Well, personally I'm running a small online company. The company is basically just me, and it pays enough to support me. That means I can live anywhere without changing my income, so living where it's cheaper effectively makes me richer.

Oil & gas has a major presence here in Houston, and is a huge employer of engineers -- not sure about compsci people, but probably them too. The salaries are not as high as California, but the effective housing-adjusted salaries are probably higher. You can buy a nice 3+ bedroom house in a safe neighborhood for $200-400k. When, in California, Google giveth and the landlord taketh away, that isn't really money in your pocket (except you still owe taxes on it).