I think that is definitely true, but it doesn't explain the wild geographic variation in pay. Why are SV programmers paid maybe 5-10x what programmers in Europe are. They definitely aren't 5-10x better and the cost of living isn't 5-10x as much.

I definitely think we'll see movement of work outside SV and outside the US to save costs. Musk could have made Twitter profitable simply by moving all engineering work outside the US.