1. I was reading articles about people and companies picking up and moving out of California to places like Nevada...thirty years ago. California is still there, packed as ever.
2. Been hearing that for thirty years, too.
Now, that’s not to say that there isn’t a breaking point, I just don’t think we’re there yet. CA might be willing to amputate a leg or a wing, but there’s too much gold in the goose to kill it all at once.
> I was reading articles about people and companies picking up and moving out of California to places like Nevada...thirty years ago.
That's like saying "I was reading about government deficit 10 years ago, and look at it, it's still growing and we're still here and the deficit is even larger!".
It's a growing problem. California grows less attractive as more of these exploitative measures and taxes pile up, and the impact is noticeable. No NorCal location was in the shortlist for Amazon's 2nd HQ, for instance.
> Been hearing that for thirty years, too.
You've been hearing about fully remote virtual teams thirty years ago, before the internet really existed?
> Sure, the Mother of all Demos showed off remote collaborative work in 1968.
...and was certainly an exciting futuristic demo, but unfortunately neither practical nor feasible with the actual widely available technologies of its time.
It's a growing problem. California grows less attractive as more of these exploitative measures and taxes pile up, and the impact is noticeable. No NorCal location was in the shortlist for Amazon's 2nd HQ, for instance.
Hahaha. California is a very nice place to live, and very many people want to live here. Last year, California's economy grew so much that it took back its spot as #5 in the world...behind only the US, China, Japan, and Germany, despite having a population less than half the size of any jurisdiction ahead of it.
Most of that GDP is not related to the tech industry, which despite its importance to the Bay Area represents less of the California economy than manufacturing.
NorCal may not have been on the shortlist for Amazon's 2HQ, but LA was...LA and the Inland Empire also have a less severe housing shortage and are far more pro-development.
??? Alaska and Texas are geographically larger states. France and Algeria are both geographically larger and have more people. As does India. Canada is roughly the same size population-wise but has significantly more land and natural resources available for extraction...
However you measure it, California is outperforming other states and other nations.
Texas has far less population than California. If you adjust they perform about the same. Oh, perhaps you should look at GDP per capita, where California isn't at all extraordinary. Hmm, it's almost as if you should compare properly?
Imagine bowing down to a state and ignoring facts. I never said California wasn't performing well. But in a pro-business country (far more than France), one of its biggest states, with its largest population, that is bigger than most countries on earth, why is it so shocking that their GDP is that high?
That's like saying "I was reading about government deficit 10 years ago, and look at it, it's still growing and we're still here and the deficit is even larger!"
Yeah, pretty much. I’m saying it’s nothing new, and things are still churning along just fine, whether it is in reference to the deficit or CA. Nothing has changed, CA is still ridiculously expensive, as it always has been. CA taxes the shit out of you, as it always has. And jobs pay better, so one has to calculate if the added expense is worth it, as we always have. Will it ever change? In the long term, yeah, it’s likely. In the short term? I see no evidence that a change is in the making. Those gleefully predicting CA’s demise have been around as long as I’ve been alive, and much like TSLA shorts, they’re probably going to have to wait a while longer.
You've been hearing about fully remote virtual teams thirty years ago, before the internet really existed?
Yes. Remote access to centralized and/or distributed computing resources was a solved problem long before the internet showed up.
Similarly, California got away with squeezing the "rich techies", but it keeps losing some of them, and if it's not careful, that will escalate. I can tell you about a bunch of my friends who all had great offers in Cali, and normally would move there in a heartbeat, but the combination of taxes + housing costs + other crap made them go elsewhere. Once a bunch of companies open HQs in other states (besides Amazon that will certainly not open HQ2 in California), this will become worse.
> CA is still ridiculously expensive, as it always has been.
Not as bad as this. If you lived in California for decades, as you claim, you know it's been growing worse than ever.
> Remote access to centralized and/or distributed computing resources was a solved problem long before the internet showed up.
Same deal: it's a developing process. Folks wanted to do remote offices for a long time now, and technology has improved steadily to enable this. Now we're seeing more and more remote teams. This trend will likely strengthen as the internet gets faster, virtual reality gets better, etc.
2. Been hearing that for thirty years, too.
Now, that’s not to say that there isn’t a breaking point, I just don’t think we’re there yet. CA might be willing to amputate a leg or a wing, but there’s too much gold in the goose to kill it all at once.