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By that reasoning, the biggest tech centers should be... 1. Tokyo 2. Delhi 3. Shanghai 4. São Paulo 5. Mexico City 6. Cairo 11. New York City 17. Manila

By that reasoning, the biggest tech centers should be... 1. Tokyo 2. Delhi 3. Shanghai 4. São Paulo 5. Mexico City 6. Cairo 11. New York City 17. Manila 23. Los Angeles San Francisco would rank #16 in the USA, just behind Columbus, OH, and just ahead of Seattle. So spend the $10,000,000 to relocate 1000 devs to #5 Phoenix (200 miles from Kingman).

deathanatos 6y ago
Comparing the direct population of Columbus OH to SF is silly; it ignores the huge amount of the surrounding area, as SF proper is rather small. Some quick Googling says the Columbus MSA is ~2 M people, and the SF+San Jose MSAs are 5-7 M people.
- supportlocal4h 6y ago
  Some quick Googling says that Phoenix metro is about 5M people. Meanwhile, the bay area is the #1 highest COL in the continental U.S. Phoenix is ~#29. If the argument is that tech requires a big city, I think Phoenix qualifies. If this is a hangup for you, consider Philadelphia: 5-7 M people, #21 COL. It is obvious to me that population size is not why tech giants gravitate to SF or Seattle. (I'm confident that the high COL is also not the reason.) Tucking 1000 employees into Houston and 1000 into Charlotte and 1000 into Toronto, then saving $200,000,000 per year seems very attractive to me. And if relocating 3000 makes sense, why not 10000? There's obviously enough good reasons that they haven't done it. But from my seat in the balcony of the ignorant it seems awfully strange from an industry that prides itself on disrupting stale thinking.
  - cmendel 6y ago
    Part of it has to do with capital, but a fair portion is due to network effects. As an example; in Boston, if you are looking to setup a Biotech shop you need to throw a rock down the street and you'll hit someone involved in the industry. In Louisville, KY? Forget about it, yes there are some folks who are in the field but as a whole?
  - danans 6y ago
    > Tucking 1000 employees into Houston and 1000 into Charlotte and 1000 into Toronto, then saving $200,000,000 per year seems very attractive to me. And if relocating 3000 makes sense, why not 10000? There are plenty of companies in the tech industry who already have done this - how many times have you heard about someone told by their employer that they will have to relocate to X and take a pay cut, or lose their job? These are, however, companies whose M.O. is cutting costs to the bare minimum to increase margins. You can probably think of many that fit this model. This nearly always means they are no longer focused on growth or product innovation. Even growth-focused companies have already moved a most of their operational and support to lower cost-of-labor areas, well before COVID19. But very few tech companies have their creative functions in those areas.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    It's not just a big city. Look where the San Jose and SF metro areas fall on this list: https://wallethub.com/edu/e/most-and-least-educated-cities/6656/ https://wallethub.com/edu/e/most-and-least-educated-cities/6... It is not just quantity of population, but characteristics of the population.
TulliusCicero 6y ago
No, because you're missing out on that the specific culture matters. Cities produce culture in a certain sense, but they don't all produce the same culture. There's a reason that the major tech hubs in the US are liberal cities, and more conservative ones generally don't have a strong tech sector.
- humanrebar 6y ago
  > There's a reason that the major tech hubs in the US are liberal cities... Because the owners and operators of the companies in question are usually left of center (American spectrum)?
  - TulliusCicero 6y ago
    That's sort of a subset of the real answer: the in-demand talent that the companies need so much of are usually left of center, and relatedly appreciate some things that are more common/better in left-er areas: public transport, decent public universities, support for biking/walkability, friendliness to cultural/ethnic diversity, friendliness to LGBT people, stronger social safety net. There are things that liberal areas are worse at, of course: housing costs are usually higher, they're not as accommodating to religion, taxes are higher, some regulations can be stifling. But most techies are less concerned with these latter things than the former.
- danans 6y ago
  Exactly, culture matters a great degree for creative work. If there were a big untapped reservoir of cultural input for tech firms being underutilized, it would be invested in. You see this a bit in secondary tech hubs like Boulder or Austin, which by dint of their history have some of whatever culture and skillsets the tech industry needs. Big cities and metropolitan areas are generators of their flavor of culture, and that influences the kind of work objects that the local labor pool can produce. Many of the cities on GP's list are actually major tech hubs (Tokyo, Sao Paulo, NYC, LA), and many of the other cities (Cairo, Mexico City, LA) are major creative centers for other industries especially media/entertainment industries for their respective spheres of orbit.

deathanatos 6y ago

Comparing the direct population of Columbus OH to SF is silly; it ignores the huge amount of the surrounding area, as SF proper is rather small. Some quick Googling says the Columbus MSA is ~2 M people, and the SF+San Jose MSAs are 5-7 M people.

supportlocal4h 6y ago
Some quick Googling says that Phoenix metro is about 5M people. Meanwhile, the bay area is the #1 highest COL in the continental U.S. Phoenix is ~#29. If the argument is that tech requires a big city, I think Phoenix qualifies. If this is a hangup for you, consider Philadelphia: 5-7 M people, #21 COL. It is obvious to me that population size is not why tech giants gravitate to SF or Seattle. (I'm confident that the high COL is also not the reason.) Tucking 1000 employees into Houston and 1000 into Charlotte and 1000 into Toronto, then saving $200,000,000 per year seems very attractive to me. And if relocating 3000 makes sense, why not 10000? There's obviously enough good reasons that they haven't done it. But from my seat in the balcony of the ignorant it seems awfully strange from an industry that prides itself on disrupting stale thinking.
- cmendel 6y ago
  Part of it has to do with capital, but a fair portion is due to network effects. As an example; in Boston, if you are looking to setup a Biotech shop you need to throw a rock down the street and you'll hit someone involved in the industry. In Louisville, KY? Forget about it, yes there are some folks who are in the field but as a whole?
- danans 6y ago
  > Tucking 1000 employees into Houston and 1000 into Charlotte and 1000 into Toronto, then saving $200,000,000 per year seems very attractive to me. And if relocating 3000 makes sense, why not 10000? There are plenty of companies in the tech industry who already have done this - how many times have you heard about someone told by their employer that they will have to relocate to X and take a pay cut, or lose their job? These are, however, companies whose M.O. is cutting costs to the bare minimum to increase margins. You can probably think of many that fit this model. This nearly always means they are no longer focused on growth or product innovation. Even growth-focused companies have already moved a most of their operational and support to lower cost-of-labor areas, well before COVID19. But very few tech companies have their creative functions in those areas.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  It's not just a big city. Look where the San Jose and SF metro areas fall on this list: https://wallethub.com/edu/e/most-and-least-educated-cities/6656/ https://wallethub.com/edu/e/most-and-least-educated-cities/6... It is not just quantity of population, but characteristics of the population.

TulliusCicero 6y ago

No, because you're missing out on that the specific culture matters. Cities produce culture in a certain sense, but they don't all produce the same culture. There's a reason that the major tech hubs in the US are liberal cities, and more conservative ones generally don't have a strong tech sector.

humanrebar 6y ago
> There's a reason that the major tech hubs in the US are liberal cities... Because the owners and operators of the companies in question are usually left of center (American spectrum)?
- TulliusCicero 6y ago
  That's sort of a subset of the real answer: the in-demand talent that the companies need so much of are usually left of center, and relatedly appreciate some things that are more common/better in left-er areas: public transport, decent public universities, support for biking/walkability, friendliness to cultural/ethnic diversity, friendliness to LGBT people, stronger social safety net. There are things that liberal areas are worse at, of course: housing costs are usually higher, they're not as accommodating to religion, taxes are higher, some regulations can be stifling. But most techies are less concerned with these latter things than the former.
danans 6y ago
Exactly, culture matters a great degree for creative work. If there were a big untapped reservoir of cultural input for tech firms being underutilized, it would be invested in. You see this a bit in secondary tech hubs like Boulder or Austin, which by dint of their history have some of whatever culture and skillsets the tech industry needs. Big cities and metropolitan areas are generators of their flavor of culture, and that influences the kind of work objects that the local labor pool can produce. Many of the cities on GP's list are actually major tech hubs (Tokyo, Sao Paulo, NYC, LA), and many of the other cities (Cairo, Mexico City, LA) are major creative centers for other industries especially media/entertainment industries for their respective spheres of orbit.