots too, but nothing as prolific and in-your-face. I'm sure there are some real gems if you avoid [large swaths] of downtown and [long list of streets], but that's what they say in developing countries. It doesn't have to be that way in such a rich, talented place.

I used live in the Tenderloin and work in the Twitter building. My walk to work required me to be mindful of both stationary and recently minted poop in transit. This was in 2019.

I used to live in the Tenderloin in late 90's early 00's. Nice affordable studio on Turk. There was always a diverse party going on during the day on the streets. Definitely had an old fashion skid-row vibe. Market street wasn't too bad then. Ah the memories.

It's exponentially worse now with fentanyl and meth plus now there are now social repercussions or consequences and you can steal to fund your habit with no consequences. It's a sick sad society that would allow this and not see it as an injustice to man. To not intervene is bad enough, but SF actively enables this crap by giving out cash (adult assistance program) and needles (without requiring them to turn in dirty needles). But the voters get what they vote for.. so I guess they want this. This is what it looks like now on 6th/7th and Market: https://www.instagram.com/p/C-RuONoqOeP/?utm_source=ig_web_c... it's always been bad, but this is insane. I took BART to Civic Center for concerts and bars many many nights and it was never like this until the pandemic. I blame all city leaders, voters, and SFPD for allowing this to continue unabated.

That was also true in mission bay, is true in Lakeshore, and I assume other neighborhoods too.

It shouldn’t be like that, but those are the priorities we (as society and electorate) decided on.

That is a quite ironic statement considering that Twitter has been an integral part of modern social engineering to reprogram people into accepting and tolerating the intolerable and unacceptable.

So here we are, at a point where people not only self-censor, they will even get violently aggressive or simply will suppress speech or even the ability to read or hear what someone has said if it diverges from the cult rules that have been imposed on our whole civilization.

Have you touched grass recently? I wholeheartedly recommend it.

I'd far prefer to live in the tenderloin than south bay. People make it out to be far scarier than it is.

I’d be willing to be good money you couldn’t take the bus out of the old X headquarters at 11pm for a month straight and not get robbed at least once. I got robbed twice in the 3 months I worked in the TL.

Look I understand what you're saying, but it really doesn't take much survival skills to walk around at 2am without getting robbed. Living around people who haven't sold their soul is well worth the cost. I love the neighborhood and will forever defend it.

Survival skills are nice to have. But it's even nicer to live and work in a location where robbery isn't something that someone might reasonably experience twice in 3 months.

Of course, I left a job when my lunch got stolen twice in 3 months; well 3 times, but one time I brought leftover pizza in a pizza box, that's understandable. Taking leftovers in plastic is just rude... especially when my shift started at 4pm and everyone else was working normal hours, other than the overnight person whose shift started when mine left.

If I had been robbed because of the location of my job, I'd probably show up one more time, to return my stuff (assuming it wasn't stolen when I was robbed).

I've been robbed before, too. I prefer that to the sterile antisocialness of the wealthy.

others may value personal safety (of themselves or their family) higher than you do. Twitter may not be optimizing for folks like yourself (you may be in the minority).

Incredible mental gymnastics.

Pathetic. Your comment fills me with visceral disgust.

So take an antacid. Save the banal unpleasantries for twitter.

Worms who convince themselves they like being a victim of crime deserve to get stepped on.

Ludicrous. You've conflated a preference for authenticity with wanting to be a victim of crime. Straw man much?

There's a lot to unpack about the attitudes in your comment. I hope you were just having a bad day, because otherwise: you're quick to judge, intolerant of different values, you scorn victims of crime, and you'll sacrifice intellectual integrity to score a cheap point.

"The evil I can tolerate, but the stupidity..."

You know an area is fucked when people start trying to blame the victims for the crime.

I'm not blaming them for the crime, just their lack of understanding how the world works. If you want to understand poverty in america the only place to look is capital and americans' commitment to individual material comfort over all other values.

> the only place to look is capital and americans' commitment to individual material comfort over all other values

the only place to look is the disgust with which americans view enforcement of public order

Not to mention talk about "survival skills" as if that should be normal in a highly wealthy western country in a highly wealthy city. That's shit you talk about in developing countries.

old people love talking about shit. Younger people are more into survival.

"Survival skill" is a matter of looking like a scary scumbag who's more trouble than he's worth to fuck with. I'm good at it, I size up the real scumbags like they're meat I'm going to chew up and spit out and I have the physical build to back it up. They cross the street to avoid me. But many people will just never have this "skill".

Why do the citizens of SF like living in such squalor?

Homeless industrial complex. First you cause the crisis then you profit off of the solutions that claim to fix it (but never fix it).

https://yandex.com/search/touch/?text=san+francisco+homeless...

But the citizens of SF can just stop electing local governments that fund this, yet they don't. I can certainly see how they contributed to causing the crisis (i.e. by electing people who caused it), but I don't see how they profit from it, unless the people in SF likes such conditions, which seems pretty weird, at least to me.

"AIPAC certified"

and just like that, this dude is ranting about the jews controlling everything.

That handle posts mostly tech content. Ventures into politics, embarrasses itself.

HackerNews ♥ Dunning-Kruger

>the people in SF likes such conditions

The people in SF like their million dollar shoeboxes to appreciate in value, with zero regard for the externalities that scheme creates[1].

1. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/...

Exactly. The residents could vote to build more shelters or do something/anything realistic to solve the homeless issue (other than just giving them money/tents/needles), but if they build more homes then that increases the supply of homes which residents are fundamentally against. They don't want any new housing to ever be approved for any levels/neighborhoods because by restricting supply it pushes prices up.

Blame the homeless and people trying to help them, take the blame off the real problem: few available homes with high prices[1].

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10574586/#:~:te....

The obvious answer is they don't, and it is a tough problem to fix

The way I see it, the main way in which the citizens of SF can fix it is by voting for something different, but they don't. So it certainly does seem like they find the status quo preferable to alternatives.

Before you jump to that conclusion you have to be sure that: - such politician exist (politician is not where we humans shine) - you believe the ones who claim they will fix it - the one that you believe can fix it don’t come with values that you cannot accept (extreme example: “I’ll kill all homeless people. vote me!”

Given there are/were cities that are not in such decline and such a state, including SF itself, it definitely seems like there are politicians that can fix it.

The values conflict may be relevant. If, for example, you think it's critical to allow and facilitate your fellow man to become total enslavement to drugs that destroy their lives and health and eventually kill them, then I can get that you won't want to do anything to stop it, even if you have to live in squalor for that to be the case.

They might be wrong, but that doesnt mean they like living in squalor.

Even if your solution is 100% workable, your statement is like saying a man must really like drowning because they dont know how to swim.

I guess I dont think it isn't very constructive.

Not really. People have just deluded themselves into thinking that the current situation is somehow more humane than mandatory rehab and institutionalization.

You have to really not respect yourself as an engineer to go work for elon. Almost anywhere else is far better.

Agree but it appears a sizeable amount of young men see themselves in him somehow and therefore idolize him. As long as he has that cult of personality, people will gladly accept the abuse for a chance to be near him.

Temporarily embarassed billionaires who think he will save their embarassment ...

What a waste of talent ...

Well, even if I subscribe to "every company under Elon's management is a shit show" (and I do), and I don't idolize him (I really don't), if I lived anywhere close and were in my 20s, I would consider joining for a year or two just for the lulz. Twitter is still insanely influential, so it would be fun to be behind the scenes. I also suspect that software engineers can still learn a lot there.

No one should want to work for a company in decline with that level of top-down dysfunction if they can avoid it. You want to be building or figuring out a career in your twenties, not going on a failing-company tour.

Your take is so hilariously silly that I have no clue if you’re serious. You’re either the most brainwashed individual I’ve seen on here in a couple weeks, or a masterful bait artist.

You appear to be describing a cult of personality. Cults exist. They're still cults. It takes perspective, common sense, and internal self-worth to not fall for such.

That can't be a very useful employee.

I can even see people going to SpaceX or xAI attracted by the kind of work they do, but Twitter? The company needs no unique skills. If you are good enough to work there, you can work at a hundred other well paying companies in very similar frontend/backend/infrastructure engineering roles.

I don't think Twitter was the turning point. I remember his public image really starting to sour after his spat with the divers who were trying to save those boys trapped in a cave in Thailand.

Totally forgot about this one, thanks for reminding me of this. I agree, the media really went after him for what he said and I can see that now, his public image took a huge hit because of it.

The fact that you are getting downvoted for expressing a reasonable and well articulated opinion is an ironic confirmation of your point.

Liberalism isn't about shutting down opinions you disagree with, it's about keeping an open mind and engaging with opposing views. Demonizing Musk and downvoting any questions about this demonization is a sign of immature behavior.

You think the engineers at Tesla and SpaceX, who have created jaw dropping technical marvels, don’t respect themselves? I’m not saying Musk isn’t an asshole, I don’t know him. And I’m willing to guess you don’t either. But it’s real hard to argue that his companies haven’t done amazing engineering results.

I don't believe you got the memo, did you? Musk is evil and we were all told to hate him. Nothing he is associated with is ok anymore.

This thread is about twitter. There’s no reason a self respecting software engineer would work for twitter in 2024.

Honestly, given everything I have heard about working conditions there, yes they dont have much self respect. Regardless of what Musk personality is.

It's nice to unpack the assumptions behind this (and gp) comments. You know, honestly, why I won't work for twitter in 2024? Or Tesla, or SpaceX. Because I don't respect myself enough as an engineer. Even if we assume I had the skill (which, for Twitter, I probably do; for the other two, unlikely), I don't care enough about developing technology to devote my life to it, I want to check out after a regular work day and go hang out with my wife or climb or play board games. Better - more engaged, at least - engineers can go work for Twitter.

Meh. Being unable to check out does not make one superior engineer. Persistent long hours are predictor of a lot of bugs and correlated with chaotic management. They are not actually correlated with some kind of greatness.

That sounds like a cope. I have worked with many engineers who delivered as high, or higher, quality and impact features at higher volume by working longer, because they cared more about technology and/or the product. And I've also seen the same person (myself included!) with drastically different output based mostly on time put in. The simplest case is people who have kids and now want to spend more time with them; for some people, like me, it's an interplay of hobbies and how interesting the project itself is. The productivity decreases, based mostly on time spent. Can they respect themselves more as engineers after that?

It even goes beyond the job, e.g. does one read research papers or code at home? That would usually make one a better engineer, but it's not great for work life balance.

Not a cope, genuine opinion. I have seen people who spent a lot of time in work long term and generally they were not all that productive. Meetings took longer, because their socialization needs were not met.

And when whole teams work long because management demands it, what you usually see is tired people wasting a lot of time.

Two companies where they make sure Elon just plays with the unplugged controls and keep the adults in charge (well, I guess they let him have the Cybertruck - with predictable results)

Not the case at Twitter

Still I probably wouldn't do the amount of overtime they require of workers at SpaceX and Tesla

Do you have any first hand (or even secondhand) knowledge of Elon's involvement in engineering at Tesla and SpaceX, or are we speaking strictly in terms of your imagination or projection what you think happens? Having watched a few long form interviews with Elon regarding the engineering and construction of Starship, I'm fairly confident he is involved in the engineering. But I haven't talked to actual SpaceX engineers, so discount that as you will.

With respect to Twitter, perhaps the engineers drawn to work there are interested in the future vision for the company and the engineering that such a vision will entail. Not to mention, even in its current state, it is a global social media company with 100s of millions of users that I'm certain presents interesting engineering challenges. What cutting edge, successful tech are you working on that makes you so willing to disparage the work of Twitter engineers as "not self respecting"?

Maybe, but it's all relative. Isn't it not self respecting to be working for anyone making over say $2m a year? You're just contributing further to inequality to "get yours".

There are plenty of horrible people who are CEOs out there (and plenty of companies that do actual evil), I think you're grandising Musk a bit due to him being a public figure.

Your personal opinion, if I'd be interested in what his companies does I'd go work there asap.

I mean reason #1 is probably that they are getting evicted right? Didn't elon stop paying rent?

Paying rent is a woke mind virus, so Elon would never go for that. Fight the oppression!

Like just buy twitter, then you won’t have to pay rent. - Elon probably

Santa Clara-San Jose area is relatively still damn expensive. (Ask me how I know.)

Anywhere with an RTO mandate is a hard pass. If they want to treat their employees like children and waste my time and money on pointless commuting to feel in-control, then count me out.

Yeah, this has been tested every which way by now, the entire point of in-person work is to monitor employees. My manager told me outright that the only reason I can stay remote is, unlike most of the team, I didn't seem to "disappear" during 2020.

There's a unfortunate conflation of completing useful work with appearing to be present. The appearance of presence is the new 37 pieces of flair.

The other new 37 pieces of flair is creating a lot of Java files with large loc and many layers of object inheritance.

Musk runs Twitter like a dictator.

The first and only reason is whatever Musk felt like.

Twitter was imperically a terrible financial decision.

It seems like a bold statement to say the #1 is de facto money.

I suspect non-money issues are much higher on the list.

If anyone on the planet doesn't need more money, it's Musk.

TBF, Elon has been running his other companies like he is running Twitter. Also, isn't it his prerogative to run his companies however he pleases as he is the CEO? If the shareholders are not happy with it, they can push him out.

Most CEOs aren't worth >$200B...

reading this as a mariner who works 2-4 months straight, on a ship, in deep sea, 12 hour work day, and no days off (working saturday and sunday).. lol you dont know how bad it really is..

I'm going to assume your work requires your physical presence on that ship, in the deep sea, though. My work, however, does not. Further, employers are, on the whole, cheap, and want to pack workers into as small a footprint as possible. (Literally, 4' or less.) I can build a better work environment at home, for under $1k.

"My [unrelated] job is worse" is not a logical reason for me to abstain from advocating for better work conditions for myself, where there is a possibility of better work conditions. I can dislike things about one tech job vs. another tech job while still appreciating that the conditions of either job probably far exceed that of a career I wouldn't like.

(And, I would also still default to advocating for sane worker's rights in your industry too, unless there is some compelling reason that working >8h/d, 7d/wk makes some sort of sense in your industry.)

Sounds like a prison work camp!

"You kids think you're being exploited? Haha that's nothing, I've been exploited 10x harder!"

Let's not crab bucket each other. You deserve good working conditions and making life suck for everyone else, too, won't make your life truly better.

"you should feel good about that because my life has been much worse"

Talent pool is downstream of the "flamebait reasons" though. Maybe they're not moving out of SF directly because of the high crime etc., they're moving out of SF because they can't attract talent in SF... but that may well be at least partly because of the high crime etc..

I've lived in high crime areas, and SF doesn't have the kind of high crime that would actually deter me. The monotony of a homogeneous population is enough to keep me away from the Bay for as long as I can; and I know plenty of other talented people that feel the same

The Bay doesn't have a homogenous population, you just don't know any locals.

I've lived all along the West Coast from Tijuana to Seattle. There is no place along this coast which I would call homogeneous except the Bay. I would challenge your locals statement, but at this point, I've wasted too much time on No True Scotsman fallacies for this lifetime.

Either way, my community was one of the last diverse communities to get priced out of the Bay (around the early 2010s). Yet, you can find my community in any other populated place along the west coast. The bay definitely has a diversity issue when it comes to interesting people.

The thing about being priced out is that it can only happen if you aren't a homeowner. If you are a homeowner (or in such a household), the same effect is making you more than $100k a year richer. So you just have to like living with your parents.

Have you been to Twitter's SF site? It is a weird place, between super sketchy and plainly empty, what is missing is the peace of mind, definitely a valid reason to leave. It has all the downsides from being in the downtown, while none of the perks remain in today's SF.

Talent pool isn't a real issue for Twitter now, under Elon, I don't think they truly prioritize Twitter over any of his other companies, the mission is to keep Twitter's lights on, that is it, the website/app had basically stayed the same after he took over, what talents do they really need, I don't buy it.

I think it’s inaccurate to say that they don’t need talent to keep the lights on at Twitter. Maybe not a lot of new architectural development is happening, but you definitely need a lot of ops people that know what they’re doing to keep the lights on there.

Elon had outsourced majority of Ops work, there are about 20% of employees left in the Bay last I checked from news.

If you use Twitter you would know it has been far from the same.

It appears they're trying to change the platform to be more of a media and payments platform. That requires talent.