It used to be when someone graduated from a university in the area and wanted to work at a big tech company or startup it was a foregone conclusion they would immediately leave for the west coast. Dropbox founders were from Cambridge but moved west. Facebook was founded in Cambridge, moved west and didn't have an office in Cambridge for many years.

This is definitely not the case anymore. If facebook was founded in 2018 there is a good chance it would stay in Cambridge. The startup scene in Boston/Cambridge has grown immensely especially after the success of Hubspot. Additionally Google, Facebook and Microsoft all have campuses in Cambridge/Boston.

Its not a zero sum game, but real change has certainly occurred.

It's legitimately hit the point where the cost of living is a true obstacle, as opposed to a priority.

That said, I actually think it's healthy that there's an increasing dispersion of tech whether new startups or outposts of existing large tech companies. Even if you don't believe in remote work, once a company gets past a certain level of scale it really doesn't matter if the group focused on X is colocated with the rest of the company.

Speaking personally, I'll also say that among people I know I've never run across so many who have left, are leaving, or are thinking of leaving the Bay area as I have over the past year or so.

You’ve also never before been the age you are now. Your peer/acquaintence group is growing in number and age, and naturally will expose you to more people who are ready to move on.

> 46% of respondents say they plan to leave the Bay Area in the next few years

But they are not leaving empty houses - they are selling them for millions as the world's would be movers and shakers move in.

Er, not necessarily:

> Last year more Americans left the county of San Francisco than arrived.

Now, granted, that could be a very specific piece of datum and either of the following could still be true:

1) When you include more than just "Americans" the net influx is still positive

2) Even if they're moving out of SF county, maybe they're just moving to, say, Alameda county

But nonetheless that is an interesting tidbit.

The social standing and mobility for those working at large SV companies isn't much to envy. Regardless of absolute pay (which is high by any standard), most are left renting apartments and suffering terrible commutes.

If people measured their compensation in "years of reasonable savings until you can buy a house", they would probably see that their relative compensation isn't so great. Inside SV I would put this number at 10-15 years....elsewhere somewhere around 5.

But the absolute compensation is high so people think they are better off.

One note: the cost of living isn't that much lower. It's definitely below the Bay Area, but it's above Seattle (although maybe not for long, but no state income tax is an advantage).

For some reason people tend to think that this means that this will happen somewhere else. Like the opportunities somehow transfers somewhere else. That isn't really what happens. We might never have this sort of situation in our lifetimes, or it might show up somewhere outside of our reach. It is very likely that China has been outperforming the west in this regard over the last 10 years. They might continue to do that or not. It isn't really predictable as far as I know.

Addition: Why do people even visit a discussion forum if a simple opinion is going to offend them? The Internet is full of agreeable material you can read instead. And you can close those tabs without suppressing someone else's opinion. But I guess that is really the point of Hacker News these days.

Its been a decade from the last economic recession.

Past performance doesnt indicate future performance.

I wont deny that top talent is located in Cali and washington, but the situation has changed an incredible amount.