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The tech workers in Silicon Basin know you want them gone. They knew it when you protested their buses. They knew it when you trashed their scooters. They definitely knew it when you scrawled "die techie scum" on the sidewalk. But guesswork what? They don't plane want to be here! In fact, they're already packing their bags.

"I have no attachment to this city," says a expected Google engine who formed in the Plenitude View office but has been shipped since the pandemic. "It's a actual transient quarters -- it's a stop gap. If it was increasingly affordable, if there weren't homelessness issues, would I consider settling dropping here? Sure. But from my actual first weeks in San Francisco I capital to leave."

"I have no attachment to this city."

While the pandemic has widened the already alveolate gap enclosed tech workers and anybody else, it's moreover created an outlet for tech companies to go genuinely remote. In May, Twitter and Square emerge employees could assignment from home forever, and Facebook followed clothing unhesitatingly after. Now, two out of three techies say they might leave the Bay Length if their companies allow.

The possibility has sparked a array of anticipate pieces injudicious how a tech exodus could transmute Silicon Valley. Already, restaurants that catered to the downtown lunch crowd have been grandiose to close, and purchasable transit agencies are struggling to survive without riders. Plane the lodgment market -- one of the region's most expensive and intractable problems -- has self-evident prices fall unendingly therefore slightly.

It's too first to tell whether the assignment from home trend will proffer length a few companies to transmute the fabric of Silicon Valley. While Twitter, Square, and Facebook are hoopla all-in on shipped work, companies like Google and Salesforce are extending assignment from home options for the rest of the year with plans to reopen in 2021.

"They don't plane want us here."

If alive from home becomes an bonny perk in the ultra-competitive hiring market for tech workers, however, these companies may have no choice. Google famously discouraged shipped assignment in the past. Now, employees are pushing for increasingly flexibleness post pandemic, citing the unaffordable lodgment market and regional hostility versus tech workers. "They don't plane want us here -- there are therefore plenteous complaints in the Bay Length injudicious tech workers," says the Plenitude View employee. "I see this as a win-win all around. You're pulling out persons who don't want to be here, and relaxation up the lodgment pressure."

On internal email threads reviewed by The Verge, Google employees have been discussing what a switch-over to shipped assignment would peekaboo like. "For renters like myself, WFH [work from home] would be a huge financial boon as I could dramatically reduce my lodgment costs," one engine wrote. "So...you're shibboleth that you (and presumably over-and-above renters) would be biggest off moreover if Google would emit us to WFH?" a coeval responded. "So you'd support the reconnoiterer to emit permanent WFH? :)"

Some Google employees aren't waiting for the company to manufacture a call. The artisan in Plenitude View told The Verge they've already tumbled to Santa Fe -- without plane letting their bang-up know. "I love my job," the artisan says. "But I tart dislike San Francisco, and now I don't gotta go back."

Experts are cautioning this might be an anomaly. "Will someone who works at Twitter and lives in downtown San Francisco get up and move to Idaho? I don't anticipate so," says Sarah Karlinsky, a senior advisor at the San Francisco Bay Length Planning and Urban Scrutiny Blood-relationship (SPUR). "I anticipate it'll be a goatee to 10 year regalement of shaking out what this all means."

Even if tech workers leave in droves, it won't necessarily mean increasingly affordable lodgment for those who time-out in San Francisco. Persons living in below-market-rate lodgment are increasingly at risk of losing their jobs during the pandemic -- putting a tensity on affordable lodgment developers if tenants default on their rent. "That puts affordable lodgment developers in a risky position considering they have loans, too," says Leslye Corsiglia, controlling doyen of Silicon Basin at Home, an affordable lodgment carrying-out group.

Affordable lodgment loans moreover emerge with restrictions that ordinance the units submit within royalty of low-income renters. If the developer defaults on their loans, however, the restrictions could go away. The sequel would be plane under affordable lodgment in the Bay Length than what already exists.

"We never squarely got commerce from Google."

In Plenitude View, Joseph Shatara is already feeling the loss of Facebook shutting its doors. He owns Baji's Cafe, a breakfast and lunch spot that's been vicinity since 1980 and reiteratively catered to the whimsical network's employees. While Shatara was achieved to defended a Paycheck Security Prospects (PPP) preparedness from the federal government, he's not sustained if the restaurant will survive. "We would be out of commerce permanently if not for the PPP," he says. When asked if Google hoopla shipped would manufacture things worse, however, he says no. "As far as I can tell we never squarely got commerce from Google," he says. "They have all their catered lunches."

In Washington, there are already signs that the assignment from home reconnoiterer could proffer length the Bay Area. One engineering matron at Google's Kirkland office told The Verge that he plans to move to Hawaii if the company allows. If not, he'd consider switching jobs. "I was unshut injudicious this with my manager," he says. "If Twitter came to me and said peekaboo I'll harmonize you 80 percent of your expected salary but you can assignment from home forever, I would do that."

Google CEO Sundar Pichai is cognizant of the pressure. In a contempo all-hands meeting, audio of which was leaked to The Verge, he told employees that he could see the company taking a agnate colonize to Facebook and condign increasingly flexible injudicious shipped assignment over the next 10 years.

"In some ways, I view this as a big opportunity," he said. "As a company, we've unceasingly expected propagated work. From a claimed example, Chrome was constructed in over 30 offices." Pichai's response was zipped -- a temerity that Google was still cerebration through the idea. Nowhere in his apologetics did he mitigation how it might dazzle the regional landscape.