What if the aggressive dog eat dog culture is what sparks innovation? What if having amazing beaches and hardly any need for cash is a recipe for underachievement?

People have options. If they choose the valley, they're choosing it for a reason. It's already easy enough to find remote work as a talented programmer and live wherever you want. If that's you priority, you do that.

If you want the competition and the buzz and the drive, you go where the people with those shared values are concentrated (NY or SF). Where you have to either bust your ass or risk ending up on the street like the people you see on Market every day. This propels you forward at a rate that is difficult to replicate elsewhere.

Interestingly, beaches are inversely correlated with economic activity.

See http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v527/n7577/full/nature1...

Optimal average temperature for economic activity is 13 C, San Francisco average is 14 C.

> Beaches and a relaxed pace of life

Dunno anyone from India who gets excited by the idea of beaches and relaxed pace of life. If anything then these places are ALL about relaxed pace of life.

Maybe to Eastern Europeans beaches might be enticing, but definitely not to the Indians.