"everything that matters" is quite subjective. I live in the mountains, with endless outdoor activity within minutes of my place. I can drive to 8 national parks and monuments in half a day. I have a great place to raise my kids, and I am NOT surrounded by tech events and meetups... I am surrounded by people who like to spend our free time outside. All of those things matter to me.

So whether or not Silicon Valley is important to you has everything to do with what you value in life. As the article said, there is a big generation gap here. I'm an older coder who doesn't give a crap how many opportunities are around because I only need one at a time. And with remote work becoming ever more prevalent, I just don't foresee ever having a desire to move to SV.

I live where I can lead the life I want, not work the job I want.

That pretty much describes where I live in Berkeley. I'm within easy walking distance of some nice short hikes and reasonable driving distance of more intense hikes or rock climbing. It's not literally in the mountains but there are some pretty incredible hills, forests and, of course, ocean beaches.

I also don't see how being "NOT surrounded" by tech events could possibly be a good thing. If you're not interested, you don't have to go. It's not like tech is forced on everyone! But if you suddenly feel like going to an engaging talk—whether it's on a JS framework or on combinatorial game theory—you always have the option. You wouldn't have that choice otherwise.

> I also don't see how being "NOT surrounded" by tech events could possibly be a good thing. If you're not interested, you don't have to go.

The monoculture of "tech" is a grind after you visit other places. The Bay Area is a fine place if you get excited by networking events and like asking people at a bar about their deck, but I find it mind-numbing.

It was one of the primary reasons I left SF for NYC. There is still world-class tech employment to be found here, but it is surrounded by world-class industries of all other kinds, too.

My tech employee friends in NYC, who work for respected names and are great at what they do, don't spend weekends at hackathons or weeknights running from tech office to tech office for free food at meetups. Here, it is okay and even normal to finish a work day and go experience art, culture, history, etc... things which all do exist in SF and are often great quality there, for sure, but which in certain employment circles seem to be pretty much ignored.

To each their own.

NYC has some pretty brutal work life balance expectations in pretty much every industry I've talked to people from.

Outside of SV startups, many companies in the Bay have reasonable hours. There is definitely a workaholic expectation in NYC.

That's a common sentiment, but woefully exaggerated: it's not like the Bay Area is only tech. I mean, it's not New York, but neither is anywhere else in the country. The Bay Area has all the art and culture and music you'd expect of a cosmopolitan city, it has the same generic business/sales/finance/law professionals, it has two of the best universities in the country. It has everything you'd get elsewhere and tech.

It's a perfectly diverse metropolitan area with tech as an addition, not as a replacement. That's strictly more than many other cities I've spent time in from Ottawa to Charlotte. Calling it a monoculture is simply not accurate or, if it is, so many cities don't have even that.

Ehh, I don't think it's exaggerated at all - having lived both in SF and NYC.

There exists things that aren't tech in SF, but the scale of which is much lower than other major cities like NYC. More importantly though, even in non-tech scenes, tech is always there. It's the guy at the party that seems to find you no matter how much you move around the room. I found it suffocating - no matter where you go you can never fully disengage from the industry.

The measure of a tech monoculture isn't (IMO) the existence of other things, it's whether or not tech tags along with all of these other things.

Right, because that's the only thing to do in the Bay Area.

There are plenty of cultural events in SF not involving tech. Museums, art shows, live music, etc.

Yes, those things also exist in every other city and they [mostly] manage to do it without the hordes of brogrammers.

I agree with your general point, but it sounds like you have a very one dimensional understanding of what the bay area is.

> I can drive to 8 national parks and monuments in half a day. I have a great place to raise my kids, and I am NOT surrounded by tech events and meetups... I am surrounded by people who like to spend our free time outside.

Literally all of this is true of the bay area, pretty much as soon as you stop living in the densest urban part of it (and even then, for some people: my cousins are raising a kid in the city and they love it, including the ability to drive to tons and tons of different state and national parks).

Sure, and more power to you I think it's awesome that you are happy where you are, but that really doesn't have anything to do with an argument about Silicon Valley losing its luster. The bay area is a great place for someone who wants to work in technology, in fact I can't think of a better place. There are lots and lots of outdoors things to do, but if that's what you want it doesn't really have anything to do with tech and where people in tech work in my opinion.

You can drive to 8 national parks and monuments in half a day from SF.

I live in northern Italy, half a day trip include most of the peninsula and southern France.

Sure job opportunityes are few, especially of the interesting kind, and pay is awful, but overall it's very hard to beat.

I don't really get the point of people pretending it's for the entartainment, especially if whatever you do starts with a three hours drove to get out of the urban area.

That doesn't really sound a high quality lifestyle, but to each their own.

> to get out of the urban area.

To get out of the suburban sprawl..

1/2 day is 4-5 hours. Try and list 8 parks.

7, but redwood national park is just too far. All without traffic of course.

Kings Canyon Sequoia Yosemite Lassen Volcanic Pinnacles Muir Woods Point Reyes

Even ignoring traffic, you are counting the same park multiple times. Kings Canyon, Sequoia, Yosemite, Lassen Volcanic, Pinnacles is not bad but it's not 8.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NationalParks.forwiki.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_parks_of_the_...

But, Muir Woods is part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Point Reyes are not separate parks.

Two more national monuments I did not know about. Not parks. Was fun to see what's near by.

http://www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/prog/nlcs/California_Coastal_NM....

http://www.fs.fed.us/visit/berryessa-snow-mountain-national-...

Don't forget Henry Coe State Park.

Sounds awesome, where do you live?

Looking at this:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/3f/bb/7f/3fbb7f0fe...

I'm thinking Seattle area is likely.

Nah, Central Utah -- there are also a couple national monuments nearby that are not shown on that map.

I lived in Utah for three years and also loved the national parks and outdoor activities, but the culture (i.e. heavy Mormon influence) was pretty unbearable.

Out of curiosity, what did you find unbearable about the culture?

I've lived in both places (SLC, the Four Corners, SF, Menlo Park) and spent many weeks at a time in Delta, UT, in addition to places in New Mexico.

I'd love to live in Torrey and I'd move back to SLC if I could get a job in an industry that doesn't suck, but all things considered I'd take the bay area over anywhere in Utah.

"I am surrounded by people who like to spend our free time outside."

Spending free time outside pretty much defines the bay area. We're here because it's always sunny and not too hot so we can spend our time outside.

I think they meant spending time in the outdoors, not spending time drinking an $8 IPA on a patio, or going to the rooftop deck of Facebook for a hackathon.

> everything that matters

I pay $1150 to lease a 1600 sqft house in Houston, and make more money than I'd make in the Bay, and control my stack instead of being a worker bee.

More than in the Bay is hard to believe for Texas considering software engineers can get >400k these days if you know where to look. I'm assuming it's an oil company?

No, it's not oil; it's related to shipping, and not tied to the region. (see my HN profile) I won't of course disclose my income, but I'm not picking extremes when I make that comparison. After all, I'm sure there's junior devs somewhere in Houston making $30k. I'm really just challenging the notion that success in software means accepting the reality of life in the Bay.

Engineers in the bay can make $1 million or higher, if you know where to look. You will likely never get that in Texas.

Both you and the parent comment are saying "if you know where to look". I'm sure those positions exist for specialized needs, where they'll pay anything. I'm not talking experts in middle-out compression here but rather up the middle developers. The kind who will interview for below market in exchange for equity, or at best, get market rates even though their living will cost 3x what it would cost in Houston.

You're unlikely to get it there either.

I will never draw a Bay Area salary. But I have a great house and a kid in a good private school for <50% of the cost to live in SFO.

> considering software engineers can get >400k these days if you know where to look

That is far above average.

please do share where to look or examples. I run my own company (flair.co) and have no interest in looking for another job as long as we are continuing to make money. But I find the idea of 400K+ as an engineer to be crazy. Is it for some particular/niche experience or academic background? Is it execution speed? I feel like I can whip up whatever software I need and fast barring super deep academic bits but can't imagine who would pay my 400K.

> I feel like I can whip up whatever software I need and fast barring super deep academic bits but can't imagine who would pay my 400K.

I don't know about the 400k specifically, but I hope you might want to change your attitude: you don't need to sell for what you believe is reasonable and can imagine; you want to be selling to people who have more money than sense.

because they dont want you to change companies.

You can make that at Google without becoming a manager, if you know something they really want (or are otherwise technically senior enough).

I find Houston to be ever more appealing as a number of my friend move over there and buy giant condos/houses for what would barely get you a box 2 hours south of San Jose.

Yeah, real estate is great. However, it doesn't have a culture that someone from San Jose would find appealing. Even though it's only a 3 hour drive, Houston isn't Austin. (though there's pockets, like Montrose) The heat is miserable in the summer, and the job market is somewhat narrow (more .NET and a fewer industries to pick from than you'll find elsewhere)

Interestingly, Houston has more (live) theater seats than anywhere else except NYC.. tons of awesome museums, and the most racially/ethnically diverse large metro area in the country (which makes it a great town for foodies)

I love Austin, but it's probably arguable that its "culture" (in the art/culture sense of the word) even approaches Houston's. "Houston is one of only five cities in the United States with permanent professional resident companies in all of the major performing arts disciplines: opera, ballet, symphony, and theater"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Houston#Arts_and_th...

And Houston is cheaper than Austin, too... but I've found Austin's tech scene to be slightly up on Houston's (if only because Austin is more compact and so getting around to the nearest meetup is a bit easier... also, Austin has a much better VC scene, but Houston does have a surprisingly large tech scene, even given that Houston is probably going to become the country's third-largest city.) http://www.businessinsider.com/r-americas-city-rankings-set-...

But bdcraven is right... modern here tends to mean .NET or Java at most of the larger Fortune 100 companies based here (mostly oil and gas, medicine, and finance.)

You'll need a lot of air conditioning and maybe a swimming pool (or two) during the summer though.

I probably misused the term culture - I'm meaning more the culture of the people: red state with all the attitudes you'd associate, and many of the stereotypes that people associate with Texas aren't far off. A transplant who thinks those mindsets are wrong rather than different would probably experience alot of angst living in Houston.

I agree! although, as an import from CA myself, I actually found a healthy divergence in viewpoints rather refreshing.

Don't forget the insufferable mosquitoes. As if the heat and humidity isn't bad enough.

I went to all those tech meetups and events when I was in the Bay area. It wasn't that great for me. The topics covered tend to be basic (this is true for most presentations, they need to be able to appeal to a wider audience). Not only that, but the larger meetups live streamed them or they were uploaded to Youtube later.

The networking benefits are real, but is that worth the cost of living, commute, lack of options for housing?

This was a pleasant surprise about Sydney, Australia. The quality of tech talks is very good in my experience.

A lot of the jobs I see offer surprisingly low pay and I'm not even factoring in cost of living. I've seen salaries out in SV that I wouldn't even consider in Atlanta and I don't come close to spending near half of my paychecks on rent.

Pay depends on the stage a startup is in if you want to work at a startup. Very early stage startups can pay very little, but you don't work at a startup like that for money. Google, Facebook, and even companies like New Relic, Zen Payroll, thousands of other companies easily pay 6 figure salaries to engineers. Starting out pay for new engineers is close to 6 figures. I don't know maybe that's low for you, but it is enough for me.

> you don't work at a startup like that for money

Then why the hell do you? To make someone else rich? To help VCs get a few extra dollars? Slave away with 60 hours weeks for years only to see an exit that nets you less than what you could have made working for any of the big companies? So that you can experience wanting to move on after a few years but worrying about losing stock options? SO you can sit around wondering when the company is going to IPO and you can actually make some cash? (meanwhile the CEO cashed out years ago, and doesn't want to IPO ever)

Ideally you touch every part of the stack, learn some new stuff, play fast and loose with everything, cash out leaving your '10x developer' code for someone else to maintain, and tell people you have experience with a million trending technologies while omitting the superficiality of said experiences. It's all about the lifestyle.

I should have read the entire comment before upvoting. Just subtract -1 in your head when you see your upvote count.

Nah man, you work at startups because home delivery parrot rental service is gonna like disrupt the industry man. That's where all the cutting edge interesting problems to solve are.

Awesome sarcasm, made me laugh. Thanks!

Seriously though, I feel the tone and attitude you're satirizing are describing the startup culture pretty well.

Early stage startups don't have much VC funding if any. If there was VC funding then you can expect normal pay rates. As to why? I work at small startups because I love the challenge, I love working as part of a small team, I love being close to the customer and making a difference. I rather work there than phone it in at a big company for a bigger paycheck. My work is a big part of my life, I want to do things I care about.

The equity has never made up the loss of salary. As an employee your company has to become really, really big for it to be life changing and that's incredibly unlikely to happen for all but one or two startups every few years and there are many thousands of startups. As an employee working at a small startup can't be about the money, if it is then you are wasting your time.

You do it for the experience. 1 year of working in a startup will have you learning more than 2-3 at a larger company.

If you're good, you can advance much more rapidly through startups and then parlay that experience into either a lucrative BigCo job or consulting gigs.

Not just the two startups you mentioned, but starting salary for almost every funded startup is minimum 6 figures for new engineers these days.

From my limited experience with the tech scene here, Atlanta seems to have a ridiculously good compensation to cost of living ratio.

While there may be more jobs in the Bay Area, it's always a battle of compromises when you compare it to another place. For example, somewhere like Boston may have less jobs, but the rent/cost of living isn't as extremely high as it is in somewhere like San Francisco or a lot of places in the Bay Area, which means you can save more money for things like retirement, vacation, etc., and it has easy access to somewhere like NYC, meaning it may be a better fit for the people they interviewed. Friends can always be found where you go, and meet ups can be found in varying degrees, so the main appeal to staying in the Bay Area is mostly going to be job opportunities and networking, both of which are available in other cities like Boston, NYC, and Austin.

Most of the time it's usually worth living in a higher cost-of-living area for better pay. If you make $100k and spend $20k on rent and expenses, you have $80k left over. If you make $150k (50% more) but double your expenses, you have $110k left over. Your savings/retirement grow more rapidly.

Personally, I love the geography in the Bay, but the money argument works out too. Especially when it comes to things that are practically fixed cost relative to where you live, like flying (often cheaper from big cities) or travelling, or many consumer goods.

Except that for tech workers, the bay is still insane expensive and it does not pay better. I am a senior dev. My last job in St Louis paid 220k. That means you can buy a 4 bedroom house EVERY YEAR.

Expenses are far more than double in the bay. Pay is barely any higher in Top employers... Plenty of senior devs in the bay work for 160k plus options that they might or might not be worth anything, and that they will not be able to afford to buy if they leave, and might not see a liquidity event in 5 years. So they get paid LESS and the job is only worth it if they chain themselves to an employer. Netflix offers a better deal... But then welcome to Netflix's culture.

The money argument just does not work at the top end. My current employer is based in the bay, but a large percentage of the senior talent is remote, precisely because the bay is a really shitty deal for what most tech companies pay.

Just look at mortgages: the difference is not 2x, it's 5x. California taxes are huge. I did the math. For me, it's not even close, and that's assuming Netflix compensation.

> My last job in St Louis paid 220k.

You're definitely an outlier.

Every time I've done salary comparisons, SV vastly exceeds every other area especially at the upper end. For most other metros, you have only a handful of employers who are even willing to consider paying a developer >$180k. In SV, you can get competitive auctions going >$300k.

Your numbers are way off. Fresh grads (Bachelors degree) working at Google/Facebook are now making > $160k total compensation.

Forgive me, don't mean to offend you, but there is a reason a house in St Louis costs 200k. When they needed a dystopian city scape for "Escape From NY", they didn't even have to build it, they simply filmed in St Louis. It's just, objectively speaking, not as nice a place to live as Bay Area. Just to put it in perspective, in nice parts of Chicago area, which is much more like St Loius than it is like SF, a house can easily cost anywhere between 600k and several million.

This is how I always explain it to people. I pay 4x rent but make 5.5x as much as my previous living + working situation in a different state from 4 years ago. There is a LOT more left over.

"80k left over". Someone's forgetting about taxes

Another plus to Texas. No income tax. The property tax is considerably higher, but it's more than offset by home prices.

Which is dwarfed by home price appreciation in the Bay Area. I guess that is the elephant in the room

Post-tax income. Income tax varies from 0 in WA to considerably more in CA. It's large enough to be worth taking into account when ballparking.

You definitely don't have anywhere near that left over unless you somehow don't pay your taxes.

Feel free to consider the numbers to be post-tax if it helps you understand the point.

I know you were only using it as an example, but does Boston have a thriving startup community on par to SF/Austin/NYC?

In venture dollar terms, Boston is 3x bigger than Austin:

http://www.inc.com/associated-press/top-20-cities-for-tech-s...

That list excludes biotech, and Boston is one of the top biotech hubs, so I suspect that would boost it even higher.

Interesting, didn't expect DC to be bigger than Austin as well.

Over the last year, I've seen Austin go from being mentioned as "second tier" startup city, to now being mentioned alongside SF and NYC. Has it really grown that much in such a short time? As someone just about to finish grad school, I may consider checking it out some more.

Depends on what you're looking for. I live in Austin and I love it. There are plenty of interesting companies to work for, and you'll live in a better home in a better neighborhood for your budget. Austinites are generally fantastic, welcoming people. It's probably a good place for you. Here are the exceptions:

1. Read https://breakoutlist.com/. If that argument matches your motivations, go to San Francisco.

2. Do you have a (relatively) niche interest, like VR/AR, machine learning, or blockchains? Go where those companies are: San Francisco and New York.

3. Do you want to experience a city where everything happens? Go to New York.

Otherwise, pick Austin. Maybe Seattle depending on weather preferences and distance from friends and family.

I'd chose Austin over Seattle any day, mainly because people really are just so nice in Austin.

It's hard to consider Austin as even a second tier startup city-- first tier would be SF/Silcon Valley and second would be NYC and Seattle.

I would be hard-pressed to come up with names of 3 successful startups from Austin, and I think most people would be too.

I'm not sure; I would guess it's on similar levels to somewhere like Austin or NYC since it's in the same grouping as it in the article, but I don't know first hand.

They just miss a proper city around there. There's no NYC or Hong Kong close by.

I think SF breaks down if younhave either children or you are coming from abroad and have no plans to settle in the states. I did the math more than once and it's not great. I can see the people by flying there too :)