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Note that I have no evidence to support this hypothesis, and I would love if someone would prove me wrong, but I suspect the following: - The "Tech Elite" who

Note that I have no evidence to support this hypothesis, and I would love if someone would prove me wrong, but I suspect the following: - The "Tech Elite" who are leaving are, by definition, the ones who have the financial freedom to go pretty much wherever they want. Anyone mentioned in this article could buy a house in Miami/Austin/Denver without worrying about any transaction costs if they turn around and sell it in 6 months. - SF (and California in general) are being much more aggressive with anti-COVID policies. - The cities that are being focused on (Miami and Austin) are overall pretending that COVID isn't a thing (I live in Austin, and this is my experience). - Well-off individuals currently under lock-down are looking at people living "freely" in Florida/Texas and are jealous, because they think that the SF-lockdown rules shouldn't apply to them, because they are less at risk (this is a discussion for another day) - They've now set themselves up with a plausible "I moved out of California. My reason was COVID." story to try to avoid paying California state taxes in the future, even if they still end up being back in SF the majority of the time for their business. tldr; the "elites" leaving are moving for short-term quality-of-life improvements due to COVID, and will have no issue turning around and moving back in 6-12 months when SF is "open for business" again. Update: I have seen the shift in Austin from watching stories/tweets/social-media of people who have been moving from SF -> Austin. I was excited at first of the prospect of Austin become a much larger tech city, but am now noticing that the overwhelming majority of this content (although I could easily be seeing a biased sample, of course) is that the vocal group of "I moved from SF to Austin" is the same group that is extremely excited to go out to restaurants and public events again.

throwaway45349 6y ago
What's wrong with going to restaurants and public events? If people don't want to be locked down, there's not much you can do about that.
- nrmitchi 6y ago
  I did not state one way or the other in my comment about whether it was right or wrong, and frankly my opinion on that topic is not of importance to my point here. I stated that it seems clear that these people are moving way from temporary restrictions (by relocating to places that do not have the same restrictions), and that there is no guarantee that any of these will be 'permanent' moves after those restrictions are no longer applicable.
  - bcheung 6y ago
    It's certainly a factor, but "temporary" concerns are probably not significant enough to cause people to move. Moving is a big ordeal unless you are young and can pack everything you own into a car.
    - nrmitchi 6y ago
      This article, and my comment, are discussion insanely wealthy individuals who have co-founded, led, or exited from very large companies (Splunk, Palantir, Opendoor, Dropbox, etc), or run VC firms. Moving is much less of a big deal when your primary residence is a minuscule portion of your net worth and you are almost definitely paying someone else to handle all of the logistics of a move.

throwaway45349 6y ago

What's wrong with going to restaurants and public events? If people don't want to be locked down, there's not much you can do about that.

nrmitchi 6y ago
I did not state one way or the other in my comment about whether it was right or wrong, and frankly my opinion on that topic is not of importance to my point here. I stated that it seems clear that these people are moving way from temporary restrictions (by relocating to places that do not have the same restrictions), and that there is no guarantee that any of these will be 'permanent' moves after those restrictions are no longer applicable.
- bcheung 6y ago
  It's certainly a factor, but "temporary" concerns are probably not significant enough to cause people to move. Moving is a big ordeal unless you are young and can pack everything you own into a car.
  - nrmitchi 6y ago
    This article, and my comment, are discussion insanely wealthy individuals who have co-founded, led, or exited from very large companies (Splunk, Palantir, Opendoor, Dropbox, etc), or run VC firms. Moving is much less of a big deal when your primary residence is a minuscule portion of your net worth and you are almost definitely paying someone else to handle all of the logistics of a move.