Tuesday, February 15, 2011

California's Tech Boom and "Bifurcated Recovery"

1. "California's Silicon Valley is Hiring Again" -- "Silicon Valley is starting to pop again. Green tech is alive, as is anything in social networking. Venture capitalists are investing. Google is hiring 2,000 workers this year; Facebook is moving into new quarters with room for hundreds of additional employees.

"We've got a lot of recruiting to do," said Dena Quinn, facilities manager at Skype's Palo Alto office. The Internet phone company will hire 280 workers in Palo Alto this year, more than doubling its Silicon Valley employment."

2. San Diego Tech Companies Can't Fill Thousands of Jobs -- "Even though the jobless rate continues to hover in the double digits, there are literally thousands of high-paid job openings in San Diego County just waiting for the applicants with the right skills, according to the leaders of the local high-tech community.

But they say that finding those applicants can be a challenge, partly because of the area’s high cost of living and the lingering perception that San Diego’s more of a beach town than a Silicon Valley South."

3. "While overall California home sales declined last year, the number of homes that sold for $1 million or more in 2010 rose for the first time in five years as certain segments of the economy improved and high-end home shoppers went bargain hunting.  Last year 22,529 Golden State homes sold for $1 million or more. That was up 21.0 percent from 18,621 in 2009 and the highest since 2008, when 24,436 homes sold for $1 million-plus, according to San Diego-based DataQuick Information Systems. Million-dollar sales peaked in 2005 at 54,773, after which they declined each year through 2009."

HT: Steve Bartin at Newsalert for the first two stories. 

4 Comments:

At 2/15/2011 10:29 AM, Blogger Sean said...

Yep, it's true hiring is starting to occur again. I still don't know it's a employee's market, but things are improving in CA and elsewhere in tech.

 
At 2/15/2011 2:43 PM, Blogger Che is dead said...

"Silicon Valley is starting to pop again. Green tech is alive ..."

Green tech?

A study by the Massachusetts based Beacon Hill Institute found that the proposed $1 billion dollars in subsidies from the project would contribute to a nearly 25% return on equity by investors – more than twice the average historical for return for all corporations. Add taxpayers to that list of groups opposed to the project ...

The proposed wind farm is likely to produce power at a gross cost (pre subsidies) of 18.8 cents/kWh, in a state where the average cost of electricity generation was just under 7 cents/kWh in 2007. Any supposed benefit from fuel saved, to benefits to the environment, to enhanced energy security for the state, will never produce enough benefit to offset that 11.8 cent /kWh price increase.

For developers, the benefits are massive profits through government subsidies and the costs, nothing more than a market appropriate level of risk.

Welcome to the "Green" Economy

What happens when the subsidies are gone?

 
At 2/15/2011 3:05 PM, Blogger morganovich said...

che-

the real numbers will be much worse that that.

"is likely to produce power at" sounds like weasel words to me.

most wind farms wind up running at 15% of faceplate capacity.

it would not be surprising to see that power cost more like $1 per KWH.

that has certainly been the experience at many other wind farms.

wind produces power as a fourth power function of windspeed.

thus if wind is 70% of optimum for the windmill you are only getting 25% output. at 50% windspeed, you get 6% and might as well not even turn it on.

additionally at 110% of windspeed, you will blow the turbine (with 146% rated input) and thus you need to shut the blades down long before then.

so, if a turbine is optimized for 30mph, it's worthless under 15, has 25% output at 21, and needs to shut down well before 33.

essentially, you can only run it about half capacity when wind is between 25 and 30 mph.

that is why windmills wind up with 15% yields to rated power (and that is if they are really well sited).

 
At 2/15/2011 5:46 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ooh, "green tech," "social networking," XD and a company, Skype, that was spun off by Ebay because they couldn't possibly justify the billions they paid for it with the meager millions they were making. Silly Valley's back, baby! :) People keep issuing hosannas to Silicon valley but they're apparently too dumb to notice that it hasn't produced anything worthwhile in a decade. There were literally only two successes that came out of the dot.com boom, Google and Paypal, that's it, and both are on their way out. Wherever the next tech boom comes from, and I do believe it's imminent, I can tell you one thing, it's not coming from the valley. As Warren Buffett would say, "the idiots have arrived," the valley is certainly replete with them.

 

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