Bay Area Tech Dominance

Pragmatism, and inertia.If you are in tech and in the Bay Area, you have access to talent, networking, if you are B2B - many potential customers. If you are having issues with mongodb and you wish to talk to the 10gen folks - in person - it's not a big deal.As an employee - you gain a ton of mobility. If I lose my job, or just want a different one, I don't need to pick up my life and move. Whereas, if I join your startup in Ohio or Virginia, or somewhere else with lower taxes that is more

Move literally anywhere other than Silicon Valley and there's still plenty of jobs

Is it time to rethink the Bay Area and NYC having all of the tech jobs?

Almost always the answer to a question in a headline is No (Betteridge's law of headlines). I think there is a lot of wishful thinking about breaking SV's dominance. Reasons being that it is such a HCOL area and how great would it be to live elsewhere! Truth be told, high tech salaries are not as high in other regions compared to the COL (in the general sense). SV has at least two top engineering schools (UCB and Stanford), and many people are unwilling to give up the easy opportun

In a world of PaaS and the cloud, and amazing communication capabilities like Skype and Google Hangout, why? What about CA or NY makes them more talented? They're there because the work is there, not vice versa. Also, you don't have to be in the middle of nowhere. There's plenty of large American cities where you can buy a nice house for less than $150K. I realize that the SF reality distortion field would suggest that everywhere else is powered by oil lamps, but I figure as long as you have hig

No one has ever said that 100% of software engineers need to be in the Bay Area. Yes there are plenty of people living elsewhere who have had fulfilling careers in the industry. Yet it is undeniable that – just like being an actor in LA or an investment banker in New York – your opportunities for job search, networking, career growth etc. are significantly higher by being where the ecosystem is concentrated.

I live in SF.There is a very clear trend of companies starting to look elsewhere for talent, such that in the long term, I really doubt the tradeoffs of SF will be worth it. The cost of living here is just terrible and I think companies are starting to accept that the government and people just really don't want tech to be here, at all.Here are a few examples of what I'm talking about:New Relic - serious tech company - note how much elsewhere: <a href="https://newrel

Judgements based on lifestyle, value for money, politics or any other similar factors are obviously going to be very subjective, but it is absurd to make the argument that anywhere outside of the Bay Area is better for starting or growing your tech career. Silicon Valley is still where all the top tech companies of every size and scale are hiring, it's where all the top talent is concentrated, it's where the majority of startups are popping up, it's where all the VCs are, it'

Why not move somewhere cheaper? You don't have to live in SF or NY or Seattle to work in tech.

Leaving the Bay Area is an appealing prospect in order to save on housing costs, but there are two issues that some people would need to consider in order to make that move:1. There are some specialized types of jobs in the software industry where there are only a small handful of employers and where most of those employers are located in Silicon Valley. There are some areas in the software industry, such as web development and enterprise software, where there are plenty of jobs outside Sil