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As someone that is soon moving to san francisco for a job, can someone explain to me why tech jobs are still located there? are tech workers really resistant to

As someone that is soon moving to san francisco for a job, can someone explain to me why tech jobs are still located there? are tech workers really resistant to moving out of that horrible city and state? I will take a 10% reduction in salary to live in Miami, Atlanta or New York over San Francisco. All of those are cities with actual vibrant culture and the rent is actually lower.

muzz 10y ago
Because companies are profit-maximizing and the Bay Area gives them the best location for that
chiph 10y ago
Network effect. Plus the proximity of Stanford University supplies lots of smart fresh-outs.
hga 10y ago
The single unique thing about California, and therefore SF/Silicon Valley/the Bay area is that by long standing public policy, non-competes are unenforceable for employees like you, making it a very liquid market for talent. This Wikipedia item is on the front page right now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12372315 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12372315 i.e. the "traitorous eight" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight ); we wouldn't even be here discussing all this if Shockley had been able to keep his dissatisfied employees from working in the brand new field of semiconductors when they could no longer stand working for him, ditto when they left Fairchild Semiconductor to e.g. start Intel, which besides the microprocessors was the first company to commercially sell DRAMs. On the other hand, Texas Instruments managed to be a leader in all of the early stages of all this while based in Texas, even created the standard TTL logic family used by just about everyone to make computers until microprocessors became capable enough. And in several stages Motorola was competitive without as far as I know having a significant Silicon Valley base.
shostack 10y ago
Along with what others suggested, there's also the amazing weather, liberal culture, exciting food scene, and close proximity to lots of great outdoor activities like skiing in Tahoe, wine country, etc. Moved here from Chicago and I am so done with winter, even with the reduced spending power from the higher cost of living.

muzz 10y ago

Because companies are profit-maximizing and the Bay Area gives them the best location for that

chiph 10y ago

Network effect. Plus the proximity of Stanford University supplies lots of smart fresh-outs.

hga 10y ago

The single unique thing about California, and therefore SF/Silicon Valley/the Bay area is that by long standing public policy, non-competes are unenforceable for employees like you, making it a very liquid market for talent. This Wikipedia item is on the front page right now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12372315 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12372315 i.e. the "traitorous eight" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight ); we wouldn't even be here discussing all this if Shockley had been able to keep his dissatisfied employees from working in the brand new field of semiconductors when they could no longer stand working for him, ditto when they left Fairchild Semiconductor to e.g. start Intel, which besides the microprocessors was the first company to commercially sell DRAMs. On the other hand, Texas Instruments managed to be a leader in all of the early stages of all this while based in Texas, even created the standard TTL logic family used by just about everyone to make computers until microprocessors became capable enough. And in several stages Motorola was competitive without as far as I know having a significant Silicon Valley base.

shostack 10y ago

Along with what others suggested, there's also the amazing weather, liberal culture, exciting food scene, and close proximity to lots of great outdoor activities like skiing in Tahoe, wine country, etc. Moved here from Chicago and I am so done with winter, even with the reduced spending power from the higher cost of living.