A mystery company backed by Silicon Valley billionaires has purchased tens of thousands of acres of land for more than $800 million to build a new city near San Francisco

Lee Duna@lemmy.nz to Technology@beehaw.org – 140 points –
A mystery company backed by Silicon Valley billionaires has purchased tens of thousands of acres of land for more than $800 million to build a new city near San Francisco
businessinsider.com
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They won't have to pay as much for employees to rent an apartment from their company than they would for their employees to rent a San Francisco apartment.

It also means that people who quit immediately lose their home. This is great for employee retention.

Yeah, and the absolute worst thing is they'll be swarmed with applicants. A job and guaranteed housing I can afford? Guaranteed to be able to afford food and lunch etc? Deals on partnered electronics? I'm even willing to bet they'll allow remote work when you live there. To the average person it looks like a great deal. It makes life simple.

But when you want to switch jobs to boost your salary you're faced with having to move and finding a new place to live in the bay area isn't easy. Then the issue of leaving the town meaning leaving friends, changing schools if you have kids and everything that entails. Not to mention if your partner also works there. There will be a lot of people effectively stuck. That feeling of not having a choice, of being stuck is really insidious.

And with depressed wages, which won't impact them much while they work since they get housing and stuff cheaper. But come retirement the life time of lower earnings will rear its ugly head.

Bro company towns worked super well for the people the last time it was tried, what are you talking about?

/s

Except for that initial $800 million, plus the billions it will cost for infrastructure.

They will try to get that financed by VC or regular finance and skim something off the top of everything that's happening in the city.

Even if the libertarian nightmare fails, they still have a developed city near SF.

That will get passed on to a local municipality, just like building sprawling suburbs