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That's correct; the numbers don't lie.

The future of the Bay Area will be outsourcing lower waged jobs that also includes software engineers, QA staff, administrative, etc. to other areas of the state or country where cost of living is less expensive. It's already happening, just ask around.

Again, because the value turned around by SWE peeps etc. for tech companies has an actual cap. You can't pay a QA/SW engineer $500k/year just so they can afford live in the Bay Area. They'd have to be one hell of a QA/SW engineer if that was the case. I just don't think it's worth it for tech companies at some point.

After all that happens, the jobs left here will be primarily managerial; c-level execs, product managers, business analysts etc.

Those too, if the housing situation doesn't improve, will be outsourced to lower cost of living areas as well.

Again, it's inevitable given the numbers.

Much of the wealth being generated in this area is being sunk back into real estate. The high wages in tech in the Bay Area are high because they're subsidizing a corrupt housing market.

Eventually the only people left in the Bay Area will be executives and really high-paid lawyers.




> Eventually the only people left in the Bay Area will be executives and really high-paid lawyers

Yesterday's headline: "Alphabet median pay close to $200k" https://www.investopedia.com/news/googles-alphabet-median-pa...

Those are not all executives and high-paid lawyers.

One of the biggest reasons why a 1300 sq.ft. house in Sunnyvale now sells for $2M is because a lot of engineers are perfectly capable of paying for it.

In my tract, 5 houses out of 35 have changed owners in the past years (it's a neighborhood with lots of first owners who are now in their eighties). I've talked to all the newcomers.

Without exception, they are dual income engineering families who work for Google, Facebook, Apple and some other tech giants.

That's $400k income per year and plenty to cover a $1.725M 30 year 4.1% mortgage payment of $8500 per month.


Right, and the parent was specifically pointing out that it's unsustainable to pay that median (the parent used $500k as a made-up but plausible future value).

I'm pretty happy with the salary that I make as a SF-dwelling/working software developer, but I recognize that it's absolutely insane when compared to same-industry salaries in locations with less ridiculous housing markets.

At some point, companies are going to throw in the towel and decide it just doesn't make financial sense to pay their employees that much just for the privilege of being located in the bay area. Then the jobs move away and you end up with a local recession. This will be hard to do initially for companies sized like Google or Facebook, but a ton of smaller companies can open offices elsewhere and slowly transition staff away. They're already doing it, even.


So, Google pulled down 9.9B in profits last quarter. That means if they've got 88k employees, they could hand out somewhere around an EXTRA $450k to every single employee every year and still be in the green.

Facebook looks roughly the same.

The leverage of a software engineer to produce money is really quite astounding when you get them in large herds.

I'm pretty sure the Bay Area is going to be just fine.


> Eventually the only people left in the Bay Area will be executives and really high-paid lawyers.

I don't think that's sustainable. This is called working your way so far up the supply chain that you pop off the top and fall out.

Eventually the entire supply chain below you collectively asks the question: "Why are we paying these people? What do they do anyway?" Then the supply chain starts looking for ways to wiggle out from under you.




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