Silicon Valley is a poorly organized network with an obvious solution
Do you think I would trade that for living in a van in California even for twice the pay? There is plenty of talent around the world that thinks moving to California is a shit deal regardless of the wage or opportunities.
The issue is silly. A city is a network. When you have high congestion for a central resource you should find ways to push that resource to the edge of your network. The resources are Jobs. Hamfisted legislative solutions or deregulation misses the big picture. Companies are focused too much on Silicon Valley. Moving or offering jobs elsewhere is a way to both save money in wages and office space while giving your employees a better quality of life.
If people are willing to live like animals putting up with appalling conditions and subjecting themselves to insane costs and commutes, they would certainly move a few hundred miles for the same job with decent rent and a 10 min commute or short bike ride to the office, even with a pay cut. This is especially important for startups who ought to be trying to save money and attract talent.
The market can fix this problem right now if companies recognized the opportunity sitting in front of them.
People from all over the world are swarming SV because they can't get that job in Cork or Boise. The job isn't everything and many of us are unwilling buy in.
Everything doesn't need to be in SV. If someone is willing to live in their car for a job, with all the social baggage, sneaking around and unhygienic side effects that entails (while fooling themselves into thinking they've discovered a cool hack), they would be willing to move to a less crowded place like Tacoma where they can buy a house for 150k.
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