The Bay Area-centrism of the software industry is so strong it borders on the absurd. This week, techies marveled at the hypocrisy of a industry that connects millions of people, regardless of physical distance, continuing to insist that its employees move to expensive, overcrowded, feces-strewn San Francisco:
“We run a chat system for distributed and remote teams”
— Fable C. Tales (@fables_tales) March 17, 2016
“Must be willing to relocate to San Francisco”
A certain moneyed segment of the Bay seems to be oblivious to life as an average American, and even an average American in the tech industry. And thus arose the “must be willing to relocate to San Francisco” meme, a lighthearted mockery of our depressing new startup economy reality.
It’s a meme that captures the mood of a certain time. It probably won’t age well as San Francisco fills up with recently graduated trust-fund bros and America’s remote workforce burgeons, but for now, it’s perfect.
https://twitter.com/coleseadubs/status/712302983602524160
And he can see no reasons cause there are no reasons what reasons do you need to be willing to relocate to San Francisco?
— Find linuxlibrarian on counter dot social (@linuxlibrarian) March 22, 2016
That which does not kill us makes us willing to relocate to San Francisco.
— Olly Barter (@OllyBarter) March 22, 2016
https://twitter.com/mhoye/status/712291084882333696
I'm an old woman now, with one foot in the grave and the other willing to relocate to san francisco.
— Ita Ryan (@itaryan) March 22, 2016
https://twitter.com/vlad902/status/712136056091648000
If you wanna be my lover, you gotta be willing to relocate to San Francisco.
— Lex (@TheLexTimes) March 22, 2016
One particular version of the joke became especially popular:
Indeed.
Confidential to San Francisco employers: You know Slack exists, right?
Update 6:05pm CT, March 22: Welp, Slack itself appears to be part of the problem: All new hires are expected to move to—yep—San Francisco. Guess the company just can’t trust its own product!
Photo via Jeffrey Zeldman/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)