Vexed in the city: San Francisco strife spurs tech defectors elsewhere

The view outside the Valley isn't so bad: The office of Automated Insights, a 30-employee startup based in North Carolina, overlooks the baseball stadium for the Durham Bulls. The company lists free Bulls games from the "porch" as a job perk when hiring, as well as free lunches and take-it-when-you-need-it vacation. Brandon Sewell/Automated Insights

This story is part of a CNET special report that examines the controversy gripping San Francisco as a massive influx of techies feeds an unprecedented economic boom -- and backlash.

The heat was turning up on San Francisco-based startup SocialProof.

But it wasn't competitive pressure or the fight to gain attention that got SocialProof's co-founder Nathan Labenz down. It was the simple cost of operating in the city's trendy SoMa neighborhood back in 2012.

After two years toiling in the center of the tech universe, he realized that whatever money his company collected wouldn't last long there. "It just seemed crazy," Labenz said. "A million dollars or a million and a half, or whatever it was going to be, should go farther."