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> The tech hubs grew in a self-fulfilling cycle, attracting nearly the entire supply of competent developers.The tech hubs grew in a self-fulfilling cycle, attr

> The tech hubs grew in a self-fulfilling cycle, attracting nearly the entire supply of competent developers.The tech hubs grew in a self-fulfilling cycle, attracting nearly the entire supply of competent developers. Even ignoring the silly claim at the end, what you say isn't logical. New developers aren't born in SV, they move there because that's where the jobs are. If they no longer need to move there for the good jobs, they won't.

henryfjordan 6y ago
> New developers aren't born in SV, they move there because that's where the jobs are. If they no longer need to move there for the good jobs, they won't. This statement supports my point. A large proportion of devs currently live in a tech hub. They moved there because there was opportunity. Telling all the developers that the opportunity will come to them does not magically change the number of developers. So if demand for developers hasn't changed, and the supply hasn't changed, why would salaries change? The only way the number of available devs changes is if some new untapped supply exists outside of the tech hubs. My argument is that it does not, the majority of devs that could already moved to a tech hub or figured something out.
- yes-the-day 6y ago
  As a non-tech hub guy, I think your last point probably isn't true. Where I work, the best devs are not on par with the Stanford/MIT etc. people, but we can hold our own quite well with the next tier down from New York, San Francisco, etc. (A lot of the devs here are from India originally but some are locals and the point stands regardless.) I've worked with a few of those people from big tech hubs on joint projects (one or two even went to prestigious technical colleges), and we had a high level of mutual respect and trust in one another's abilities. Whether my salary will trend towards yours or vice versa I don't know, but I definitely think I could have gotten a pretty big bump had I moved to San Fran. I don't because of many types of friction (laziness, family/friend/other relation ties, age, so on). If that friction goes away I assume we'll become more direct competitors.
reducesuffering 6y ago
> New developers aren't born in SV, they move there because that's where the jobs are. Maybe as a rough generality. 1/3 of the developers I know were born in SV.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  1/3 of the developers I know were born in New England. It’s probably not hard to guess the confounding variable.
  - reducesuffering 6y ago
    Sure, but that would be invalidating someone telling you no developers were born in New England. SV is a 2m+ area filled with local schools, where many of the parents are developers and highly supportive of the education to be a developer. For someone to say “no developers are born in SV” is bewildering.
    - vidarh 6y ago
      You've chosen to interpret a missing qualifier as "all" when the more likely response if you'd asked for a clarification would be "most". It was very clear what the point made was, and it was not that nobody born in SV ever becomes developers.

henryfjordan 6y ago

> New developers aren't born in SV, they move there because that's where the jobs are. If they no longer need to move there for the good jobs, they won't. This statement supports my point. A large proportion of devs currently live in a tech hub. They moved there because there was opportunity. Telling all the developers that the opportunity will come to them does not magically change the number of developers. So if demand for developers hasn't changed, and the supply hasn't changed, why would salaries change? The only way the number of available devs changes is if some new untapped supply exists outside of the tech hubs. My argument is that it does not, the majority of devs that could already moved to a tech hub or figured something out.

yes-the-day 6y ago
As a non-tech hub guy, I think your last point probably isn't true. Where I work, the best devs are not on par with the Stanford/MIT etc. people, but we can hold our own quite well with the next tier down from New York, San Francisco, etc. (A lot of the devs here are from India originally but some are locals and the point stands regardless.) I've worked with a few of those people from big tech hubs on joint projects (one or two even went to prestigious technical colleges), and we had a high level of mutual respect and trust in one another's abilities. Whether my salary will trend towards yours or vice versa I don't know, but I definitely think I could have gotten a pretty big bump had I moved to San Fran. I don't because of many types of friction (laziness, family/friend/other relation ties, age, so on). If that friction goes away I assume we'll become more direct competitors.

reducesuffering 6y ago

> New developers aren't born in SV, they move there because that's where the jobs are. Maybe as a rough generality. 1/3 of the developers I know were born in SV.

sokoloff 6y ago
1/3 of the developers I know were born in New England. It’s probably not hard to guess the confounding variable.
- reducesuffering 6y ago
  Sure, but that would be invalidating someone telling you no developers were born in New England. SV is a 2m+ area filled with local schools, where many of the parents are developers and highly supportive of the education to be a developer. For someone to say “no developers are born in SV” is bewildering.
  - vidarh 6y ago
    You've chosen to interpret a missing qualifier as "all" when the more likely response if you'd asked for a clarification would be "most". It was very clear what the point made was, and it was not that nobody born in SV ever becomes developers.