I don't know. They could pay a 20-30% premium over the typical IT wage there and still be far below SV averages, plus reap the benefits of Florida's tax incenti

I don't know. They could pay a 20-30% premium over the typical IT wage there and still be far below SV averages, plus reap the benefits of Florida's tax incentives for entertainment industry companies (at least they used to have a massive tax break for such companies a couple of years ago, before I fled to the Bay Area--I doubled my salary, but my real cost of living only went up 30% or so, and the best part is I'm not working on some web/mobile app in a sweatshop/startup using fad-driven-development on a macbook). Maybe they're hoping to poach from the DoD/simulations and entertainment video game industries that form the backbone of the IT industry in that area, but even in that case I'm skeptical they're going to find much. The bigger problem, from my point of view, is basically one of culture. Most of florida is extremely conservative, focused on tourism-based entertainment, and (my opinion) neither very family friendly (for families who live there--the big tourist parks' existence doesn't make it a family friendly place) nor a good place for the younger Bay Area startup (stereo)types in terms of cultural and social attractions.