6 ms·

I really don't understand the over fixation on Silicon Valley. I lived there for awhile. Its got high population density is full of a lot of fake people (peop

by nirvana 14y ago

I really don't understand the over fixation on Silicon Valley. I lived there for awhile. Its got high population density is full of a lot of fake people (people who are happy to "help" your startup for just a taste of the equity), fake investors, and an extraordinary amount of noise. I'm sure there are many people who love it for the same reasons that high pressure finance types love new york city. But this seems anathema to building a good startup- where you need some isolation some time to focus and to keep a broad and rational perspective, not to be high on each others fumes. Plus, the bay area is very expensive, it attracts engineers who are more likely to jump to the next hot startup, its hard to find good office space, etc. It isn't like you can't get broadband everywhere. And I think people really misunderestimate the importance of good engineers who stick around. Turnover means critical knowledge is walking out the door. This makes bumfuck Ohio[1] a better place if retaining talent is important. The idea that only Stanford educated engineers are good enough to work at startups is silly. (my experience- finding the best engineers is not correlated with ivy league degrees.) Bumfuck Ohio may not have the cool meet ups that SV has, but it doesn't have the two orders of magnitude more distractions that SV has as well. Nor does it have the jealousy driven culture where every 4th person has an overpriced show off car, etc. The reason everyone focuses on the Valley? People are focused on venture capital, not building profitable businesses. Venture capital lives in the valley because for a lot of these VC firms a 90 minute flight to Seattle for a board meeting is just too much effort. That's it. [1] Nothing against Ohio, never been there, just picking it for an example.

yardie 14y ago
Every place has a specialty so I wouldn't say everything happens in SV. They just happen to be more web focused than a lot of other places. Want to do finance computing? NYC. Government and aerospace? DC-Maryland-Virginia metro. Movies and VFX? LA. Obviously there are outliers, which have a rich cross section of talent, Miami, Chicago, Charlotte. But if you want to get a web-based business up and running and need a deep pool of talent there is no better place than Silicon Valley.
sabat 14y ago
I really don't understand the over fixation on Silicon Valley. I think the rest of your comment is elaboration on this theme. You don't understand, mainly because your views are distorted. A couple of examples to give you the idea: it attracts engineers who are more likely to jump to the next hot startup Untrue. Certainly you can find those types, but the Bay Area is full of people who are willing to stick with a company they believe in. It's just that you're focussing on smaller, more questionable startups. They're not the majority. This makes bumfuck Ohio[1] a better place if retaining talent is important. But you are much less likely to find talented engineers who just happen to live in Bumfuck, Ohio. Nerds tend to flock, because flocking is important. Startups need an ecosystem. Nor does it have the jealousy driven culture where every 4th person has an overpriced show off car, etc. I've been a Bay Area professional for 20 years, have worked at multiple startups, and have yet to see "every 4th person" with a show-off car. I think I know two or three people with super-expensive cars. Most people in the Bay Area who are involved in startups are serious about business and technology. That's why we have so many major success stories, and smaller ones you probably haven't heard of — for example, have you heard of Workday? It's a SaaS company started by Dave Duffield, who founded and ran PeopleSoft previously. Workday is growing like a weed, not because of wild infusions of crazy venture cash, but because it's a good service and the customer base is expanding. The reason everyone focuses on the Valley? People are focused on venture capital, not building profitable businesses. Wholly untrue. The entire focus is on building successful, profitable businesses, not on raking in VC money. That's why Heroku, Salesforce (which bought Heroku), Evernote, Dropbox, and — since history matters — Apple, Oracle, and even HP are here. I could make a much bigger list of successful and up-and-coming startups, but you can do the research if you actually are interested. You're focused on trivial companies and outlying flakey people. They're not the majority.
podperson 14y ago
I think Paul Graham has discussed this fairly well: http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html I live in Alabama. I joke that "high tech" here means "installing Windows and supporting Sharepoint" and it's not far from the truth. If I weren't the "trailing spouse" of an academic there's no way I'd live here given my skill set. It follows that people with similar or complementary skill sets to mine are hard to find here. I have friends on the west coast who can pull together a project using friends and colleagues working in their spare time (gee, I wonder how Apple got started...). Similarly, when I was working in California I would frequently get requests from colleagues to contribute to their projects and often give them finished pieces they could plug into their projects the next morning. This kind of talent density is a huge "force multiplier". In the time it would take me to, say, find a designer or scalability guy I can work with who is willing to put sweat equity into a project, or do something for me for a few bucks, blah blah blah -- in Silicon Valley it would already be a working demo with seed money. In fact, it's worse than that. I've been trying to find locals to work with me on stuff for years. I've built projects start-to-finish (but with missing pieces) several times over in that time.
- netmau5 14y ago
  I'm in Bama too. We've got plenty of brilliant people but they can be difficult to find and usually aren't well-connected. Want to get coffee sometime?
  - podperson 14y ago
    Love to!
Mc_Big_G 14y ago
I moved to SF from bumfuck Ohio (Swanton) last year and it was one of the best decisions of my life. Besides the great weather and quality if life here, the thing I enjoy most is being around people who "get it". Ohio wants microsoft and SAP developers. The small biz dev help and incubators only care about manufacturing, specifically solar. Finding like-minded entrepreneurs is like finding a needle in a haystack. Finding a co-founder with the same level of technical skill is just plain impossible. Thats just a taste of it. [edit typos on Bart]
T_S_ 14y ago
The same reason uranium ore doesn't explode. Density. I lived in several other places filled with talented people--in other industries. They just weren't interested in what I was doing. Risking all my time and money on a tech startup seemed strange and maybe crazy. Here the vibe changes as soon as you step off the plane and buy a coffee.
rogerbinns 14y ago
One thing about California is that state law explicitly says anything developed on your own time with your own equipment is yours (obvious conflicts with your employer aside). Every employment contract I have seen outside of California has said something to the effect that anything you develop, no matter whose time and equipment is used, or relevance to your job or employer belongs to them. Even if you worked for a software company, coming up with new cat food would belong to them. Many times there is also a non-compete but at least some states require payment during the non-compete period. This lack of "friction" in California makes for a more vibrant scene in starting companies and getting people to join.
- wccrawford 14y ago
  It's not hard to find a contract that only gives them rights to things that are relevant to their interests. Mine lets me have anything that isn't relevant. Of course I'd prefer to keep anything I think of on my own time, but proving that it was on my own time is nearly impossible, and I think this provides them some protection against assholes. And I have no interest in competing against my employer anyhow.
- georgemcbay 14y ago
  Virtually every employment contract I have seen even inside California is extremely biased towards the company owning everything. It is just that in most cases that contract isn't enforceable, even if you sign it.
- mgkimsal 14y ago
  "Even if you worked for a software company, coming up with new cat food would belong to them." As would any terrorist plans or child porn. This has come up a couple times in contracts with employers in the past, and I tell them they really don't want to own everything I develop, and I've had that clause struck from a contract with a bit of pushing.
  - rogerbinns 14y ago
    I've encountered several contracts in California where they ask you to list everything you created outside of the company. The implication is that anything you don't list was then created while working for the company and hence implicitly owned by them. They explained the provision is for my benefit. I finally just started putting in "Numerous past and future works identified with my personal copyright".
philp 14y ago
I'm usually not a fan of the dismissive tone that is customary in many a HN comment, but you simply don't know what you're talking about.
potatolicious 14y ago
> "Plus, the bay area is very expensive, it attracts engineers who are more likely to jump to the next hot startup, its hard to find good office space, etc." I disagree completely. Engineers here are no more likely to jump ship than anywhere else - the difference is that in some geographies you can keep people tied to you via lack of opportunities (i.e., "so... who exactly in town is hiring?"), but with mobility so prevalent these days, even that won't hold a skilled engineer for long. And from my own experience - I was the first one on the ground setting up a satellite office for a company not based in SF. I found a great office space in 2 days. > "This makes bumfuck Ohio[1] a better place if retaining talent is important." As an engineer in SF, I simply have no interest in living in bumfuck Ohio. You'd have to pay me considerably more than even SF levels of salary for me to make that sacrifice. There are many places that may attract tech talent that isn't SF or the Valley - but they are all major metropolises, because they contain the lifestyle that the typically young-ish technology folk are looking for. In the current climate there is no reason for anyone to hole up in a backwater and not live life while they build their startup. > "Turnover means critical knowledge is walking out the door." Fully agreed. So who is more likely to stick around: someone who is getting paid a (very high) SF salary, meaningful equity, all the perks you can throw at them, interesting work, a city full of people who get technology, sunny weather, mild temperatures... or bumfuck Ohio, where salaries are severely depressed, and the community of hackers is small, and the people who surround simply don't get it? > "Bumfuck Ohio may not have the cool meet ups that SV has" Read: There are few opportunities to network. Meetups are a core part of what makes SV tick, not just between VCs and those hungry for funding, but between engineers. They are an incredibly powerful recruiting tool and exposure to new tech and new products. > "People are focused on venture capital, not building profitable businesses." Have you been to SF or SV? Have you actually met the startup folk around here?
- jay_kyburz 14y ago
  > As an engineer in SF, I simply have no interest in living in bumfuck Ohio. You'd have to pay me considerably more than even SF levels of salary for me to make that sacrifice. I think the point is there are great programmers already living in Ohio, who have family and ties there.
toemetoch 14y ago
I really don't understand the over fixation on Silicon Valley. There's a lot of history behind it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
joshAg 14y ago
here's why I don't plan on leaving the bay area for anything other than the perfect job with the perfect pay and perfect benefits (note, those are all time-varient): 1) employment options: I'm most likely not going to work for the same company forever. I love my current company and coworkers, but I'm also realistic. I doubt I'll be at the same company in 10 years. Many times the only way to get a raise or a promotion is to switch companies, not just because companies don't always hire from within, but because maybe they don't have any current openings to promote. Companies go through bad times and have to lay people off, too. Maybe the new product turned out to be a bust, so they only need about half the current team to start a new project. Maybe they want to re-org. Maybe my boss or a co-worker sucks so much that I don't want to work with them anymore, and there's no openings to switch teams. Maybe my family situation changes so I want to work more/less hours. For whatever reason, I am almost certainly going to have to switch companies sometime between now and when I semi-retire in about 30 years or so. If I am in the valley, I know that I will be able to get another job relatively quickly, simply because there are a lot of job opportunities (there are tons of startups, quite a few large technology companies, and many smaller niche technology companies that no one outside of the relevant industry has heard of). Depending on the job market not completely tanking, I could have a job in as little time as immediately or as long as 6 months. During this time, I know I can also find contract work with another local company in addition to telecommuting contracting, if my emergency fund depletes early. If I'm in Nowhere, USA, then it's a pretty good bet that the company I just left is the only game in town. That means I'm going to have to relocate or /(tele)?commute/ to a new job. That's not fun, especially if I have a wife with a job, or kids in school or both. Outside of Boston or NYC, I would be worried about finding a job quickly without having to move a significant distance. Even a place like Seattle, which has Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and a number of startups worries me a bit. 2) employment limitations: In CA noncompetes contracts are unenforceable. I don't know if this is the case in NYC, but in MA, noncompetes are legal, and from what I've heard usually about 1 year without pay. Which completely sucks for me, because the companies who will want to hire me the most will (most likely) be the competitors of the company i just left thanks to the skillset I've honed working for the previous company (eg, if I work on enterprise DB's, then I'm going to be much more employable as a DB engineer than as frontend javascript dev). Honestly, I refuse to sign any non-compete unless I am paid my full salary and benefits for the entirety of the non-compete period, regardless of the reason for leaving. I doubt most companies would be willing to sign such an agreement or forgo a non-compete clause for a typical engineer, but even if they are, that is a whole bunch of extra negotiating I have to deal with that I don't have to deal with in CA. 3) what i develop in my free time: In CA, as long as I don't use company equipment, don't develop on company time, and don't develop something relating to the company, whatever I develop is entirely mine. This isn't always the case, and once again, just means a whole lot of extra negotiating if i'm working in a state where this isn't the case. 4) geography: in general, any point in CA is less than 120 miles (~2 hours drive time) from at least two completely different climates. This means that I don't have to travel far to "get away". Weekend trips are just a car ride away, and there are quite a few great state and national parks that are just a day trip away as well. 5) Salary and benefits: Salary isn't everything, but it is still very important to me, since I am not yet independently wealthy. Certain things like housing and food will adjust with my salary in different locations. Other things, like the price of a car or the size of my retirement fund ( I put away a fixed percentage of my income), or the cost of a vacation to someplace tropical won't. Taking a lower salary means a lower standard of living (unless the variable-with-geolocation cost expenses drop low enough relative to the salary drop on an absolute scale to make up the difference). 6) Relocating: I already touched on this, but relocating sucks. I have a fair amount of stuff that I either need to sell and buy again after relocating or bring with me. Hiring movers is expensive, but it saves me time from having to take time off to move myself. Moving myself is cheaper, but it is a timesink and adds stress to an already stressful process. In either case, there is still a rather large cost to relocating. Regardless of where I am moving, I would at least want a relocation bonus to cover moving costs, and depending on how many tech companies are located where I'm moving I would also want a relocation bonus to move back to the bay area, where I know I can get another job (my new company might offer a relocation bonus as well, but not all companies offer this, and I don't want to limit my search to only companies offering relocation bonuses). Of course, the pragmatist in me tells me that getting a package like this will be practically impossible. 7) Culture: I love the fact that I am judged based on my abilities and not my outward appearance. I love being able to choose what I wear every day. I love that I can set my own hours within reason, so I can schedule doctor appointments, dentist appointment, car work appointments, and other things at reasonable hours. I love that short of a full-on emergency, crunch period or on-call rotation, my lunch hour(s), evening time, weekends, and vacation are my own. I love that my company provides many free drinks and snacks that run the gambit from healthy to junk. I love that my company has a large break room with TVs, game consoles, ping-pong, foosball, pinball, and pool and actually expects us to take breaks during the day to use the break room. Many of these perks are nonexistent or limited compared to tech companies in other areas or non-tech companies with internal tech divisions. I also love that fact that most, if not all of these perks are pretty standard across tech companies in the bay area. FWIW, there's a bunch of stuff I hate about the bay area, like high rent and house prices, expensive food, high state taxes, less than great public transportation outside in silicon valley, having to drive everywhere since it's usually too far to bike or walk outside of sf, high gas prices, &c., &c. Despite those things, though, I still find the benefits to working in the bay area compared to other areas far outweigh the disadvantages.

by nirvana 14y ago

yardie 14y ago

Every place has a specialty so I wouldn't say everything happens in SV. They just happen to be more web focused than a lot of other places. Want to do finance computing? NYC. Government and aerospace? DC-Maryland-Virginia metro. Movies and VFX? LA. Obviously there are outliers, which have a rich cross section of talent, Miami, Chicago, Charlotte. But if you want to get a web-based business up and running and need a deep pool of talent there is no better place than Silicon Valley.

sabat 14y ago

I really don't understand the over fixation on Silicon Valley. I think the rest of your comment is elaboration on this theme. You don't understand, mainly because your views are distorted. A couple of examples to give you the idea: it attracts engineers who are more likely to jump to the next hot startup Untrue. Certainly you can find those types, but the Bay Area is full of people who are willing to stick with a company they believe in. It's just that you're focussing on smaller, more questionable startups. They're not the majority. This makes bumfuck Ohio[1] a better place if retaining talent is important. But you are much less likely to find talented engineers who just happen to live in Bumfuck, Ohio. Nerds tend to flock, because flocking is important. Startups need an ecosystem. Nor does it have the jealousy driven culture where every 4th person has an overpriced show off car, etc. I've been a Bay Area professional for 20 years, have worked at multiple startups, and have yet to see "every 4th person" with a show-off car. I think I know two or three people with super-expensive cars. Most people in the Bay Area who are involved in startups are serious about business and technology. That's why we have so many major success stories, and smaller ones you probably haven't heard of — for example, have you heard of Workday? It's a SaaS company started by Dave Duffield, who founded and ran PeopleSoft previously. Workday is growing like a weed, not because of wild infusions of crazy venture cash, but because it's a good service and the customer base is expanding. The reason everyone focuses on the Valley? People are focused on venture capital, not building profitable businesses. Wholly untrue. The entire focus is on building successful, profitable businesses, not on raking in VC money. That's why Heroku, Salesforce (which bought Heroku), Evernote, Dropbox, and — since history matters — Apple, Oracle, and even HP are here. I could make a much bigger list of successful and up-and-coming startups, but you can do the research if you actually are interested. You're focused on trivial companies and outlying flakey people. They're not the majority.

podperson 14y ago

I think Paul Graham has discussed this fairly well: http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html I live in Alabama. I joke that "high tech" here means "installing Windows and supporting Sharepoint" and it's not far from the truth. If I weren't the "trailing spouse" of an academic there's no way I'd live here given my skill set. It follows that people with similar or complementary skill sets to mine are hard to find here. I have friends on the west coast who can pull together a project using friends and colleagues working in their spare time (gee, I wonder how Apple got started...). Similarly, when I was working in California I would frequently get requests from colleagues to contribute to their projects and often give them finished pieces they could plug into their projects the next morning. This kind of talent density is a huge "force multiplier". In the time it would take me to, say, find a designer or scalability guy I can work with who is willing to put sweat equity into a project, or do something for me for a few bucks, blah blah blah -- in Silicon Valley it would already be a working demo with seed money. In fact, it's worse than that. I've been trying to find locals to work with me on stuff for years. I've built projects start-to-finish (but with missing pieces) several times over in that time.

netmau5 14y ago
I'm in Bama too. We've got plenty of brilliant people but they can be difficult to find and usually aren't well-connected. Want to get coffee sometime?
- podperson 14y ago
  Love to!

Mc_Big_G 14y ago

I moved to SF from bumfuck Ohio (Swanton) last year and it was one of the best decisions of my life. Besides the great weather and quality if life here, the thing I enjoy most is being around people who "get it". Ohio wants microsoft and SAP developers. The small biz dev help and incubators only care about manufacturing, specifically solar. Finding like-minded entrepreneurs is like finding a needle in a haystack. Finding a co-founder with the same level of technical skill is just plain impossible. Thats just a taste of it. [edit typos on Bart]

T_S_ 14y ago

The same reason uranium ore doesn't explode. Density. I lived in several other places filled with talented people--in other industries. They just weren't interested in what I was doing. Risking all my time and money on a tech startup seemed strange and maybe crazy. Here the vibe changes as soon as you step off the plane and buy a coffee.

rogerbinns 14y ago

One thing about California is that state law explicitly says anything developed on your own time with your own equipment is yours (obvious conflicts with your employer aside). Every employment contract I have seen outside of California has said something to the effect that anything you develop, no matter whose time and equipment is used, or relevance to your job or employer belongs to them. Even if you worked for a software company, coming up with new cat food would belong to them. Many times there is also a non-compete but at least some states require payment during the non-compete period. This lack of "friction" in California makes for a more vibrant scene in starting companies and getting people to join.

wccrawford 14y ago
It's not hard to find a contract that only gives them rights to things that are relevant to their interests. Mine lets me have anything that isn't relevant. Of course I'd prefer to keep anything I think of on my own time, but proving that it was on my own time is nearly impossible, and I think this provides them some protection against assholes. And I have no interest in competing against my employer anyhow.
georgemcbay 14y ago
Virtually every employment contract I have seen even inside California is extremely biased towards the company owning everything. It is just that in most cases that contract isn't enforceable, even if you sign it.
mgkimsal 14y ago
"Even if you worked for a software company, coming up with new cat food would belong to them." As would any terrorist plans or child porn. This has come up a couple times in contracts with employers in the past, and I tell them they really don't want to own everything I develop, and I've had that clause struck from a contract with a bit of pushing.
- rogerbinns 14y ago
  I've encountered several contracts in California where they ask you to list everything you created outside of the company. The implication is that anything you don't list was then created while working for the company and hence implicitly owned by them. They explained the provision is for my benefit. I finally just started putting in "Numerous past and future works identified with my personal copyright".

philp 14y ago

I'm usually not a fan of the dismissive tone that is customary in many a HN comment, but you simply don't know what you're talking about.

potatolicious 14y ago

> "Plus, the bay area is very expensive, it attracts engineers who are more likely to jump to the next hot startup, its hard to find good office space, etc." I disagree completely. Engineers here are no more likely to jump ship than anywhere else - the difference is that in some geographies you can keep people tied to you via lack of opportunities (i.e., "so... who exactly in town is hiring?"), but with mobility so prevalent these days, even that won't hold a skilled engineer for long. And from my own experience - I was the first one on the ground setting up a satellite office for a company not based in SF. I found a great office space in 2 days. > "This makes bumfuck Ohio[1] a better place if retaining talent is important." As an engineer in SF, I simply have no interest in living in bumfuck Ohio. You'd have to pay me considerably more than even SF levels of salary for me to make that sacrifice. There are many places that may attract tech talent that isn't SF or the Valley - but they are all major metropolises, because they contain the lifestyle that the typically young-ish technology folk are looking for. In the current climate there is no reason for anyone to hole up in a backwater and not live life while they build their startup. > "Turnover means critical knowledge is walking out the door." Fully agreed. So who is more likely to stick around: someone who is getting paid a (very high) SF salary, meaningful equity, all the perks you can throw at them, interesting work, a city full of people who get technology, sunny weather, mild temperatures... or bumfuck Ohio, where salaries are severely depressed, and the community of hackers is small, and the people who surround simply don't get it? > "Bumfuck Ohio may not have the cool meet ups that SV has" Read: There are few opportunities to network. Meetups are a core part of what makes SV tick, not just between VCs and those hungry for funding, but between engineers. They are an incredibly powerful recruiting tool and exposure to new tech and new products. > "People are focused on venture capital, not building profitable businesses." Have you been to SF or SV? Have you actually met the startup folk around here?

jay_kyburz 14y ago
> As an engineer in SF, I simply have no interest in living in bumfuck Ohio. You'd have to pay me considerably more than even SF levels of salary for me to make that sacrifice. I think the point is there are great programmers already living in Ohio, who have family and ties there.

toemetoch 14y ago

I really don't understand the over fixation on Silicon Valley. There's a lot of history behind it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFSPHfZQpIQ

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

joshAg 14y ago

here's why I don't plan on leaving the bay area for anything other than the perfect job with the perfect pay and perfect benefits (note, those are all time-varient): 1) employment options: I'm most likely not going to work for the same company forever. I love my current company and coworkers, but I'm also realistic. I doubt I'll be at the same company in 10 years. Many times the only way to get a raise or a promotion is to switch companies, not just because companies don't always hire from within, but because maybe they don't have any current openings to promote. Companies go through bad times and have to lay people off, too. Maybe the new product turned out to be a bust, so they only need about half the current team to start a new project. Maybe they want to re-org. Maybe my boss or a co-worker sucks so much that I don't want to work with them anymore, and there's no openings to switch teams. Maybe my family situation changes so I want to work more/less hours. For whatever reason, I am almost certainly going to have to switch companies sometime between now and when I semi-retire in about 30 years or so. If I am in the valley, I know that I will be able to get another job relatively quickly, simply because there are a lot of job opportunities (there are tons of startups, quite a few large technology companies, and many smaller niche technology companies that no one outside of the relevant industry has heard of). Depending on the job market not completely tanking, I could have a job in as little time as immediately or as long as 6 months. During this time, I know I can also find contract work with another local company in addition to telecommuting contracting, if my emergency fund depletes early. If I'm in Nowhere, USA, then it's a pretty good bet that the company I just left is the only game in town. That means I'm going to have to relocate or /(tele)?commute/ to a new job. That's not fun, especially if I have a wife with a job, or kids in school or both. Outside of Boston or NYC, I would be worried about finding a job quickly without having to move a significant distance. Even a place like Seattle, which has Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and a number of startups worries me a bit. 2) employment limitations: In CA noncompetes contracts are unenforceable. I don't know if this is the case in NYC, but in MA, noncompetes are legal, and from what I've heard usually about 1 year without pay. Which completely sucks for me, because the companies who will want to hire me the most will (most likely) be the competitors of the company i just left thanks to the skillset I've honed working for the previous company (eg, if I work on enterprise DB's, then I'm going to be much more employable as a DB engineer than as frontend javascript dev). Honestly, I refuse to sign any non-compete unless I am paid my full salary and benefits for the entirety of the non-compete period, regardless of the reason for leaving. I doubt most companies would be willing to sign such an agreement or forgo a non-compete clause for a typical engineer, but even if they are, that is a whole bunch of extra negotiating I have to deal with that I don't have to deal with in CA. 3) what i develop in my free time: In CA, as long as I don't use company equipment, don't develop on company time, and don't develop something relating to the company, whatever I develop is entirely mine. This isn't always the case, and once again, just means a whole lot of extra negotiating if i'm working in a state where this isn't the case. 4) geography: in general, any point in CA is less than 120 miles (~2 hours drive time) from at least two completely different climates. This means that I don't have to travel far to "get away". Weekend trips are just a car ride away, and there are quite a few great state and national parks that are just a day trip away as well. 5) Salary and benefits: Salary isn't everything, but it is still very important to me, since I am not yet independently wealthy. Certain things like housing and food will adjust with my salary in different locations. Other things, like the price of a car or the size of my retirement fund ( I put away a fixed percentage of my income), or the cost of a vacation to someplace tropical won't. Taking a lower salary means a lower standard of living (unless the variable-with-geolocation cost expenses drop low enough relative to the salary drop on an absolute scale to make up the difference). 6) Relocating: I already touched on this, but relocating sucks. I have a fair amount of stuff that I either need to sell and buy again after relocating or bring with me. Hiring movers is expensive, but it saves me time from having to take time off to move myself. Moving myself is cheaper, but it is a timesink and adds stress to an already stressful process. In either case, there is still a rather large cost to relocating. Regardless of where I am moving, I would at least want a relocation bonus to cover moving costs, and depending on how many tech companies are located where I'm moving I would also want a relocation bonus to move back to the bay area, where I know I can get another job (my new company might offer a relocation bonus as well, but not all companies offer this, and I don't want to limit my search to only companies offering relocation bonuses). Of course, the pragmatist in me tells me that getting a package like this will be practically impossible. 7) Culture: I love the fact that I am judged based on my abilities and not my outward appearance. I love being able to choose what I wear every day. I love that I can set my own hours within reason, so I can schedule doctor appointments, dentist appointment, car work appointments, and other things at reasonable hours. I love that short of a full-on emergency, crunch period or on-call rotation, my lunch hour(s), evening time, weekends, and vacation are my own. I love that my company provides many free drinks and snacks that run the gambit from healthy to junk. I love that my company has a large break room with TVs, game consoles, ping-pong, foosball, pinball, and pool and actually expects us to take breaks during the day to use the break room. Many of these perks are nonexistent or limited compared to tech companies in other areas or non-tech companies with internal tech divisions. I also love that fact that most, if not all of these perks are pretty standard across tech companies in the bay area. FWIW, there's a bunch of stuff I hate about the bay area, like high rent and house prices, expensive food, high state taxes, less than great public transportation outside in silicon valley, having to drive everywhere since it's usually too far to bike or walk outside of sf, high gas prices, &c., &c. Despite those things, though, I still find the benefits to working in the bay area compared to other areas far outweigh the disadvantages.