Is Silicon Valley finally over?

[Bloomberg]( Follow Us //link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/20312307.78580/aHR0cHM6Ly90d2l0dGVyLmNvbS90ZWNobm9sb2d5/582c8673566a94262a8b49bdB24c7aaf2 [Get the newsletter]( Hey everyone, it’s Sarah Frier. It’s hard to remember that sense of hope at the beginning of the pandemic spread, when we imagined that if we all just stayed home for a couple weeks, the virus would die out and we could return to our lives. It felt temporary. Dentist appointments and haircuts got rescheduled for April, conferences got rescheduled for June. But tech companies were thinking differently. Facebook Inc., for instance, offered employees $1,000 in cash. The message: Buy that desk. Upgrade your WiFi. You’re going to need it. Now, it’s time for another dose of reality. Without a vaccine or a broad testing plan on the horizon, Facebook is telling employees not to come back for the [rest of the year](. Alphabet Inc.'s Google is saying something similar. And Twitter Inc. is [going even further](, saying that even after the virus threat recedes, employees should feel free to work from home permanently. For the first time since the start of the pandemic, employees can plan for the long-term. And they’re realizing that without their offices⁠—with all of those free meals, shuttle commutes and team bonding exercises⁠—there’s nothing tying them to the Bay Area. [For a new story in Bloomberg Businessweek](, I talked to employees who haven’t been able to afford to buy a home near their offices, and who are now realizing that their tech salaries will stretch a lot further somewhere else entirely. One advertising tech worker I spoke with is looking at houses in Sacramento, California, nearly 100 miles from tech Mecca San Francisco. An Apple employee told me he wants to move to Washington. And one staffer at San Francisco-based BuildZoom told me he’s already in the process of moving out of the city to be with his partner in Connecticut. If the lockdowns continue, he said, he'll start living nomadically—moving to the beach to surf in the fall and the mountains to ski in the winter. The age of the Silicon Valley campus-office, with perks used in recruiting and parodied by Hollywood, might be ending. Companies will have to figure out how to measure performance remotely, and how much to pay people living where rents are lower than in California. They’ll also have to decide whether to open new positions to workers living all over the world. Rural areas hurt by the decline of industrial work may see an influx of tech workers and their associated salaries, which could lessen the economic pain of the pandemic, but could also drive up rents. For years, people have been heralding the [demise of Silicon Valley](, but it never quite felt real. This time could be different. If enough tech workers spread out, eventually those employees will move on from the jobs they relocated with, and the next great startup might come out of Boise or Bozeman or Birmingham. “I don’t get why a young founder needs to be in San Francisco at this point,” said Deniz Kahramaner, founder of real estate brokerage Atlasa. Not this year, certainly—and maybe not anytime soon. —[Sarah Frier](mailto:sfrier1@bloomberg.net) If you read one thing Donald Trump is big on Snapchat. Here's a look at the [Trump campaign's strategy on the platform](, which is popular with young people, and young voters. Joe Biden is putting more time and effort into Snapchat, too, but is still playing catch-up. Sponsored Content by Darktrace We’ve entered a new era of geopolitical cyber-threat, where machine-speed attacks threaten to take down entire data centers in a matter of minutes. From municipalities to global banks, thousands of organizations around the world are turning to Cyber AI to fight back. [Learn how Darktrace’s Autonomous Response takes intelligent, instant action to contain fast-moving threats – before they can do any damage.](  And here’s what you need to know in global technology news Amazon warehouse workers who got a temporary pay bump because of the coronavirus pandemic are likely to [return to their prior wages]( in June. Apple's government affairs chief, Cynthia Hogan, is [leaving the company](. Hogan, a former Biden staffer, joined a committee to help the candidate vet possible running mates last month. After vowing to shed “almost all physical possessions,” Elon Musk has put more [California properties on the market](. On a podcast, he explained: “Possessions kind of weigh you down." What does leadership during a crisis look like? [Watch our new series](, Leadership Live with David Rubenstein, in conversation with former Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt. Tune in at 4 p.m. EST on Thursday, May 14.  A special offer for Fully Charged readers | [For just $3.99 a month](, get unlimited access to Bloomberg.com, where you'll find trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters.  You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Fully Charged newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022