This tech worker says he lived in his startup's office for a year because he couldn't afford rent in the San Francisco Bay Area
- On Thursday, tech worker Jonathan Gaurano posted a YouTube video claiming that he lived in his startup's offices for an entire year because rent in the San Francisco Bay Area is too expensive.
- "I was there for a couple days and then it just turned into thirty. And then I realized, 'Oh my god, I should just stay," Gaurano told Business Insider.
- Gaurano says that despite some close calls, he was never caught sleeping in the unnamed startup's office.
- While viewers have expressed some skepticism about the video, Guarano says that it's "as true as I can ever make it be."
The San Francisco Bay Area's ongoing housing crisis has led to some denizens paying ridiculous amounts of money for, ahem, unconventional living arrangements.
And then you have the story of Jonathan Guarano, a tech worker who says in a YouTube video posted this week that he lived in his San Francisco startup's offices for an entire year, after his landlord abruptly quadrupled his rent.
The video shows what he says was his unique living arrangement in the unnamed startup's offices, covering everything from where he hid his electric toothbrush from his coworkers, to the time he says he locked himself inside a room late at night.
You can watch the video here:
He says that he was laid off by the company in June 2018 and now lives in Los Angeles, where he works as a freelance video maker. Guarano is an avid YouTube content creator in his own right, and even directed and starred in a video for popular DJ duo The Chainsmokers. He says that he wiped his LinkedIn and his online resumés to preserve the identity of his former employer, with whom he says parted on agreeble terms.
"I was there for a couple days and then it just turned into thirty," Gaurano told Business Insider. "And then I realized, 'Oh my god, I should just stay! It's just working out so great.'"
Guarano says that in the beginning of his time living in the office, he had anxiety "24/7."
"The first seven days was really brutal," he says. "[Over time], the anxiety was like, 'I'm really tired. Can people please leave the office?'"
Gaurano also says despite some close calls - once with an early morning cleaning crew - he was never caught sleeping in the office.
Viewers have raised concerns about the authenticity of the video - at one point, for example, a clock's hands don't appear to move, even though he says that time has passed. Gaurano dismisses this skepticism, and says that the events chronicled in the video are "as true as I can ever make it be."