You're right. The rest of the world has plenty of smart people, including developers and engineers. SV and some other metros have advantages in funding sources

You're right. The rest of the world has plenty of smart people, including developers and engineers. SV and some other metros have advantages in funding sources that let them brain-drain other areas through better salaries and stock, but it's not that people in other place just don't what they're doing. RHEL does just fine with talent operating out of Chicago and Raleigh NC. If companies are willing to pay solid salaries, and give growth opportunities to people outside of SV (this was actually the biggest downside I noticed while working at a very large sattelite office of a SV-based tech company in NC), then they will find sufficient talent in most any large enough / educated enough US metro.