Some of it is that H1-Bs can’t be founders and startups usually can’t secure visas, and Seattle is a smaller population overall with fewer developers coming fro

Some of it is that H1-Bs can’t be founders and startups usually can’t secure visas, and Seattle is a smaller population overall with fewer developers coming from the metro area. The Bay Area and NY have some of the best STEM schools in the world right next door, all western Washington has is a pretty good public university (UW) with a CS program that’s been largely irrelevant to the tech scene until fairly recently. I’ve gotten to know many talented non-us devs while working in enterprise but I can’t do a startup with them, couldn’t even hire them. Their visa makes them indentured servants who will be deported if they’re doing anything other than working at a big company for the next 4-10 years. This exists in every city that’s big in tech, but in Seattle it’s a quantitative difference that becomes a qualitative difference. I’ve worked with at least a hundred developers in Seattle over the last decade and only three of them were from the region or attended undergrad here.