Maybe the parent means that someone working a support job in SF might want to think long and hard about moving across the country where they presumably know noone and have no social support network or other potential employers if their job with Lyft goes away.

But consider also how many of those (barely getting by?) working customer support in SF are actually locals and how many moved to the area to get into tech. Their social support network in the area may be pretty thin.

People moving to SF specifically for support jobs? That sounds very unlikely to me. Support jobs in a region are filled by locals with limited employment options or by non-locals who have other reasons for moving to that region and just need a job, in my experience.

Perhaps not specifically for support jobs, but for opportunities to join startups in whatever positions they can.

Haha, as someone who would prefer to live on the west coast for getting my career started (but ultimately wants to settle down in the South since family is nearby), those cities are my top choices as well. I'm currently in Knoxville finishing up grad school, but I've been scouting out possible technology-oriented cities in the South (unfortunately, there aren't many).

I toured Chattanooga the other day. It's a cute town, but it felt kind of small and somewhat empty to me. I lived in Atlanta for 4 years during my undergrad. Despite being only 30 minutes away from my immediate family, Atlanta is one of my least favorite cities in the US. Too much crime, too little ambition (at least compared to SF and NY), horrible traffic, and not much "living" going on within the city. Everyone basically commutes into it from the suburbs for work and then drives back out in the evening. If you wander around SF, you see all kinds of people out and about. In Atlanta, everyone's cooped up inside; the sidewalks are mostly empty.

Raleigh, Cary, and Charlotte are nice, but they're a little too suburban/vanilla for my taste.

Nashville is quickly becoming my top choice (if I'm unable to live in San Francisco or Austin, TX). I have some family there, and I recently read that it's one of the fastest growing cities for 25-30 year olds interesting in technology.

So, I don't know... as someone who's lived here almost all my life, I just wish the South had at least one big city that was world class in something.

Maybe it's not far enough south to be considered Real(TM), but I think you conspicuously omitted Raleigh (the overall Triangle area that includes Durham & Chapel Hill, too).

Besides the companies other people have mentioned (Cisco, RedHat, IBM), there are many others that either have long-established or are trying to grow their presence in the Triangle area.

Google (Chapel Hill -- small engineering office mostly used to recruit interns from UNC & Duke)

Citrix (downtown Raleigh -- I think this is their biggest office outside Santa Clara, and they consistently have 50-75 job openings there)

NetApp, Microsoft, Lenovo (their HQ), IBM (still a major presence even though it's shrunk a lot over the past decade), Genband/Avaya/Ciena (all created after Nortel's implosion), BASF, Bayer CropScience, SAS (HQ), John Deere, Credit Suisse, Cree (HQ), EMC, Fidelity Investments, RTI International, the US EPA, and many more.

In biotech, there's, Pfizer, Biogen, Merck, UCB Biosciences, Quintiles, Parexel, PPD, United Therapeutics, Glaxo SmithKline, Syngenta, and many, many more pharmas & CROs.

I've actually never been in NC, [0] and also don't know anyone from anywhere in the state, so I have no idea what it's like. Do you have either personal or second-hand knowledge of the area?

[0] Not even to pass through on the periodic AL<->PA trips I used to take!

I do. Born elsewhere in NC and, went to college in Chapel Hill, and have lived and worked in the area for a bit after. Chapel Hill/Carrboro are nice, well-to-do college towns, Durham isn't too far down the road and the downtown (like many in the country) is experiencing a resurgence, Raleigh is the 'big' city in the area but I haven't really had a reason to do much there. Outside of downtown, it seems pretty surburban with people commuting in and out on the ring roads. Cary is very paint-by-numbers suburban with the tech companies already mentioned plus a lot of people from out of state (jokingly called "Containment Area for Relocated Yankees" by some). You're 3-4 hrs from the Appalachians 2.5-3+ from the beach (depending on where you're headed) and have pretty good connections at RDU, which is a relatively pleasant airport. I-95 will connect you up and down the eastern seaboard (about 4 hrs to DC, 4 hrs to Charleston, etc).

Nvidia and a few other tech companies used to have big teams in that region (raleigh/durham/chapel hill). Lots of biotech in the area, cheap cost of living (relative), tons of colleges, moderate climate. Not a bad place, but a bit slow/small-towny for my taste.

Red Hat is headquartered in Raleigh (founded in Durham I think), and Cisco and IBM have big triangle presences too. Epic (of Unreal Engine fame) and SAS are based in Cary.

Are you me?

Also, Charlotte. It's like Atlanta, but better/smaller/in the foothills of NC. So like Atlanta, but better.

Atlanta's still pretty cheap. You can live pretty much anywhere you want with an $85K+ salary, which isn't hard to get no matter your specialty. As far as large cities go, I'd call Atlanta a bargain.