It's not just the people who are moving away from the bay area, you also have to account for people who are dissuaded from moving to the area due to the high cost of living.
When looking at where to locate my startup we considered SF but when I ran the numbers our runway would be severely limited. Instead we could run for years off of personal savings in the southeast. Instead of being forced to raise VC money I could control my own destiny.
There are definitely strong network effects of living in the valley. They are not strong enough to beat out market forces if you have the skills to make the product yourself. A single person has a lot more leverage than they did 10 years ago. Most tech companies don't require hordes of engineers. There are smart and talented people everywhere.
The majority of tech happens outside of the valley, and its status as the center of innovation is more likely to be a quirk of history than an act of predestination. Build great products that people love to use and everything else will follow.
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It's not just the people who are moving away from the bay area, you also have to account for people who are dissuaded from moving to the area due to the high cost of living.
When looking at where to locate my startup we considered SF but when I ran the numbers our runway would be severely limited. Instead we could run for years off of personal savings in the southeast. Instead of being forced to raise VC money I could control my own destiny.
There are definitely strong network effects of living in the valley. They are not strong enough to beat out market forces if you have the skills to make the product yourself. A single person has a lot more leverage than they did 10 years ago. Most tech companies don't require hordes of engineers. There are smart and talented people everywhere.
The majority of tech happens outside of the valley, and its status as the center of innovation is more likely to be a quirk of history than an act of predestination. Build great products that people love to use and everything else will follow.