Interviews with more than two dozen tech execs and workers who have left San Francisco for other parts of the US over the last year amid a rise in remote work
money that will go plenty further somewhere else.” Great piece by @NellieBowles https://www.nytimes.com/... JP Mangalindan / @jpmanga : Ironically, that's my old SF apartment building in the photo. https://www.nytimes.com/... Juliet Lapidos / @julietlapidos : People leaving San Francisco are going to Austin, but other winners include “Seattle, New York and Chicago.” There's more to this story than cost of living & what's typically understood as quality of life https://www.nytimes.com/... Nellie Bowles / @nelliebowles : I will follow the tech world til the end of time. They cannot escape me. I will be filing fun tech trend reports from Mars. I will be going on their new Mars diets. https://www.nytimes.com/... Nellie Bowles / @nelliebowles : We published this while I'm in Miami tracking down Part II: https://www.nytimes.com/... Scott Lucas / @scottlucas : This is a good story by @NellieBowles but it's unfortunate that it relies on the worn out trope that there are only tech workers or people born in the Bay Area and never people born in the Bay Area who work in tech. https://www.nytimes.com/... Curtis Ingraham / @curtisingraham1 : Laura - any opportunity you have to tear down my home town of San Francisco - you jump on it. Is it your way of getting back at me for standing up for the truth?! You should give it a try. @IngrahamAngle https://twitter.com/... Brandon Smithwood / @bsmithwood : World class cities bring all the ingredients together for innovation. Places like Boise don't have it. A lot of old guard companies and not actually innovative stuff leaving the Bay Area seems like a fitting molting that will allow for another round https://www.nytimes.com/... Laura Ingraham / @ingrahamangle : We tried to warn them: They Can't Leave the Bay Area Fast Enough https://www.nytimes.com/...
New York TimesNellie Bowles
Context & Ripple Effects
This January 2021 feature lands mid-arc in the pandemic relocation story. Months earlier, tech giants' work-from-home guidelines had employees weighing moves while companies contemplated cutting pay for remote markets (salary adjustments for work-from-anywhere staff), and by December LinkedIn's migration data already showed Madison, Cleveland, and Sacramento gaining tech workers while San Francisco and New York posted the steepest declines (LinkedIn's April–October migration data).
Bowles' interviews with more than two dozen leavers put names and motives on that data — cost of living, yes, but per Juliet Lapidos' note, also factors beyond the usual quality-of-life framing, with Austin the headline destination alongside Seattle, New York, Chicago, Miami, and Boise.
First-order effects
San Francisco loses residents, spending, and eventually tax base as executives and rank-and-file workers alike decamp for lower-cost metros, with Austin the most-cited beneficiary.
Employers face a compensation reckoning: if workers can live anywhere, the Silicon Valley salary premium tied to local costs comes under pressure, exactly what the earlier work-from-home guideline coverage flagged.
Second-order effects
Destination cities absorb the influx — Austin, Seattle, New York, Chicago, and Miami gain tech talent without recruiting for it — while secondary markets like Madison, Cleveland, and Sacramento ride the same wave per the LinkedIn data.
San Francisco's commercial core takes the hit downstream: by late 2022 only 43.1% of its workers were back at offices, the lowest among major US metros tracked, as remote work compounded tech layoffs (SF's 43.1% office-return rate).
Third-order effects
The exodus proves partly reversible: within six months some leavers were trickling back as Twitter reopened its SF headquarters and Google planned Bay Area expansion (workers trickling back as Twitter reopens its SF HQ), and by 2023 entrepreneurs returned explicitly because they couldn't afford to miss the AI boom's funding, hackathons, and networking (entrepreneurs returning for the AI boom).
If the pattern holds, the end state is not the death of the tech hub but a barbell: distributed junior and mid-level workforces in cheaper cities, while founders and dealmakers cluster where capital and peers concentrate — leaving cities like San Francisco smaller but still central.
The trend: Remote work briefly dispersed tech talent out of San Francisco, but the pull of in-person capital and networks is pulling much of it back, reshaping rather than dissolving the tech hub.
“One of the S.F. guys was like: ‘I just had a burrito for $6. It was amazing.’” The last burrito he had in San Francisco cost $15. https://www.nytimes.com/...
This @nytimes piece almost perfectly replicates two lies New Yorkers love to believe about Silicon Valley: 1) “San Francisco” is synonymous w/ “Silicon Valley” or “Bay Area” 2) The “tech boom” is over & soon we can go back to NY as center of the universe https://www.nytimes.com/.…
NYT delights in knocking Silicon Value but the more dinosaurs like Oracle leave & old tech guard leaves it makes room for new blood & rejuvenation. NYT (& other old media) refused in my personal conversations in the late 90's to acknowledge the change that new media was driving h…
When I lived in SFO it was after living in RDU and ATL but before living in LAS, AUS, DFW, and 🎶 workin' from one end to the other and all points in between 🎶 🤓☁️🚀 ✈️. 2010s SFO was not the same as my mythologized 1990s SFO. So here's to 2020s SFO making memories for others. http…
Incidentally, I hear that the NYT's ads systems are much worse than Google in respecting/sharing personal data despite the hypocrisy of their reporting on the big bad @Google . As for “tech folks moving” there is no reporting of % of tech work force or founders that have moved? h…
This article is hot doodoo, generic and asks absolutely zero interesting questions, dodges the real reasons people are leaving. https://twitter.com/...
1. I ❤️Soleil and give her all the awards. 2. These stories must do great traffic but never have much link to reality. 3. SF home I sold in July has ⬆️ 50k. 4. “moveBuddah” is not a legit source. 🙄 5. I still maintain its ok to eat a burrito from the inside out with a fork. https…
Savannah offers $2,000 to remote employees who live there and created social programs to introduce newcomers to each other. Interesting approach as we talk about how to make Jax more vibrant. https://twitter.com/...
This is why I decided a few years ago to only befriend people from or committed to staying in SF. Sick of losing friendships because they came here, took what they wanted, and then went home. (Also, no one will miss those tech workers. No one.) https://twitter.com/...
Downside of Topeka's program to pay tech workers up to $15,000 to move there? You have to live in Topeka (Drumroll....) https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
I'm not sure this is a bad thing for SF and Silicon Valley. SF had attracted too many techies. And SV companies turned the Peninsula into a parking lot by cramming employees into HQ palaces. Local govts were afraid to say no. https://www.nytimes.com/...
“I talked to more than two dozen tech executives and workers who have left San Francisco for other parts of the country over the last year..” You get a full picture by only talking to people who left, if you talk to enough of them? ht:@andosmith https://www.nytimes.com/...
burritos should be $15 because everyone, including taqueros, should be paid enough to actually live where they work. the “S.F. guy's” outrage stems from his learned devaluation of Mexican food ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ https://twitter.com/...
I've never experienced the life in a tech hub like SF or SV. Quite sad I might never be able to experience it ever now that it's gone 🙁 https://twitter.com/...
The Bay Area struck a hard bargain with its tech workers. Rent was astronomical. Taxes were high. Neighbors didn't like you. You might have commuted an hour south or would work in a neighborhood with too much street crime, open drug use and $5 coffees. https://www.nytimes.com/...
there are a million stories about rent going down because people are fleeing SF so why can I still not afford to live in the city https://www.nytimes.com/...
Ah yes, love to profile a bunch of startup CEO's who decided they could still make a bunch of money working remotely if they moved out of the Bay Area. The normal exodus that we can all relate to. https://www.nytimes.com/...
“The story of the Bay Area's latest tech era is ending for a growing crowd of tech workers and their companies. They have suddenly movable jobs and money in the bank — money that will go plenty further somewhere else.” Great piece by @NellieBowles https://www.nytimes.com/...
People leaving San Francisco are going to Austin, but other winners include “Seattle, New York and Chicago.” There's more to this story than cost of living & what's typically understood as quality of life https://www.nytimes.com/...
I will follow the tech world til the end of time. They cannot escape me. I will be filing fun tech trend reports from Mars. I will be going on their new Mars diets. https://www.nytimes.com/...
This is a good story by @NellieBowles but it's unfortunate that it relies on the worn out trope that there are only tech workers or people born in the Bay Area and never people born in the Bay Area who work in tech. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Laura - any opportunity you have to tear down my home town of San Francisco - you jump on it. Is it your way of getting back at me for standing up for the truth?! You should give it a try. @IngrahamAngle https://twitter.com/...
World class cities bring all the ingredients together for innovation. Places like Boise don't have it. A lot of old guard companies and not actually innovative stuff leaving the Bay Area seems like a fitting molting that will allow for another round https://www.nytimes.com/...
While this might double for a certain president leaving office, it's a great lede on an important story about tech leaders who got rich in SF and area now leaving it, sometimes insulting it, rather than helping it in a time of need. https://twitter.com/...
Jeff Lawson, founder and CEO of San Francisco's @twilio, is calling out his fellow tech titans for not only bailing on the city in the middle of a pandemic, but being rude about it as they leave. @hknightsf's column: https://www.sfchronicle.com/ ...
“These guys are about as nuanced as Trump in his assessment of liberal cities like ours. And while some of what they say is true, it's not the whole picture.” @HeatherKnightSF on the tech leaders fleeing San Francisco: https://www.sfchronicle.com/ ...
“This is the time when we should be thinking about, ‘How do we give back? How do we help take care of our communities and the people around us who may not be faring as well?’ This is not the time to be dunking on the community.” https://www.sfchronicle.com/ ...
“They scooped up the tax breaks and enjoyed the proximity to talent, universities and capital. Now, they're hightailing it to Austin or Miami when the going gets tough. But the worst part is blasting S.F. for being such a terrible host as they leave.” https://www.sfchronicle.com/…
“This is home. This is where our friends are. This is where our community is. This is where my company is. When you make a home somewhere, you want to make it better” Refreshing take from @jeffiel in this A+ @hknightsf column. Thanks for staying & helping build a better future! h…
My latest: A parade of tech leaders has left San Francisco during the pandemic for Austin, Miami and elsewhere and nastily blasted the city on the way out. @jeffiel, CEO of @twilio, has words for them — and shares why he's more committed to SF than ever. https://www.sfchronicle.c…
Can't speak for the 1%, but rank & file tech workers enriched landlords who price gouged, were taxed to hell and NIMBYs did everything to make living there hostile. But like any abuser, they don't like it if you speak up. Remember, SF is always the victim. https://www.sfchronicle…