23 I’ve almost been hit by a Google Bus three times.
Twice on 19th Avenue during my commute to Los Altos in Silicon Valley, and once crossing the street in my own neighborhood.
When my friends come visit form other locales they are shocked by the high use of mobile apps:
“Dude, we’ll just take Lyft Line”
“What’s a Lyft?”
…
“You rent your car out to strangers?”
“Yeah man, otherwise it is just sitting there, and the less people that have to own their own cars, the easier it is for me to find parking.”
…
[Getting out of the Lyft] “Don’t you have to pay the driver?”
“Nah dude, the app pays them with my card.”
They’re also not used to seeing exotic cars just parked on the street in neighborhoods, like this: (that’s an Audi R8 V10)
It’s not all hipster science fiction come to life, it’s expensive, and it only seems to be getting worse.
I’m all about Manifest Destiny, and I see a lot of that here. Unfortunately, there also seem to be some folks that are moving here because it is trendy, and are here purely to consume, not produce. That’s great when there is not a surplus of producers, but when the bid’s hitting the ask, and more, it makes it hard for a lot of people. If a couple wants to live comfortably in a one-bedroom apartment in my neighborhood they need to make–while putting a tiny amount away for a rainy day–about $180,000 a year combined. That will never buy you a house though, the only way you can make that and buy a house is if you work for a company that goes public. The two-bedroom flat above us recently sold for $1.97m(mm for the old finance folks out there), the folks who lived in it before only did so for like 15 months. They bought it for $1.27m, and made the difference in the process. On average you need a downpayment of 20%, for $1.27m that would be $254,000, so how did they get that?
Well he works for a software company and she works for a social media platform, he sold some of his stock, and she sold some of hers after the lockup expired. Bingo, there’s the down payment. Now this sounds great, like “come on down, anybody can do it!” This isn’t always the case though. In the case of buyers, there’s a lot of rich kids moving here because it’s trendy, and racking up their families’ credit lines. They may not even be a substantial portion of the population, but with the ability to hit the ask so hard to achieve, their presence is definitely felt. In the case of being able to cash out an IPO, this is not always the case either.
I shorted ZNGA for the first time north of $12, I kept covering pieces, and adding shorts. I closed a large amount of shares around the $5 and $3 mark. Now, most of my friends who’ve had companies go public are worth about $500k when it IPOs. Most of them are specialists, or manage a team, so let’s say that most folks are worth $250k out of the gate. If they rode it to $5 they’re now only worth $102.5k in a stock that is capitulating. It’s not just losing the money, but the volatility, look at GRPN, TWTR, and YELP. If you work there and think you have a great product do you ride it out “knowing” that eventually people will realize you have a good product? Or, do you sell–even some of your shares–and then to go to work wondering if you should sell more, or if you shouldn’t have sold in the first place? I’d guess the vast majority of folks don’t consider it, they just have a large part of their paycheck inserted into the employee stock program. Either option sucks, if you are optimistic and do your job but the company fails you lose it all, if you sell some, you’re sitting there wondering if that was a good choice or not. Maybe you don’t care, you sold your stock for a down payment on a Porsche GT3, but I’m just trying to be logical.
Well the market comes back to touch my life, even when I am not actively trading. But, that’s the reality of the far reaching financial instrument. I’m currently in a UX design program utilizing real clients and instructors that are actual professionals in the field–I just finished week 3 of 10–if everything works out the way I hope it will, I will either land a job as lead UX designer at a startup, or a member of a small UX team at a startup. Otherwise, I will find myself as a junior designer at a large publicly traded tech company. Right now I am looking like a pretty high draft pick, but I have to remain humble and not try to make this a competition.
If I land with a startup, that hopefully goes public, or a publicly traded company, I will be managing risk accordingly. I will separate my market analysis from my product analysis, scaling off stock when I think appropriate, and adding to the stock buying program in the same sense. That might seem messed up to some people, because you “NEED” to be 100% committed to your product, but UX design teaches you that users don’t always act in a logical matter. Neither does the market, in fact it is the antithesis of logical these days. If I was to sell on the first lockup expiration, or after a year at the public company, then maybe I can buy the place upstairs?
I have a lot of problems with SF: taxes, politics and especially extravagant bull shit like The America’s Cup–tickets were too expensive for anybody but rich people, look at the target demographic, and not to mention the cost to the city and its residents–but I love the innovation and thinking. People are really trying to find ways to make people’s lives easier in an overcrowded world, in a responsible way. Plenty of people are in it just for the money, but those apps don’t do that well. Users don’t always mean profits, but users mean changing the world as we know it. Social Media has changed the world in so many ways it’s unfathomable, and it will only continue to evolve. Monetizing that is challenging, but the effect is obvious and overreaching.
MIght we see user’s views exceed dollar returns in equity valuation, or am I just living in a bubble? Arguments could be had for both, and I’d love to hear your opinion in the comments.
Note 1: I did 3x 5 min rounds on the heavy bag today, my hands are wrecked, and my left knee is barely there.
Note 2: VCs are pretty smart money, if they exit on IPO, what does that say for the company? What if they sell a large portion of their shares?
One last thing, when you say to yourself “how the hell did that piece of shit get VC funding?” I’ve run into this scenario twice.
At two different tech meetups while talking to folks, I was commenting on the trouble I was having getting funding for my startup, and both times a guy said he had just raised x-amount of funding, both in the millions. When I checked out their startups on AngelList, and looked at the main investors, the investors had their same last names. A quick google and trip to Wikipedia verified that, in fact, their main investors were their fathers. This isn’t to say that their products are bad–I don’t think either is useful–but that’s awesome they get to try and live their dreams. The rest of us, however, have to do it the hardway.
The following is me when I hear someone trying to pitch their startup on the 30x bus in the morning, or maybe it’s me when I notice someone’s farted on the crowded bus.
Thanks for reading,
The Once and Future Rhino
23 Responses to “Living In The Bubble”
Marc David
Sounds like work. Good luck to you bud. I’ll just keep living retired.
El Rhino
I’ll give you a tour of the campus anytime!
juice
Interesting! Nice vignette from the front lines
luv the rhino fox 😀
El Rhino
Thanks
ecchymosis
Is that picture Fillmore & Bay? I thought I saw my first apartment building in SF where I rented a studio in 1969 for $125/mo (expensive then!)
helicopter ben
Thank god we’re off the gold standard!
El Rhino
Exactly, looking south. My Dad rented a place at Beach and Cervantes in 1978, $330/month plus $25 for parking. Now a single spot in a shared garage is $375/mo.
UncleBuccs
Rhino – we need to come up with a very specific and predatory plan to fleece the multitude of sodomites that populate your land. Surely some of the intelligent gents (and ladies) that frequent iBC have a few ideas on how to harvest? There has to be a way…!
El Rhino
The Sodomites are cool, it’s the limousine liberals that think a 50% parking tax is reasonable. There they sit in their $14m Pac Heights mansions, raising the muni fair every 6 months by 15-30%, parking tickets by 20%, tax on parking garages to 50%, and “healthy SF” tax 7% gets added to your food bill. Ask marc about the last one, LOL.
Besides their sexual endeavors, the sodomites are for more logical, practical, and reasonable.
UncleBuccs
From my observations on the social medias, it seems the sodomites identify with their homosexuality more than their money. That is a weakness that should be targeted. I’m not try to hate, I’m looking for ways to get you rich!! Rhino, you’re surrounded by a bunch of rich homos. You need to find a way to cater to them, even if it’s a side-gig, personal training a couple of rich sugar-bears.
Dr. Fly
sodomites
El Rhino
With platinum and diamond encrusted drill-do’s
juice
Gomorrahites are gonna wanna piece of the action too
BRAVEFLAPS
That town needs an enema.
DaJuice
Great post, thoroughly enjoyed it!
Dan
A story about SF on iBankCoin. Love it!
I own a house in SF and I just recently bought a condo in San Jose. Part of the problem is that inventories are incredibly low here. No one is selling. When I bought the condo, it was the only listing in the zip code at the time. When the market was healthier (3-4 years ago), this zip code had 10-20 listings. Even though my condo had 8 offers, my realtor said I was “lucky” because she had seen situations with 20+ offers in the area.
A couple that I know from Google put in an offer of $900K for a house in Mountain View. It sold for $1.5M or $600K over asking. Another couple that I know bid $400K over asking to get the house they wanted. The realtors play games with the prices to ensure a sale over asking, but still..
How the money affects those living in the bubble is mildly interesting, but what is going on inside the tech companies is much more sensational:
http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2014/11/25/netflix-sues-yahoo-cio-mike-kail-alleging-kickbacks/
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/google-exec-model-silicon-valley-after-dark-n153241
http://valleywag.gawker.com/female-exec-at-yahoo-sued-by-a-female-employee-for-sexu-1603836047
http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/09/how-zynga-went-from-social-gaming-powerhouse-to-has-been/
From my experience working inside tech companies, this sensational stuff is fairly common!
MSGT HARTMAN
I always get a kick out of the men in SouthSanFran that come out here, listening to them brag about their jobs, projects etc.
When I tell them that sure, there’s money, but then there is real money. Big Oil. Makes high tech look like a pimple on an elephants ass.
Of course that deflates their ego, stammering about some such BS job they’re doing.
Rhino
No offense, but big oil has eaten a big dick lately.
As we move farther away from oil, there is going to be less and less money.
Marc David
Making covers for iPad covers is the worst startup idea I ever heard. Or the GPS tracking device for your iPhone case. I swear. Some people just wanna get rich or die tryin.
mx2101
All the best to you Rhino, good to see your post.
Market value is an amazing thing. San Francisco is a beautiful city in the geographically magnificent State of California. Even so, it is astounding that the street in your picture is so highly valued, but that is the nature of perception.
Raul
California, where the gold is. Seriously though, live in a shithole like Detroit and you realize why west coast land is top dollar.
I’m stacking paper until I can buy a piece and GTFO of this dump.
djmarcus
Merry Xmas rhino hope all is well.
the great hambino
Great post Rhino, and good luck with the UX program. Do you blog anywhere else for now?