Technical executives tell me they’re tired of spoiled Silicon Valley employees

CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Thursday that he expects a “tech exodus” from California in the future, with one of the drivers as technology executives dissatisfied with his employees.

Cramer, who has spent the week in San Francisco, said he hears that “many of the CEOs out here have had it with younger workers telling them what to do and when and where they want to work.”

“They’re tired of the San Francisco workforce, which they think is full of spoiled nitwits that are there one day and gone the next,”[ads1]; Cramer added. He did not mention these leaders as he said he spoke to outside the air.

The “Mad Money” host said such frustration could end up benefiting other parts of the country, with technology companies “moving to areas of the country where they can hire talented people for much less money – people who want more loyalty to the business and accountability to the CEO, if only because they want fewer options to jump off the ship. “

However, Cramer noted that senior management’s problems with its employees are not the only reasons why technology companies are planning to move away from Silicon Valley. Real estate in the San Francisco metro area has a hefty price tag, Cramer pointed out, adding that he “has heard Atlanta mentioned several times, Austin is always in the mix, and of course Florida” as potential places to move.

Cramer also said he heard there would be layoffs in the technology sector, competing with them since the dot-com bubble burst from the mid to late 1990s. At the time, highly speculative Internet stocks helped drive Nasdaq up more than 500% from 1995 until it all ended in March 2000. The technology-dominated index had traded above 5,000 before then falling by almost 80% to a low for decades. of 1,108 in October 2002.

Technology stocks fell on Thursday along with the rest of the market. Nasdaq has been stuck in a terrible bear market, defined by falls of 20% or more from previous peaks. In fact, as of Thursday’s close, the index was down more than 25% from its last all-time high back in November 2021.

“Remember, the industry loves to pay people with stock options,” Cramer said. “But it is not a tempting form of compensation when stocks are constantly being pulverized.”