Why will I (@mattyb) leave California?
Mini
4
Ṁ70
2031
20%
I don’t (I will die as a CA resident)
20%
A job (some new employer has hired me in a different locale spurring my move)
16%
Other
11%
No job (I’ve lost my job and can no longer afford CA, or have chosen to live somewhere else as a result of not having a steady income)
9%
Tired of CA (I am choosing to live in another place which currently appeals to me more)
6%
Family (moving to be closer to family)
6%
[Climate] Disaster (the big earthquake finally hit, a fire burnt down my house, the sea washed away my house, a rare Pacific hurricane…etc.)
6%
Love (moving to be closer to a romantic partner)
6%
California no longer exists (USA has fallen apart, California has merged with another state, California has broken apart into multiple states…etc.)

I’ll be as forthcoming as I possibly can be here, but I do want to maintain a degree of pseudonymity, so I won’t (e.g.) give my employers name, but I’ll describe them. Feel free to ask any questions that you have here.

There is a chance that multiple can be true. If I lost my job and fell in love, and moved from a combination of the two, I would likely Resolve them both 50%.

I count my residence as where I am registered to vote, where my W2 says that I live, and where my Drivers License lists as my address. All 3 should match (and currently do).

Market will extend as long as I’m a Californian. And I guess I’ll update this market as I go through my life’s events 🤷🏻‍♂️

Facts which may influence your betting:

  • I’ve moved to SF in 2018 (moved here for work, still holding the same job, basically). I work in tech, for a large Fortune 500 company. If I left my current job, I would try to find another one in the same area (SF Bay Area).

  • In 2021, I moved to Seattle during the pandemic. My main motivation for moving was that work didn’t require me to be in any locale, and I wanted a change. For that move, I would have Resolved “Tired of CA”. I moved back after about a year saying “I’m not leaving CA again”.

  • If I lost my job, I would not feel an immediate sense of financial urgency which would necessitate a move. If this lasted for multiple months, I would likely begin to panic.

  • My family really aren’t close. I moved out at 16 to go to boarding school and have been on my own largely since. I currently only see myself moving back to PA if they get seriously ill (both in their mid 60s and physically fine).

  • I really seldom date, and if I do it’s local (done distance, hated it). I am single now, and really not looking. Love should probably be close to 1%.

  • I am 30 years old, and lived the first 22 years of my life in various parts of PA, and the next 3 years in VA, outside of DC.

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I love this question, so much discernment.

Couple reasons people I know have moved to areas or countries we didn’t plan on when we were 30:

  • Own health (US system insufficient, climate, or availability of some needed resource )

  • Kids/divorce. You don’t need to fall in love to have a kid. No one plans on divorce and certainly no one plans on mom wants kids with her in Austin/Rhode Island/New York/Venezuela so that’s where you’ll go too, but this has happened to quite a few friends.

  • Not just you lose your job or company goes bust, but entire industry goes away or becomes unrecognizable

  • Back to school!

@ClubmasterTransparent great additions! here’s my current views on them:

kids/divorce

I’ve never planned to have kids, and that’s true now more than ever. I’d personally rank this lower than love.

Back to school!

I vowed never to go back to school haha. I nearly failed out of middle school, and nearly dropped out of college.

@mattyb Well that explains why you have a couple years experience at a Fortune 500 company, you’re smart and like markets, but you don’t consider going to school in PA haha.

@mattyb Jeez must be my day for reflecting on all this. Pete Townshend in today’s NYT drinking tea and referencing Larkin. You may well agree with him already that Larkin is overquoted but if not click through and you’ll go “oh so THATS where that comes from.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/23/theater/pete-townshend-tommy-broadway.html?unlocked_article_code=1.e00.5GBc.33NSRJZoZ1u1&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&ugrp=m

Larkin quote directly

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-verse