It's the "drained talent" aspect, which IMO is correct. If I remember correctly, government salaries typically max out around G14, which was lower than most sta

It's the "drained talent" aspect, which IMO is correct. If I remember correctly, government salaries typically max out around G14, which was lower than most starting SFBA bigco salaries. The world is pretty ripe with people who can make a stable, usable vaccine website. But on the whole, they don't want the job for 50k in a dingy building from the 1950s when they could make 250k to work on a shiny app that psychologically manipulates their peers in perverse but increasingly effective ways. Imagine soda companies buying up basically all of the water in america and canada to make some highly addictive line of drinks, such that when a hurricane hits and people need rations, the government can't get water at a price and quantity sufficient to provide relief. Big tech is so profitable compared to every other sector that they can outbid the rest of the nation for engineering resources, leaving every other sector to be staffed by the dregs. This is an oversimplification of course. Some people really want to stay in not-san-francisco. Some people really want to serve their country. But in aggregate, engineering talent is disproportionately hoarded by SV tech cos because they're willing to buy as much as the world can make for more than anyone else can pay. edit: I say "engineering" a lot here but it's similarly true for UX design. The concentration effects are weaker, but the price deltas are bigger.