I am hearing that startups are moving out of SF because it is too expensive.
Can anybody explain the strategy here? I realise that funding is mostly centralised in SF, but this still feels weird to me.
Can anybody explain the strategy here? I realise that funding is mostly centralised in SF, but this still feels weird to me.
Overall, there's a net in-flow of startups into SF, and so, the VC's follow.
Stated like this it becomes obvious we need to pay attention to the denominator.
Disclaimer: A16Z are an investor in my company
None of us would dream of living or working in San Francisco. We all live and work in and around Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Santa Clara, etc.
For a mostly-hype startup staffed by kids fresh from Stanford, Harvard, and MIT, I suppose the flashier the offices the better and that may mean the "excitement" of San Francisco. We're in a concrete tilt-up close to everything we need.
Edit: I realize you would be near their old offices. Still, if they're looking to find the most entrepreneurs that they can who aren't motivated by hype, the more central from a transportation perspective, the better. And there is no place in the bay area that you can expect people from all parts of the bay area to come to other than SF.
There's increasing amounts of VC funding in Asia so SFBA is not as dominant as it used to be 20 years ago but SF is still by far the center of the universe as far as starting a startup goes, and there's no major trends that would suggest a decline in absolute terms.
Much like the city is soo crowded these days that nobody goes there anymore. I mean it's true (because it is crowded people get pushed to the periphery) but it also implies that the city has reached capacity and that it is crowded all the times.
More like: startups with low funding are moving out of SF because it is too expensive.