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It’s not just optimized for founders. The investment-employment concentration is a feedback loop that has been running for decades. Investment stays here becaus

It’s not just optimized for founders. The investment-employment concentration is a feedback loop that has been running for decades. Investment stays here because there is such an established concentration of talent. VCs talk about wanting to tap into the global talent pool. But, remote/distributed development is still a penalty vs everyone on the same floor. And, there are no comparable concentrations elsewhere. The Bay Area is expensive. But, if you have a tech job, the pay balances out easily. Sometimes excessively. There is tons of interesting tech work in the Bay. Not just pay the bills and go home work. But, work that is fascinating in itself. If you can’t find fascinating work here, maybe your interest in tech is limited to the paycheck. That’s totally respectable. But, you’d probably be happier some place more family friendly, or with mountains, or with a culture less focused on work -even if your bank account won’t grow as fast. The arts culture has fallen off recently as rents have risen and the drug/homeless epidemic has really picked up in the past two years. But, it’s SF is still a beautiful city full of wonderful things. And, a lot of (mostly dog) poop.

shuckles 7y ago
For what it’s worth, many of the region’s problems are not unique to it and are instead shared by any prosperous economic region in the USA. Land use, infrastructure, ineffective bureaucracy, urban place making, etc are countrywide issues that need resolution, and in some ways the Bay Area is leading that reform. I hope to see Prop 13 repealed or greatly weakened before I die.
pasttense01 7y ago
On the other hand the tech industry should be much better able to handle telecommuting than all other industries--so tech workers should be able to telecommute from anywhere which has decent internet.

shuckles 7y ago

For what it’s worth, many of the region’s problems are not unique to it and are instead shared by any prosperous economic region in the USA. Land use, infrastructure, ineffective bureaucracy, urban place making, etc are countrywide issues that need resolution, and in some ways the Bay Area is leading that reform. I hope to see Prop 13 repealed or greatly weakened before I die.

pasttense01 7y ago

On the other hand the tech industry should be much better able to handle telecommuting than all other industries--so tech workers should be able to telecommute from anywhere which has decent internet.