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Leaving Google (tbray.org)
210 points by blearyeyed on Feb 20, 2014 | hide | past | favorite | 217 comments



For those who don't know, Tim Bray was one of the original inventors of the XML spec and has been a Developer Advocate at Google for a while.

Shame to see him go, I am joining DevRel at Google in the fall and I thought it was awesome to have someone as experience as Tim working kinda-sorta-near me. Hopefully he goes on to do something great.


> Tim Bray was one of the original inventors of the XML spec

That son of a bitch... ;)


Remove some DTDs. Then remove the completely-silly need to put the tag name in the closing tag, and hey, it's a nice format.

At least it has comments and is suitable as a config file format, unlike JSON.


He is also a serial founder, and, among other interesting things, wrote one of the very first web crawlers. See http://www.textuality.com/ for some of his fun stuff.


Implying XML is not great? ;)


Great men make great mistakes :-)


I guess I should have said more great things, as Tim has already accomplished a lot.


Ahhh, you can write webpages in it.


that is asking for

  XML - It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time


As someone who moved to the Bay Area from Vancouver, it definitely was a bit of a shock. In Vancouver you're very used to seeing white people work in low income jobs, and that just doesn't happen a lot here.

Calling the Bay Area congested, incestuous and overpriced compared to Vancouver is a little like the pot calling the kettle black, however. Yes, transit is a million times better in Vancouver. Yes, the cycling infrastructure is at least twice as good as SF and the peninsula. But try driving to or from North Vancouver during rush hour and you will experience some world class congestion.

The recent run-up in housing prices, particularly on the west side of Vancouver, where people have speculated in the housing market has left that part of the city half vacant. It's the same thing you see in London; wealthy foreigners come in, buy a place and use it for only a few weeks/months of the year. It totally wrecks communities.

That said, yeah, I still love Vancouver, but I love working in tech. If you're a software engineer, you really ought to be living in the Bay Area. There's no other place like it.


If you don't see white people working low-income jobs in SF, you need to get out and explore. Nearly everyone working retails jobs in the Castro, Noe Valley, Hayes Valley, and a half dozen other neighborhoods is white.


Sure, but go back into the kitchen of any restaurant, or hang out and talk to the cleaning staff and I can almost guarantee you that you won't see any white people, unless you're talking to management or the chef.


If you're a software engineer, you really ought to be living in the Bay Area. There's no other place like it.

I agree there's no other place like it, but that's not necessarily a good thing. I've been there, done that and won't go back. Then again, I prefer blunt honesty to polite lies and I need my space. Just saying, it's not for everybody, even if you're a software engineer.


I commute daily from Squamish to Vancouver. I am originally from Toronto and found commuting around that city a lot more challenging than Vancouver.


Either you ride the seabus, or you're figured out the secret to teleportation. I've sat in more traffic lineups* on Taylor Way than any sane person should ever have to endure.

The same can be said for the Massey tunnel, the Port Mann (before it was rebuilt) or half a dozen other spots in the lower mainland.



As someone who works 97% remotely from a mostly-colocated office, I have to agree that it's a terribly inefficient way to work. If everyone were remote, it could probably work, but if it's just one or two out of a dozen or a hundred, it's very difficult.

On balance, my current job is still the best choice for me, but there's a constant background of frustration mostly surrounding communication failures.


In my experience, teams or companies that have significant problems communicating with remote workers just aren't very good communicators. Physical proximity is a crutch that can help them overcome their disability/dysfunction, but they almost always still have major communication problems--they just have more problems with remote employees.

A team that's good at communicating with remote employees is usually just good at communication in general.


Oh, I definitely agree. Certainly my employer has plenty of communications problems. But whatever communications roadblocks exist are amplified tenfold from 800 miles away.


I thought this was interesting: "Now you can say it: Google is actually evil, right? · I don’t think so; but get back to me later. I shouldn’t write too much about Google in-the-large until I’ve got more perspective."

At best, it sounds like he's a bit doubtful of Google's white-hat status but is trying to remain professional, doesn't have a specific incident to point to, or both.

It will be interesting to see what he says in a year or so.


You're interpreting things too literally.


On the topic of living costs for Vancouver, coincidentally enough WorkSafeBC (Vancouver's version of OSHA) just released a cost of living calculator for the BC region. You can see that housing will eat up the majority of your paycheque for an average wage (maybe not rockstar IT devs) [1].

http://www.costofliving.welcomebc.ca/

[1] Median family income in BC is $69,150 as of 2011. Source: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/f...


Interesting that the median price for a detached single family home in Vancouver is now $929,700 [1] and in Santa Clara county (which is San Jose and the cities around it) is "only" $754,400 [2], of course a house in San Francisco is like over a million dollars.

[1] http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/house-prices-still-rising-in...

[2] http://www.zillow.com/santa-clara-county-ca/home-values/


$929,000 in Vancouver means the east side, which is traditionally the lower priced and income area of Vancouver. If you want anything close to downtown or the West side, it is well over $1.5M.

A lot of detached homes in Vancouver at the $900k price range look like they are in bad condition and reflect the land value. So while it is expensive to purchase at $900k+, consider the renovations that will be needed to bring the house up to a livable condition.


> A lot of detached homes in Vancouver at the $900k price range look like they are in bad condition and reflect the land value.

So much so, that a game has been made about this, Crack Shack or Mansion [0].

[0] http://www.crackshackormansion.com/index.html


Google not able to get remote working working? Seems flawed that a system requires everyone to move to one location to work, and a broken system that lives on from the past (why take hours of employees days commuting?). There are times when that is needed, there are other times when that is bad and external insight is easier remotely.

Yahoo and possibly Google doing this, leading to more congestion in the Bay Area, and not spreading the innovation around to other cities. Google can do better.

Maybe their next move is a Costco sized open office where everyone can sit right next to one another, no need for Hangouts.


The problem is not that they couldn't, but they wouldn't. Most of the large bay area companies believe that there is more value in the chit-chat and overheard conversations at the micro kitchen, than in solving the remote work problems.


Most of my work is remote and yet I agree with this. It's part of the reason I visit the office at least once a week, despite a 2-hour commute. There is value in casual conversation. Work topics can be raised in informal ways. People share more of their personal lives and come to know each other better, fostering understanding and relieving some of the tension that can arise from misunderstood or poorly-worded emails.

Working remotely requires a lot of attention to relationships in ways and over channels that most people aren't accustomed to. It can be difficult even for people who are very good at it. I enjoy working remotely but I value the personal face-to-face time I get with co-workers very highly.


Google has no problems recruiting. They will have 100 resumes to fill his shoes in hours. So they get to set the rules still.

It won't always be like this for them but it is right now.


So within a day, they'll have 100 resumes of people as qualified as Tim Bray? That seems sort of like a stretch. At that level, those people can work where they want to, no?


I visited Seattle and Vancouver for the first time recently.

I was surprised at how similar they were. I was expecting Vancouver to be a lot different than it was. Vancouver was even more high-rise, glass-everything, gated-community than Seattle. I spoke with the locals who informed me that was Vancouver's MO, and if I wanted a culturally interesting Canadian city, I should head over to Toronto.


The fascinating part about living in Toronto compared to Vancouver (or even another city, say New York), is how we view foreigners/immigrants. A few weeks ago I randomly spoke with a man from Egypt. My immediate assumption, even though he had an accent, was that he lived in one of the various multicultural neighbourhoods in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). Only after speaking with him a while longer did I truly realized that this was his first visit to Toronto and that he was not actually living in the GTA. I would hazard a guess that most Torontonians would make the assumption that any visible minority or person with an accent is an immigrant living in the GTA. Tourists and visitors walk invisibly through the city.

I compare this to my experience in Vancouver where, even though I may be a visible minority myself who only speaks English, I was treated as a foreigner. In New York, people were shouting racial slurs at me as I walked down the street. Seattle/Bay Area however, I was treated like your typical tech worker.


[Insert obligatory Montrealer condescension regarding culture in the rest of Canada here - it's about all we've got]

I love aspects of Vancouver, especially the Indian food, but damn it gets boring fast. (Not the Indian food, the place).


Is "culturally interesting" code for dirty and run down? ;)


Only in the USA. One of the fundamental differences between Canada and the US is that ethnic diversity and immigration do not immediately imply poverty.

Visit Toronto sometime. Tons of ethnic enclaves that are legitimately interesting, and not in the "look at how the poor people live!" way - solidly middle class and not at all run-down.

In my experience in the US "ethnic enclave", "culturally interesting", "racially vibrant" more often than not really is code for dirty and run down.


There's a reason for that: the legacy of slavery for African Americans, and the massive continuous immigration of low- wage- earning latinos.

Vietnamese and Indian neighborhoods in the US don't tend to be run down. For that matter, there are middle-class black enclaves. They're just not as noticeable as the huge poor black neighborhoods.


While there are plenty of perfectly valid reasons to not want to move to the bay area, I'm not sure that I would list exceptionally pervasive racism among them.


"Plus I find the Bay Area congested, racist, incestuous, and overpriced."

I like this guy.


I'm a little sad he didn't say anything about Seattle, only a couple hours from Vancouver and with sizable and thriving Google offices. It is also has "greens and greys and unfussily variegated people" -- clearly it's not Canada, but in general it would be a much less drastic transition!


Vancouver is a real city.

Seattle is provincial, passive-aggressive, unfriendly to outsiders, and segregated. A hick town with skyscrapers as I've often called it. Californians who've moved there almost unanimously agree with my first sentence, and crack up at the latter.

(Sadly, I lived in Seattle for 17 years. The Bay Area before that, and New York now.)


> Vancouver is a real city.

That's not very nice.

> Seattle is provincial, passive-aggressive, unfriendly to outsiders, and segregated. A hick town with skyscrapers as I've often called it.

Sorry you didn't enjoy it here. Every city has its ups and downs, but a lot of people (myself included) love it. It's beautiful, we are surrounded by nature, we have the best summers of anywhere I've ever been, I find the people friendly (if a bit passive), there's a great classical music scene (this is how I spend my time), a great university in the middle of the city, lots of tech employment opportunities, a housing market that isn't insane.

I like SF and New York (and Vancouver!) a lot, but they have their own problems too.


I've always gotten the impression that about 40% of the people you meet or see in Seattle are at that exact moment contemplating suicide. That's just the general tone of the city.


Jesus there are a lot of haters in this thread.


I lived in Seattle for six years and I totally agree with Vonguard. It doesn't have anything to do with being a "hater." You just need to be good at observing people, specifically their body language.


Haters gonna hate. Potatoes gonna potate.


Seattleites gonna ... seat?


I must say I had a wonderful time in Seattle. I found the people a ton more friendly, approachable and varied than in the Bay Area, where everyone is just interested in 'networking' with you rather than befriending you. Plus Seattle has absolutely stunning nature. I didn't stay because of the grey skis. Couldn't take it.


I've been away from the Bay Area a long time. I don't doubt it is now how you describe it, but it wasn't that way before hi-tech startup culture started taking over. Seattle is slowly getting more friendly and less provincial. Maybe one day it will be better than the Bay Area, but unlikely because the same forces that are messing with the Bay Area are messing with Seattle (and New York) too.

New York has closed itself off to the young and the struggling. But there are other cities. Detroit. Poughkeepsie. New York City has been taken away from you. So my advice is: Find a new city. – Patti Smith on whether New York is still good for artists.


Then buy skis that are a different color ;)

Just kidding. But I understand your sentiment. The grey skies wouldn't bother me at all, but my wife would not be able to stand it. We live in a sunny climate, and every day that is overcast she tells me how depressed it makes her feel... Some people just need sunshine!


Do you realize that you didn't refute or deny any of his criticisms?


I'm not sure what you're expecting when the criticisms were vague jabs like "not a real city," "provincial," "hick town."

Also I did say that I find the people friendly, which is the opposite of unfriendly. Yes Seattle people tend to be passive, but that is not the same as unfriendly.


"provincial, passive-aggressive, unfriendly to outsiders, and segregated" are not vague jabs.


I note that the parent is mainly talking about the people, and you're mainly talking about other things, except to admit that the people are 'a bit' (I would say profoundly) passive. Believe me, I love the scenery and the sushi too, but goddamn this place lonely.


In 7 years in Seattle, I've amassed a mess of friends and playmates. If you are lonely, expand your social horizons, initiate (lunches, coffees, games, dinners, whatever), rinse, repeat. I'm not excessively charming, so that's about the only thing I can attribute my not-remotely-loneliness to... I just worked at not being lonely.

Given how itinerant Seattle's population is, it seems strange to think that the people here are massively different in behavior cities of similar size.


I must suck at socializing a lot worse than I thought I did.


It's a skill, so you might suck. But it's possible you're just not doing the work. Be the guy who calls, hosts dinners, etc. If you DO suck, this will help with that too. :-)


Seattle is my favorite place in the entire world.

People always complain about the "freeze" but I call bullshit. Seattle is the perfect place for people who enjoy a small social circle (Larry David style - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG_M73MoxJE)

The one thing I always tell outsiders when they ask about finding friends when they move here is to pick an interest and go from there. For example, I love hiking/climbing. I joined a climbing gym and found a few great friends with that in common.

People here aren't outwardly friendly to strangers, but find a commonality and go from there, it's super effective.


"the perfect place for people who enjoy a small social circle"

I think this is absolutely spot on. I'm pretty surprised about this line criticism from this forum. Nerds (or "hackers" in this case) are a generally introverted crowd, no?

It's not a good city if you're a brogrammer who wants to party like a rock star every night. That's totally fine by me. :)


> People always complain about the "freeze" but I call bullshit.

First, some humor: http://lifeexplained.thecomicseries.com/comics/62/

Now, some serious (as it was while I lived there, but funny now that I've escaped), all from Seattle newspapers:

But the dichotomy most fundamental to our collective civic character is this: Polite but distant. Have a nice day. Somewhere else. [1]

Your city is a lovely one, and people here are nice enough when you come into contact with them in such circumstances as a retail transaction or participation in a mutually held-interest group. However, there is an unmistakable coolness exuded by many inhabitants of this city toward people they don't know; it exceeds what I would consider "normal." [2]

Seattle public radio: while people here are “open” to new ideas, we’re just near the bottom of the states for being extroverted. Sociologist Jodi O’Brien at Seattle University added that this group relies heavily on digital devices to communicate which means they are losing the ability to simply hang out and talk. “If you email something I don’t like, I can scream at the computer, but I don’t have to interact with you. The more we can do that, the less inclined we are to engage in the messy social world.” [3]

Seattle Freeze: Can we blame it on the Norwegians? ...and there is even a meet-up group working to defeat it, the Seattle Anti-Freeze. [4]

Turns out that while Seattle has lots of romantic settings and events – the people themselves aren’t thought to be very romantic.[5] In a poll on that same Seattle newspaper blog, 80% of the readers say that the Seattle Freeze is very real and/or awesome. A slideshow of ways of dealing with the freeze agrees more or less with your advice to pick an interest and go from there.

[1] http://seattletimes.com/pacificnw/2005/0213/cover.html

[2] http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/northwestvoices/2009/0...

[3] http://www.kpluwonders.org/content/why-seattle-freeze-so-har...

[4] http://blogs.seattletimes.com/fyi-guy/2012/12/04/seattle-fre...

[5] http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2013/02/12/‘seattle-fre...


Unfriendly to outsiders? I moved to Seattle from Alaska when I was 32 (I knew no one here and grew up near DC). 7 years later, I'm buried in friends. I play ultimate with a group of awesome folks twice a week, touch football once a week with another group, and bump into all sorts of friendly faces at tech meetups. People seems broadly friendly compared to most cities. I'll agree that folks are less confrontational than the east coast, which translates to more passive aggression (but certainly less OVERALL aggression than east coast cities).

As far as "hick town"... Seattle is literally the most educated city in the US. It legalized gay marriage and pot before almost anyone else. I don't understand what you mean by "hick"... I guess we do have a lot of plaid.


Seeing as California is extraordinarily passive-aggressive (from a New Englander’s perspective), that really says something.


Being from Europe, I can only confirm that people in the Bay Area are in fact, incredibly passive-aggressive. The first few years I must admit that I felt like living on Mars. Even-though I'm coming from a "western" country whose lifestyle and tradition are somewhat similar, the cultural gap was actually much bigger than say, with Indians or Latinos.

At work for example, it took me a rather long time to understand the real meanings of "I'm not sure" which means 'no' or "interesting" which means more or less that what you said is stupid. Not to mention being asked 200-times a day how I am doing or whether I found everything I was looking for at wholefood.

Yep, people in this region have an imperial need to "be nice", at least on the surface and it can feel Orwellian at times if you are not used to it, especially on those days of bad mood. I think in Thailand they call that "sweet mouth, salty butt". But hey, that's also a huge plus, since it prevents a lot of bad vibes and unneeded frictions. I believe it's just a societal organization.

Sometimes I go back to my country for work, and over there people's number one characteristic is distrust and indifference, and I can guarantee you that I feel like a foreigner over there now - well, on normal days, because if I happen to be in a bad mood, I'm kind of showing signs of Tourette syndrome and want to punch everybody.

Overall, I think I'm mixing well in the Bay Area. And more importantly, most of my friends and relatives who share those character traits do tolerate that some foreigners like me don't necessarily think and act the same way. And frankly, wouldn't the world be boring if people were the same everywhere ?


As an Englishman, i have found this whole thread about the cultural differences up and down the west coast somewhat fascinating. What i'm missing is a cross-reference to the European scale of societies.

I live in London, where we don't speak to our neighbours or make eye contact on the tube; would i actually be more comfortable in Seattle than San Francisco? Or would it be over the top, like being in Sweden or something? Or is the variation along a completely different axis?


You'd probably like San Francisco more; I rode Caltrain daily and never had one social interaction onboard. The same wasn't true in Seattle.


As someone who lived his first 22 years in the metro Boston area but has lived in various parts of California for something like 16 years, I'd argue that it is impossible to paint "California" with such a wide brush.

I live in San Diego and it is very different here than in LA or the SF Bay Area (with each of those also being very distinct from each other).


SF Bay Area is also too broad a brush - SF is very different from San Jose, and a number of other regions (Peninsula, Mountain View/Palo Alto, Berkeley, Woodside/Saratoga/Atherton/Los Gatos/Los Altos Hills) all have distinct cultures as well. I'd argue that MV/PA is actually closer to Boston culturally than to SF.


The various parts of CA are, as you say, quite different from one another, but they are all extremely passive-aggressive compared to the North East.


Where aren't people passive aggressive? No where I've ever been.


There are passive-aggressive people everywhere, but it is especially prevalent on the west coast. There’s an old cartoon that sums it up perfectly, comparing New York and LA: the New Yorker is shown to be thinking “I love you, man” but saying “fuck you!”. For the Angelino it's the opposite.


My impression of Seattle while living there was that it wants to be Manhattan, except that cars will stop to let you cross the street.

"Looking to be metropolitan" I guess is how I would phrase it. Wasn't really what I was looking for, but it was an interesting stay for a while.

I don't know what is more real about Vancouver, other than the newer part of downtown, I found it to be a sprawling mess just like your average US big city. Richmond was heavily Asian, Surrey seemed to have the heavier crime, and Burnaby was more suburban.

The weather in California is certainly better on average, though, I'll say that. Except for the cost of living, I'd almost assuredly go there, myself.


anecdata: my sister lives in los angeles, and her company once posted her to their seattle office for a few months. her impression was that it was an extremely white city; that might not be the sort of thing that strikes you if you're white yourself, but coming from california it would definitely reinforce the provincial impression.


> that might not be the sort of thing that strikes you if you're white yourself

Oh, it struck this Midwestern white boy almost as soon as he got off the plane. I mean, I'd heard the phrase "white bread neighborhood" and always took it to mean there's only a few non-white people living there. No, in Seattle (and Redmond, where I live) entire neighborhoods can be comprised of nothing but white folk.

I notice because I grew up in and around Indianapolis (with brief stints in Detroit). 20% black population in Indy (I could be off by a bit) means 1 out of 5 people I work with, buy groceries from, pass on the street, whatever, are black (ratio of friends was a bit lower than 20%). Now drop me in Redmond/Seattle where I rarely see a black person, and it's just...weird. I mentioned this to natives, and they acted like it was the most racist thing they'd ever heard. What, you thought I wouldn't notice that Bellevue's black population is 0.9%?


Bellevue: "more than 40 percent of its population a minority race or ethnicity in 2010." (https://www.bellevuewa.gov/demographics.htm)

Redmond: 20% nonwhite (http://redmond.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm)

Blacks are certainly underrepresented, I'll give you that, but everybody's talking as if African Americans are the only minority that counts... because it is a convenient strawman for propping up their arguments about the "whiteness", I suppose.


I only use black because that's the only diversity one was likely to find in Indianapolis when I lived there. I'd believe the Bellevue stats, given the population around Crossroads Mall if nothing else. As for Redmond, maybe I need to get out more. Mentally touring my street and thinking of the race of the residents I know of, I'm coming up with only the Chinese family that lives across the street from us. I think the Indian family on the corner moved out a while ago. Granted, an anecdotal survey of my neighborhood and my general impression does not hard data make. But that's where I'm coming from.


Seattle is 16+% Asian and 70-% white, 8.4% black and 1% native. How is that very white? In contrast, LA is 50% white, 10% asian, 10% black, with a 50% Hispanic (many co-identifying as white or black).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Seattle


eevilspock: Actually, most people in Seattle are recent arrivals, irrespective of national origin.

"Of the people living Seattle itself, only 37% were born in WA, 44% another state, and 19% another country according to the 2006 census." http://www.city-data.com/forum/seattle-area/281766-transplan...

http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/NPTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=1...


Ya, I was born in Portland myself, though my dad is from walla walla and my mom is from Ketchikan. Seattle is the capital of basically the entire northwest, from Prudhoe Bay to Grants Pass, all the way east into Idaho and Montana.


That 16% asian population mostly arrived in the last 20 years from SE asia. They and the black population is highly segregated compared to New York or the Bay Area. No one here is holding L.A. as a great example. Try Vancouver (from the OP), San Francisco, or New York.

http://www.metafilter.com/65711/Segregated-Seattle

https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/maps_2010.htm


Actually, Seattle's asian community is increasingly Chinese, while San Francisco took in more SE refuges than Seattle did (and are more asian for it, but increasingly Chinese also). Both Seattle and the Bay Area have strong Vietnamese and Korean communities also (seattle area has the largest outside of CA).

All those demographics are on wiki: Vancouver is 40 % asian (and like 25% Chinese) which we all know, San Francisco is 33% asian but only 6% black (not counting Oakland I guess, but we aren't counting Tacoma for Seattle either). New York is New York.

I have no idea where you get saying they are segregated, at least when it comes to asian. Black is more urban, but that's hardly surprising (unless we want to start talking about seatac and Tacoma, which are different cities).


>A hick town with skyscrapers as I've often called it.

Something tells me that you've never met "hick".


I grew up in a farm town.


You'll forgive me if I have trouble believing that, given that you consider Seattle to be "hick".


Dude, I'm obviously speaking hyperbolically, i.e. rhetorically. Relative to any big city with cosmopolitan aspirations, it is a hick town. The number of coworkers I had there who owned rifles and hunted, who drove pickup trucks, who brewed their own beer, who had difficulty with non-Americanized ethnic food puts it a lot closer to a small town than to cities like San Francisco, Chicago or New York.


Sure, from a very sheltered perspective, it's quite "hick". I'll accept that.


> The number of coworkers I had there who owned rifles and hunted, who drove pickup trucks, who brewed their own beer

These sound like really good coworkers actually.


It's really because we (seattlites) just don't like Californians very much; they are turned on all the time, shifty, and drive super aggressively. Makes sense that he feeling would be mutual (e.g. Too passive, naive, and drive super cautiously). This was a real thing in the 90s at least.


As a born and raised Californian that has visited Seattle via car a few times, I agree completely about our driving habits. There is a reason we drive that way though, it's out of necessity. Our traffic is heavy and drivers are very self-centered so the only way to get anywhere is to be aggressive and take space and position or someone else will.

Personally I preferred the driver's mentality of the northwest and once I had been there a few days I drove much more like them since it was so refreshing to not have to not be in the take and defend mindset. Plus when you want to speed they get out of the way well in advance which is awesome when you're in a hurry.


I've heard many Californian transplants complain about Seattle drivers being so timid, and it really is true we can't drive when it is raining, snowy, or sunny (too much glare).


C'mon troll, Seattle is where people go to make money. Seattle's tech industry beats Vancouver any day.


Times are changing my friend. Who would I go work for in Seattle to "make money" (if that were actually my primary goal)?

Amazon? In Vancouver now. Microsoft? In Vancouver now. Facebook? In Vancouver now. Startups? Vancouver has our share.

Personally, if I were going to leave the country for a better tech industry, I'd fly right past Seattle and head further south. Sorry, but Seattle just doesn't make sense if you're not already there.


I grew up in Vancouver, lived in Seattle for two years, and agree with all the digs about passive-aggression and the such.

And while Vancouver's tech scene is rising, you should really stop by Seattle some time and see how wide the gap really is, and how far Vancouver has to go to even be within the same league as Seattle when it comes to tech employment.

> "Amazon? In Vancouver now. Microsoft? In Vancouver now. Facebook? In Vancouver now."

Amazon is the only real dev office out of those. Microsoft and Facebook are waiting rooms for Canadian citizenship to permit easier access to the US. It's funny how often these exact companies are trotted out in defense of Vancouver's tech industry when considering why these offices exist in the first place (tip: it's not to access Vancouver's existing tech talent).

> "Sorry, but Seattle just doesn't make sense if you're not already there."

I don't like the city much at all, but where else can a fresh CS undergrad fetch a $100K+ offer without paying $2K a month for a dingy studio apartment? Vancouver's rental market just as expensive as Seattle, and salaries far, far lower.

The tech industry gets better the further south you go along the west coast. Vancouver is not an exception to this rule.


The tech industry gets better the further south you go along the west coast

To a point.


Fair point. Hard to argue San Diego has a superior tech scene than San Jose...


Yea but it does have much higher quality of life.


Though it doesn't hold a candle to Tijuana!


In what way?


I moved from Toronto to Seattle after finishing school, and it would have be a hell of job elsewhere to make me move else where. I don't know about Vancouver, but software industry in Toronto is in a sorry state right now. Toronto's living cost is well near the most expensive parts of US like NYC and SF. And yet, they pay like you live in Wyoming. And the federal, provincial, and municipal taxes you pay on top of little you make is simply untenable. I encourage Canadian developers to gtfo of Canada while you are young and mobile because it'll get harder when you are older.

As for SF, I think Seattle has its own perks as well. Slightly lower sales tax, lower cost of living in rent and other goods, 0 state income tax in Washington, amazing mountains and interesting beaches. Raw number in your paycheck wise, Seattle is probably lower than SF, but in SF, you pay shitload more on rent and tax.


I grew up in Victoria, and lived in Seattle for several months. Seattle was literally half the price and twice the wage in all aspects, you'd be stupid as a new grad not to go to Seattle if you grew up in Vancouver or Victoria.

I also found the people of Seattle pretty much identical to people in Vancouver. If you switched out a few street signs you wouldn't be able to tell much of a difference between the places.


Victoria beats the pants off Vancouver, in terms of being a nice place to live (if you can afford it) or visit. I always find Vancouver to be pretentious, crowded, overdeveloped and generally lacking in any sort of charm.


As an ex-Vancouverite, I think it's more accurate to say that Victoria is a nice place to retire rather than a place to live (i.e., make a living).


Agreed. I live mid-island, which is much nicer than Victoria. However I wouldn't be able to live here if I didn't run my own business.


Totally agree with you 110% on the passive-aggressive thing. I've been on east coast now (Boston) for about 16 years. I've grown to appreciate knowing where I stand with people.


Why do you live there for SEVENTEEN years if you find it that shitty? You only live once, you know. You deserve to be happy.


ex-wife. 'nuf said.


>provincial, passive-aggressive, unfriendly to outsiders, and segregated

Vancouver isn't?


What makes you say that?


Seattle 8 years. Sadly I have to agree wholeheartedly with this, because I've been unable to find much contrary evidence. The 'Freeze', which is deservedly famous, is very, very real, no matter how many people try to minimize its reality. Go ahead, come here - it's on display every second of every day in every cubic meter of the city. The only people who will make eye contact or speak a word to you are the homeless - I'm unable to decide whether this is because their livelihood depends on it, because they've transcended excessive self-involvement, or both. People are passive-passive, extremely unfriendly. It's like everyone is playing a private success-seeking game in their head, never really showing their cards, but presenting a cultivated image. Yes, of course in 8 years I have met some awesome people here and there (and I'm not saying the rest aren't awesome, but they aren't sharing). Yet there is also a persistent shallowness and aloofness even to a lot of my friendships that I can't seem to crack sometimes. And yes, very segregated. Scavenger hunt: find one black person on the Eastside. It might take you days. No idea what to blame for that, but it's true.

I liked the snowboarding, and I liked working at MS for less than half the time I spent there, but I'm definitely looking into relocating at this point. (For reference, I'm from Boston, where I assert that people generally say what they mean or what's at the front of their mind, instead of what's faultlessly polite or strategically advantageous.)


I have lived in the bay area, south bay specifically, for 2 years now and I dont remember the last stranger who spoke to me beyond the general politeness. I meet people through a common activity, like playing a sport, tech meetups etc. but that is the same for Seattle. So what really is the freeze and how does it affect you?

P.S. - I have lived in Seattle and would move back in a heartbeat if I had the same professional opportunities as I have here.


Whether it is possible to proactively mitigate a circumstance has no bearing on whether the circumstance exists. I met plenty of people through sports and work. The Freeze is a local, cultural ambient background of social norms. It's an impression that each person is, more than usual, in their own private world. It's a lack of friendliness. It's strangers never looking at you or saying 'hi' - and there are places in the world where it is normal to look at strangers and say hi when you pass them. People don't say much. When they do they don't emote much, and it tends toward mealy-mouthed politeness. I could theorize about potential factors - off the top of my head I'd guess it's partly due to an unusually high population of affluent introverts. By now, even second-generation affluent introverts (e.g. the grown children of the people who made Windows). It affects me as a constant general background of insularity and alienation. It's quite apart from the issue of whether I've made friends through activities - I've done that. Obviously, nobody is saying that no human being in Seattle ever associates with any other, ever.

It also occurs to me that it's maybe a sort of social tragedy of the commons. There's nothing wrong with being a locksmith, but an entire society of locksmiths would probably run into problems. Likewise, it's not a sin to be introverted, but a party (or a city) where everyone is introverted is going to be missing something, and become very dependent on the presence of Guitar Hero or Settlers of Catan stations for fun.


Damn it! I am planning to move to SF, Seattle, or NYC. The OP's story and your story are too sad about SF and Seattle.


I think the only way to find out if you'll be happy in a city is to move there for a while and see if you like it. Cultural affinity is very personal; you'll read all sorts of opinions from everyone on HN, but they won't tell you anything about whether you will like it.

FWIW, I've lived in Boston and Silicon Valley and have a number of family in NYC. I can't stand NYC - it's too busy, no greenery (Central Park doesn't count, it's all man-made), and generally feels like I'm living in a concrete cinderblock. I really liked Boston, but the culture is just a little bit too conservative, and I didn't feel like there were any professional opportunities that didn't involve paying my dues for 30 years while the world moved on around me. Silicon Valley has a wonderful openness to new ideas and a nice "seize the day" mentality, but everybody seems just slightly insecure about how their next-door neighbor just sold a company for $100M, and there's a big unhealthy competitive dynamic behind the surface. SF (& Berkeley) is charming but also has a slightly ridiculous lack of self-awareness - there is a huge population here who really values their quality of life but doesn't realize that their actions are the cause of all the things they complain about. (Witness all the folks who love their iPhones and Uber but hate the techies who make them, who protest rent increases but won't allow new housing construction, who prevent the state from raising taxes and then wonder why California is in perpetual budget crisis, and who hate the Comcast monopoly but won't allow any new fiber lines to be laid.)

On the whole I think Silicon Valley is probably the right place for me, but I still wish I could find a place with the openness to new ideas of Silicon Valley but without the competitiveness and greed.


Your mileage may vary, but anecdotally I've lived in all three and NYC wins by a really wide margin.

That said, Seattle is a lot more economical - salaries are a tad lower than SF or NYC but more than made up for by lower cost of living (though this is changing).


Perhaps if all of your friendships are shallow and aloof, a change of city wouldn't solve your problem?

I love Seattle, and do not find people here passive or unfriendly.


Some people (like you) don't see it, but that doesn't mean the phenomena doesn't exist. Why would you think it has a common name -- the seattle freeze -- if it was a problem isolated to these two individuals?


Well, there is that deep well of unjustified fear and hatred I've stored up in my heart. I wasn't going to mention it, because I was worried it might undermine my credibility.


I suspect that moving countries becomes a significant issue when you have a family. In a weird way, Seattle's proximity and similarity might count against it - you'd have to go through a lot of hurdles just to end up in an incredibly similar situation, a short ferry ride away from where you were.


Google are really consolidating in a few offices, mainly MV, NYC, Zurich, possibly London and Tokyo. MV is a whole different ballgame to the other locations and is a world unto itself.


Google recently announced that they're moving their whole Region of Waterloo office (in Canada) into a larger building to accommodate more growth: http://www.therecord.com/news-story/4368031-google-moving-in...


That will be a second move to a larger space in KW.


If by "consolidating in a few offices" you mean that growth in MTV, NYC, and ZRH is outpacing growth in places like Boulder, Cambridge, and Kirkland then you're correct; that doesn't mean that the smaller offices aren't growing as well, however.


Not really. If you're in one of those smaller offices you have absolutely no control of your destiny at all, and the glass ceiling is very low.


Neither of those things are true at all, from my experience and from what I have observed working in the Seattle office for five years. Where are you getting this information?

The Seattle/Kirkland offices have over 1,000 employees and are growing. They have people at all different levels including directors and principal engineers and lots of important projects going on. These aren't minor little operations.


[deleted]


Easy, above fairly junior level you're either told to be in one of the big offices at the point of joining or they'll hire you then crank up the pressure to move.

Places like the Seattle office exist mainly to get people in the company, then to drag the ones they like further south. Many of the rest will effectively be being paid to not work at MS or Amazon.

There's a good reason I described MV as a world apart.


I'm sorry but you have no idea what you are talking about.


Really? Because Google is in the process of doubling the size of its Kirkland office.

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2020543320_g...


Seattle is still growing, expanding its office space, building new cafes, etc. I'm pretty sure Seattle (and Kirkland) are in it for the long haul.


Chicago and Seattle/Kirkland are still growing, however. There has been a lot of consolidation, but also to offices other than those listed.


Not sure if it means anything, but they recently signed a long-term lease for their office in Madison, WI.


This was Google's thought when I was talking to them. "Seattle's only a couple hours away. You could possibly even commute!"

I checked out the area through the lens of possibly living there when I went down for my interview. Seattle and Kirkland are not comparable to Vancouver in the slightest. Mostly the ghettos and rampant poverty, combined with the fundamental social differences between the countries. Didn't help that the one restaurant I ate at in the suburb of Kirkland had a fresh bullet hole in one of the windows. No thanks.

I found areas of New York (Williamsburg and Dumbo to be specific) that felt more like Vancouver to me than anywhere in the Seattle area.

My calls with Google are now pretty short. "Is there a Google office in Vancouver yet? No? Not interested, thanks."


Seattle doesn't have ghettos. Seriously, compare Oakland or south-central LA to Seattle's "ghettos" and tell me they are similar. Vancouver's Downtown Eastside had the worst concentration of poverty and desperation I'd ever seen in North America while I lived in Vancouver.


Vancouver's poverty is kind of odd and I think not entirely comparable to other areas. It's concentrated in just a couple of blocks on hastings, in a highly visible area. The overall homeless rate is actually higher in less populous municipalities like Abbotsford. It's also not a "violent" ghetto, I've never felt unsafe walking down that stretch of road, compared to some of the places I've been in the US.


I probably misused the word ghetto there (forgetting some parts of America have real ghettos).

The word I should be using is poverty. It's rampant and seems to be everywhere. You can mostly avoid it if you stick to the very central downtown core which I always did as a tourist.

But that was definitely just my impression of the city. I'm not damning the city for it, everywhere has problems. I just can't imagine living around that would have a positive long-term effect on anyone's state of mind. It's not where I would chose to be.


Wait, have you actually been to Vancouver before? Vancouver has one of the higher crime rates for a North American city and is quite noted for it, Seattle is much lower. Also, Kirkland doesn't have suburbs (it is one), and totem lake isn't that bad.

http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/wa/seattle/crime/ http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-cri...


Nobody who likes Williamsburg or Dumbo gets to have an opinion about cities.


But it's clear the group he was working within is in the Bay Area. And so it seems like even going to Seattle would mean changing groups (and possibly the focus of his work) within the company. Moving countries and changing the work you are doing is pretty disruptive.


Yet, it's still _not_ Canada. I live in Buffalo, and the major reason why I stay here - is because its _not_ Canada. At least the greater GTA (Greater Toronto Area). But I _do_ enjoy visiting ... to the extent I have been known for stretches to be there 10-12 week(ends) in a row visiting friends, eating, exploring, etc. I really do get the SF point of view for sure. But that's a'typical of the tech industry on the whole - I mean its a male dominated industry, and its a rat race down there. I can see how easily jaded an outsider can become. But I do enjoy its Southern California culture, weather, and in particular asians - because of the food/design/culture they bring to the bay area.


How's SF 'Southern California'?


Besides, Seattle weather and landscape are a lot like Vancouver (and lot less expensive).


With Seattle vs Vancouver, you get what you pay for.


I am also of the same opinion. Plus he probably doesn't want to lose his Canadian healthcare.


He's Canadian, he won't "lose" anything, it would be waiting for him upon his return. I'm sure Google's health plan is more than generous.


I have a fear about moving to the US not because I would "lose" my Canadian health care or that the company I went to work for wouldn't have a generous health plan but the fact that I have to care about it AT ALL.

The idea that at any point in time something could happen and I could lose my health plan and I am now at incredible risk scares me.


That's not actually true. A lot of provinces have waiting periods when you return to Canada after an extended absence. In the meantime you have to purchase private insurance.


Congested and overpriced yes, but racist and incestuous? Why so?


I wouldn't say it's overtly racist, but there is a very strong correlation between race, class, and privilege in the Bay Area.

Unlike the traditional American narrative around race (black vs. white), in this one, the privileged group consists of well-to-do Whites, Asians, South-Asians, and other highly educated recent-immigrants, while the underprivileged group consists of ghettoized African American and Latino communities.

These underprivileged groups are segregated physically from the former (in East Palo Alto, San Francisco's Bayview, and East/West Oakland), and are mired in a multigenerational cycle of poverty, violence, and disenfranchisement. However, they constitute a significant portion of the low-skilled, low-paid service labor force.

They reap comparatively little benefit from the economic boom brought on by the tech industry. Many of the arguments here on HN and elsewhere about gentrification in the Bay Area and it's benefits/costs ignore that the situation is layered over a long history of race-based tensions in the area.


I won't comment on the racist part, but by incestuous he means "lacks outside influence". That opinion is not uncommon even among people who like living inside the bubble.


think about living in the weird Bay Area bubble and how that doesn't translate at all to the rest of the world and Oakland.


Oakland is no longer part of the Bay Area?


Have you been to the Bay Area? The general sentiment amongst the other cities is that Oakland is decidedly "not one of us".


I live in Oakland. It's "East Bay", but that's still "Bay Area". There's clearly differences, but much more of the bay is bordered by Oakland than SF. Oakland is more like SF than either is like Marin, which is also still "Bay Area".


The question I was answering was about incest and racism.


>"Plus I find the Bay Area congested, racist, incestuous, and overpriced."

>I like this guy.

yep, he would fit well here in Bay Area.


I was going to quote that line too. But is it really that racist? Relative to the rest of the US, it seems remarkably tolerant, no?


I never realized what Scalzi was talking about when he said that being white male was "Easy Mode" until I moved here. Being white is a superpower around here.


Can you expound on this? Is there really that much overt racism in SV?


Sure, here's some off the top of my head.

1) Everyone calls me "Sir", but they don't use that term with others.

2) I have a jacket that sets off store alarms. I never get questioned, but others do.

3) I've seen apartment staff be rude to other residents (and prospective residents), but they're all smiles and sunshine when I walk in.

4) My wife was talking about how she wasn't able to work because of her visa. The other person then said she wouldn't have that problem if she was Mexican (working illegally).

It really is "easy mode". I don't have to argue for anything, and people give me the benefit of the doubt - even when they shouldn't.


Is this more so than anywhere else in the US?


I don't know, I've never lived in the US as an adult. I just moved here from New Zealand.


I've lived in many places in the US and abroad, and found San Francisco to be on the more tolerant side overall. No place location or people is immune, but they're doing fairly well.


To a Canadian, the vast majority of the U.S. probably appears racist, considering that some would argue classism is the new racism, but I digress.


I concur as another Canadian. There is a subtle racist world view that runs through American society, probably rooted from the higher amount of social economic inequality and history of slavery. Canadians for the most part just don't think like that and it can be a bit surprising to encounter at first.


As yet another Canadian, I've gotta say: Canada's great and all, but not perfect. Everything that you've said about American society and its treatment of minorities can equally be applied to natives in Canada.

And I think the problem is that, just as many Americans don't necessarily recognize the racism that still exists in their society because they live it and it's normal (or because they choose not to see it), I think there are an awful lot of Canadians that don't quite realize: in 50-100 years, we will all be ashamed of the way natives continue to be treated in Canada.


> Relative to the rest of the US

His is comparing the Bay Area to Vancouver (Canada).

What the rest of the US is like is irrelevant.


Compared to Canada? It sure is.


Congested, overpriced are ok. I don't know about other too..


Whereas Vancouver is not? Vancouver is the most congested, racists, incestuous and overpriced market in Canada.

Toronto might be more congested in parts, but it's much less racist and incestuous, and perhaps equally overpriced.

Halifax might be more incestuous.

Calgary might be more racists.

Montreal might be more elitists, but he didn't mention that.

Whereas, in defense of San Francisco, San Francisco has Oakland. It has Fremont. It has Berkeley. It has Richmond. So when you think about San Francisco, you don't have to think about the congested, racists, incestuous and certainly overpriced part. You can think of the whole. Which is far from that. Especially when compared to Vancouver. A rather depressing, squat, shabby and moist city.

My thoughts when I was in Vancouver were 1. If it wasn't for the border ending right here, there'd be no city here. The city here would be Seattle. 2. Vancouver stopped thinking in the 70s. Everything is just a short 70s convenience store building. 3. Yes, the natural beauty is amazing, which is why the city sucks so much. People would rather leave daily. 4. The natives really got it bad here. Never were they defeated like their eastern and southern counterparts, but still they were simply taken over. You can sense their deep frustration with their lack of autonomy and it's a feeling that I think is completely justified. and finally 5. No wonder Heroin is so popular here. I'd do heroin too if I lived here.

But I guess people love where they live. Even if that place is god awfully moist and moldy like Vancouver.


Downvoted for your blanket statements about an entire populace. Calgary might be more racist? Based on?

Most major Canadian cities are close to the US border, for three very important reasons: geography, temperature & economy. Geography: because a good part of the country is covered in Canadian Shield, making it very expensive to excavate land. Temperature: because the nicest temperatures are near the border. Economy: Transit to exporting is cheaper if you're near the border.

Why would Vancouver be around for Seattle? Wouldn't that be the other way around based on population? Also, if we're going to use US exceptionalism as the standard, then you should help explain Detroit vs. Windsor. Because Windsor isn't getting torn down neighbourhood by neighbourhood.


Might. Yes. Might.

http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/neo-nazis-are-attacking-anti-...

http://metronews.ca/news/calgary/774251/calgary-man-couldnt-...

2. Still, being close to the border, while justification for locating a city there, may not actually make sense in terms of geography. Your point supports mine.

3. Without a border, I suggested that the location for Seattle would be the optimum location for a major metropolis

4. Detroit vs. Windsor has nothing to do with my suggestion. Neither does Toronto vs. Buffalo. Though perhaps without the border, Detroit and Windsor would have merged into one bigger city.


> Calgary might be more racist? Based on?

And CA is more racist: based on what?


In my observation the blue states are less racist, so I agree with you. I guess shitting on SF is the trendy thing to do, so I expect that from a few. OP must have met a girl in Calgary that wouldn't go all the way with him.


I know Tim (he and I worked together at Sun) and like him a great deal -- but I take exception to his labeling of the Bay Area as "racist", especially from a Canadian. Indeed, the only time in my life that I have heard the n-word used in earnest by a white person was while I was living in Canada (Ottawa, 1995). Not only was I gobsmacked to hear it, I seemed to be the only person who was horrified. (This was at a corporate retreat, and there were about 15 people gathered in a circle casually drinking beers.) As bad as that was, I found the attitudes toward indigenous Canadians to be worse: the racism there was broad -- and seemingly accepted in polite society. So while there may be many reasons to prefer living in Canada over the US (and Vancouver over the Bay Area), in my experience the lack of racism in Canada shouldn't be among them...


If you think the definition of racism is about whether people say the n-word, you don't understand what racism is.

How people treat you is way more important than what they call you (even if those words are unacceptable), and the way minorities get treated in the bay area is not particularly stellar...

EDIT: This poster said it better than I could: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7273077


Seems a little disingenuous to paint the entire country of Canada as racist based on one incident.


Glad to see people feeling free enough to voice their honest opinion for a chance.


Sounds like a nice guy going through a bad breakup.



You'd be surprised how many people that I've seen leave Valley-based companies to live in Vancouver. It's especially prevalent over the last few years. Likely why Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter are growing teams here.

Honestly, you made the right call. As a technologist, you can make an impact from anywhere but places like Vancouver take a very very long time to build and develop (Good Luck Mountain View :) ). I know, I've lived around several of Google's most prolific offices.


"[I] haven’t seen a new technology in a while that struck me as a real life-changer-at-scale"

C'mon dude... Dogecoin!


Weird, I thought the Bay Area was the perfect place to live! </sarcasm>. I also agree with this "Plus I find the Bay Area congested, racist, incestuous, and overpriced."


It's interesting to see how he states that his remote work arrangement would not have been as productive as him moving.


I found this interesting too, maybe it is due to his role as a developer advocate?

I find when I am not working remote, I have to put in 4 more hrs/day to get the same amount of work done...


I think it may have much to do with his role. See the job posting: https://developers.google.com/jobs/

If your job is to be an advocate for employees at your employer, it is likely better to be around those people, rather than just at the other end of a Hangout. I'm guessing that interacting with people around the office is a critical part of that role.


I think that's company culture friction ... if a group of people primarily works from an office, it takes a serious effort to accommodate remote workers.


This seems to be more about telecommuting than about Google.


"Plus I find the Bay Area congested, racist, incestuous, and overpriced."

Now... I've never lived in the Bay Area. I travel there once or twice a year but visiting is nothing like living in a place. So, I can relate to the adjectives above except the "racist" part. Is the Bay Area really more racist than any other large metropolitan area?


Plus I find the Bay Area congested, racist, incestuous, and overpriced.

Isn't Vancouver equally overpriced or worse? It's a beautiful city and seems like an amazing place to live, but I thought Vancouver's house prices were into the millions as well.

In what way is the Bay Area racist? I'm not a fan of that region, but I've never had that particular impression (except among upper-tier VCs, who aren't specifically racist so much as they hate everyone not like them).


Yes, Vancouver housing is incredibly overpriced. Perhaps more-so than the Bay Area because wages have kept up even less (supposedly due to Vancouver's desirability as a destination). That doesn't mean there aren't good, well-paying jobs there, but on average, wages in Vancouver are much lower than, say Toronto.

As for the racism aspect, I think the choice of word is a bit hyperbolic. That being said, as a Canadian who has lived and worked in SV, I think there are major differences between the way visible minorities are integrated in Canadian and American society. California is probably one of the less jarring transitions for a Canadian (fairly liberal society), but even then, you can't help but notice. Note that I'm not saying it's better or worse (that is a matter of opinion), but that it's just very different.


As an American East Coaster, where we have longer social experience with massive immigration (and with our own share of racism and segregation), lots of CA seems like a throwback to an even more highly segregated and almost racist time period. It's not quite the Deep South, but it's definitely uncomfortable with minority groups that tend not to be involved in tech or finance.

People lament the dying of ethnic enclaves like Chinatowns, but what it really means is that those ethnic groups are starting to integrate with the majority ethnic group.


To put a data point on it, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) put out a study in Nov 2013 that rated the affordability of housing in Canadian major cities.

For Vancouver, it takes 84-88% of your pre-tax income to afford a detached house (page 7 of the report). "Afford" means mortgage (principal+interest), property taxes, utilities, etc.

Okay, so 88% is high right? Well "pre-tax" means before the government gets their cut. In Canada, a high income earner gets taxed roughly 40% of their income and we all pay our mortgages/rent/utilities with post-tax money, so the affordability figure goes up over 100%. That means your entire paycheque is going towards paying for detached housing [2].

IIRC, in the US, you are allowed to deduct your mortgage interest from your income, meaning you get to pay with pre-tax income. But in Canada that is not allowed and you must pay the piper first.

[1] http://www.rbc.com/newsroom/pdf/HA-1127-2013.pdf

[2] Condos are at 42% affordability in Vancouver, which is still disastrously high since it is also using pre-tax income.

edit: 42% for condos, not 47%.

edit 2: corrected to say mortgage interest is deductible from income, based on reply. Thx!


Small correction: in the US you can deduct mortgage interest. At the beginning of a mortgage, and probably for most people the entirety of their time in any given house, that will be the majority of your payment.


Can you give a particular example?

I live in the South Bay/Santa Clara and my neighborhood is a diverse collection of Chinese, Indians, Arabs, Europeans immigrants, and African Americans. SV segregation in my area isn't primarily racial, but classist. Most if not all of the people in my neighborhood are white collar professionals -- engineers, lawyers, doctors.

There are concentrated ethnic enclaves in the area like Cupertino, but these are primarily based on school district preferences.


When there are elections in the Vancouver area, you see people of all backgrounds and colors running for office. The same is decidedly not true in the US. How many election posters have you seen where the candidate is wearing a turban, or has a name that's difficult to pronounce for "native" Americans?


I've seen plenty of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Indians on posters in the Bay Area. (US representative for my district is Mike Honda) I have not seen many Arabs or Sikhs, but that may be more a function of population percentage and profession, than racism towards these groups, which exploded mostly after 9/11.

People who run for office are usually lawyers, and there is a definite ethnic divide in professions. Moreover, immigrants usually don't come to be lawyers, since being good at law requires a mastery of the language and the nuances of the local culture, and native born citizens have a natural advantage.


I can understand why the confusion may arise due to both groups wearing fabric-based head garments, but most (though not all) Sikhs are of Indian origin.

Their cultural connection is much stronger to South Asia than to the Arab world. Also, many Sikhs do not not wear turbans, so to you or anyone else, they would just appear to be "Indians".


I know the difference between Sikhs (religion) and Arabs (ethnicity), I only lumped them together because most Americans do not and the original poster mentioned "turbans", hence a number of violent attacks against Sikhs after 9/11 by rednecks who didn't understand the difference.

Remember when the Hillary Clinton campaign released a photo of Barack Obama wearing a (Somalian) turban? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/feb/26/barackobama.use...


OK, I believe that you understand the difference, it just didn't seem that way in your original post.

I didn't remember that photo from the 08 election (or even see it in the first place). It makes the skull duggery of House of Cards seem every so slightly less fictional!


One thing that stood out to me was that the minimum wage type work was almost exclusively staffed by one particular ethnic minority.


Greater Vancouver is at least as racially segmented as SF, perhaps more so. The major difference is the ethnic enclaves here aren't poor so it's not as disturbing. For example, Richmond is the largest Chinese city in the world outside of China. It's a relatively affluent place.

As far as housing goes, Vancouver's is among the most unaffordable in the world, along with the likes of Hong Kong (as measured by price to rent and price to income). So yes, it is indeed worse than SF. Maybe Bray isn't up on the latest from Vancouver or something.


> Maybe Bray isn't up on the latest from Vancouver or something.

He bought in >15 years ago so he's not too concerned about real estate purchase prices. (Plus those "80% of income" metrics are not very useful anyway, certainly not for comparing moving from city to city while keeping the same job - doubly so if you've bought in when prices were a third of what they're now.)


To get some context on the "racist" comment, Google [bart killings]. There are multiple cases of BART transit cops shooting unarmed people of color.

Also, the Oakland police department was on the verge of Federal takeover last year largely due to a series of racist-overtoned cases.


That's not really Silicon Valley specific. The entire criminal justice system in the US is racist. Just look at how "Stand Your Ground" laws are applied when African Americans are defending themselves.


The article did not say the bay area is uniquely, or especially racist, it was just stating that there is noticable racism here. Which there is. More than Vancouver I have no idea.


I've heard it argued that it's predominantly AAs that use and benefit from SYG.


For the most part, Vancouver house prices are pretty expensive, it's virtually impossible to find a house for under 1 million in Vancouver. Given these prices, anyone familiar with the wages in Vancouver will tell you we're depressingly behind most cities with similar cost of living. I do feel like rent prices are quite a bit cheaper than the Bay Area though.

Recently saw some articles claiming that Vancouver has the highest living costs in all of North America but I doubt that without seeing any extensive data and thorough comparisons.


extensive data

See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7272429 for the data.

It includes the report from RBC that provides data on Canadian housing. Unfortunately it does not include US housing affordability numbers.


Wasn't he doing PR on the Android side?

Another one biting the dust.


So my first response was who the $^!% is Tim Bray? Then I read. TLDR: famous enough to merit an article about his departure but not famous enough for Google to give an inch to retain him (see Hinton, Geoffrey for a counterexample).

No surprises here. Google is setting the stage for its own disruption. But that event is a total black swan much like paying $16B for a messaging company.


Co-authoring the XML spec probably didn't make him a household word, but I knew who he was from that.

People choose "quality-of-life" over "job" all the time, especially when you remove the need to make money from the equation.


I think he made the right call. It's hard for me to imagine him having trouble finding work with 4 years of Google on his resume. That's the tech industry equivalent of being a made man IMO.


he was a very well-known and admired figure in the tech world long before he joined google. in fact his four years there are close to being the least impressive thing on his resume.


It does seem that he left on better terms that Brian Reid, but possibly for similar fundamental reasons...


Brian Reid was kicked out of Google by Urs Holzle ahead of the IPO after helping to build the company (so much for don't be evil and all that). I don't think the issue here is age discrimination - Geoffrey Hinton is in his late 60s - but rather that his skillset is not sufficiently critical to Google's flavor of the week to merit special treatment.

But as an ex-googler myself, they have become amazingly rigid and bureaucratic compared to who they were even 5 years ago. And end-user experiences of services like GMail and youtube are atrocious. I have a love/hate relationship with Android, but to stay in that relationship I had to ditch 2-year device contracts so I could keep up with whatever brand new shiny gets 6-12 months of tech support before being brickified.

Microsoft disrupted IBM. Google disrupted Microsoft. Who's going to ruin Google's day and relegate them to a 2nd tier player?


Hopefully it will be someone who values privacy. I look at the generally negative reaction to Google buying nest and can't help but think if it had happened a year or two earlier the reaction would have been completely opposite.


I am trying to trace some of the problems. For example, I believe Vic Gundotra should probably be fired.


> famous enough to merit an article about his departure but not famous enough for Google to give an inch to retain him

I do not work at Google, but I suspect there is a bit more involved in these decisions.


I have friends at Google at remote offices who are experiencing increasing pressure to move to Silicon Valley (which the cost of living rules out) as they consolidate distributed teams. Add in Google's disdain for telecommuting that I experienced myself during my stint there and their rope cutting here does not surprise me.

Sure, Google's culture favors the young. But their futurist agenda is being driven by Ray Kurzweil and Geoffrey Hinton, both old fogies by Silicon Valley standards.


I experienced the same disdain for telecommuting there. I accepted a contracting job on a specific pilot project, always hoping to eventually being able to work perhaps 1/2 time from my home in Arizona. That didn't work out and I left. Anyway, I very much appreciated the experience but I didn't want to live long term in Silicon Valley.




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