Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

I’ve been avoiding comment about millionaires in Silicon Valley who feel like the rest of us working joes. Finding time in my schedule to stop and think hasn’t been there and I’ve been avoiding the issue because unlike most PF bloggers, a large chunk of my family lives and works in Silicon Valley. I would like to move back there. And I suspect some of my family are exactly like the people described in the article. I think a lot of my friends in NYC also have the feeling like they don’t have enough to buy a place unless they look outside Manhattan.

I find it entertaining that PF blog commenters think this is a stupid subject, but it’s not. You have to remember these are real people and picking up and moving to East Podunk is not realistic for them because there is nothing there for them. If you are wondering at all about why, try reading Regional Advantage, by Annalee Saxenian. As a geography major, I can tell you, location matters. Ms. Saxenian’s book can tell you exactly why where you are means something to your livelihood and the economic future of the entire region. When my father was ill last year, I looked for work in Philadelphia, but to trade down from the hottest tech market in the US around DC to go home was a serious step down financially. Oracle work is just not valued there like it is in DC.

That said, some of these people on the hamster wheel of 80 hour work weeks like to work that hard. It comes in cycles with time off in between to go be lazy. My folks always told me they’d retire when they die. And that’s been pretty true so far.

Members of my extended family and friends work/have worked at places like CNet, Amazon, PayPal, etc. As far as I know, no one has hung on to their IPO money. Post-9/11 stock markets eroded everything. There is luck and then there is market correction and realistic valuations. My family has been lucky, but that lasted about 2 weeks during the 120-day blackout period and evaporated when they could actually sell. The article is kind of shallow and doesn’t get into the deeper issues surrounding the gulf between incomes there. Why some people got lucky and others did not.

It’s a little weird out there. Culturally, there are a lot of nouveau riche who don’t know what to do with their money and spend it like crazy on silly things like Ferraris. On the other hand, my cousin’s husband, a budding venture capitalist, is telling me how insane it is that they can’t afford a $600K mortgage on a $1 million house even though he’s an MD and she’s got a Harvard MBA. I told him he could just buy investment property in DC and it would be cheaper. Strangely, I also had that conversation with another friend of mine who works in San Francisco. He used to live in DC and is seriously considering buying a rental near his old apartment.

Sometimes my sibling and I think we’ll move my folks into my sibling’s current house so they can upgrade to a bigger home for their two kids. I’ll assume the mortgage with my mother, or buy it, and then I’ll have a place to move when I’m ready to go to California. (Will I ever be ready again, like I was when I was 22?) Retiring TO Silicon Valley seems impossible. But my uncle did just that. He salted away his money and was able to buy a home in Morgan Hill. Admittedly, that’s very far south South Bay, but it’s still driving distance to the rest of our family for a weekend brunch. Reading that article carefully, I can tell you Moraga doesn’t float my boat and Bend, OR is great to ski and vacation, but not for the rest of my life.

In two weeks I will be visiting and snuggling my wee baby nephews. The oldest is turning two and I’ll be there for his birthday. He’s not getting any smaller. But his parents are torn between staying where the market is so good for their skills, and leaving because the kids will end up seriously warped about money and wealth and what it means.

Since I’m no where near the league of wealth these working millionaires are, I highly doubt I’ll have the feeling that $10 million is not enough.