90% of software developers in the US work outside Silicon Valley | Hacker News Reader

90% of software developers in the US work outside Silicon Valley

qz.com

152 pointscpeterso79 comments

And the Bay Area is roughly 6,900 square miles vs the 3,806,000 square miles of the US as a whole. Put another way, Silicon Valley is where you can find 10% of the total number of US developers despite it being only ~0.002% of the country's landmass. I get the general point the author is trying to make, but 10% in such a small region is still an extraordinarily high number.

Landmass is not a useful metric since 75% of the population lives on 3 percent of the land (according to a quick google search).

A quick Wikipedia search says the whole Bay Area accounts for about 2% of the population of the US, and Silicon Valley itself a little over 1% (7.65MM & 3.5-4MM total, out of 324MM).

So to complete the thought, the Bay Area has about 5x the average density of programmers.

Bay Area is probably not a good metric because that would include Napa, Sonoma, etc. where you are more likely to find a farmer or a sommelier than a programmer.

Silicon Valley as a measure - 1% of the country's population but 10% of its programmers. So, 10x the national average of programmers.

Hey, a new definition of a "10x programmer”.

More are urban than non-urban, so the national average isn't a particularly useful number either.

Here's a relevant page by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If you scroll down a bit past the state-level charts, they start showing metropolitan areas. "San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara" has a fairly good compromise between volume and density, but it's not at the top of either chart.

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151131.htm#st

Hehe, silicon valley people usually forget about the east/north bay and pretty much anything north of the bay bridge or hayward bridge.

I live in San Francisco and trust me, the feeling is mutual.

But then you're overestimating, as many many programmers of Silicone Valley don't live in the valley itself.

For another metric, I'm getting that the Bay Area GDP is $800 billion [1] vs the overall US's $18 trillion [2], which would mean the Bay has 4.4% of the economic activity.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States

Not all of which stems from programming.

Crazy to think that Google accounts for ~10% of that [1].

[1] http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/020515/busine...

Google also has physical plant properties (think data centers) and offices around the world that are producing a meaningful portion of their revenue.

Btw, Apple had 3x Google's revenue in 2015.

In any case, Revenue != GDP due to double counting.

Very true. Both are global companies, even though their headquarters are there. I wonder what fraction of their income can be attributed to the SV area, and how that translates to their contributions to the GDP.

If you want to go deeper into this, BLS data has a fantastic metric for measuring the relative density of different occupations by metro area - the location quotient.

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_41860.htm

As you can see, in the Bay Area, the two most common software-related occupations are ~2.9 times as common as the US as a whole (Software Developers - Systems Software, and Software Developers - Applications).

But they both lose out to Solar Photovoltaic Installers and Genetic Counsellors, which are 6(!) times as more common on the Bay Area than the rest of the US (from a much smaller base, though).

Edit: If you slice by San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, looking only at Systems developers, the quotient goes to around 9 - far ahead of runners up in Massachusetts and Huntsville, AL.

Another way to interpret this statistic is "10% of software developers in the US work in Silicon Valley"

This was actually a much more surprising statistic to me. I've lived and worked in Silicon Valley for almost 10 years now, and I assumed that number was more like <= 1%. It's astonishing to me that 10% of the programmers in the US are here. Talk about burying the lede...

While only 2% of the US population lives in the Bay Area.

The 10% programmers number is for Silicon valley, not Bay Area. So, to compare apples to apples, we should take the % of US population for Silicon Valley, not Bay Area.

Which is about 1% of US population (3M people according to google).

Just came here to make the exact same comment.

That was my first thought too !

This is actually a very surprising statistic to me. I lived in LA and was not happy with the job offerings at all and moved back to the bay area where I'm originally from.

I'm also surprised that San Jose has 2x the concentration of software developers than San Francisco. Maybe its just because I have a startup bias and that seems to be the trend for startups. Very few startups in SJ compared to SF.

the commute to the middle bay area is a lot better from SJ than from SF.

Most of the established companies are in the San Jose area: Google, Apple, Intel, Nvidia, Cisco, eBay, Netflix, major defense contractors, satellite campuses for Amazon and Microsoft, and lots of other companies. Altogether, they employ more engineers than all of the startups combined.

Netflix is quite small - some bigger companies include Intuit, Symantec, LinkedIn, and a slew of major semiconductor companies.

Facebook is pretty close as well.

Startups migrated towards SF because ironically the rent was cheaper...

Maybe compared to Palo Alto, but not most of the south bay. Most are going to SF, because it is "cooler", especially for 20 somethings.

It's really unclear what they are defining as SF vs. San Jose. If we're going by positions and metro areas, I'd believe this.

San Jose metro gets super-large companies (Google, Apple, etc.), which SF lacks. Oakland also is in the SF metro area, and lacks substantial number of software jobs.

I live in LA and the job offerings are ok but the housing market here is out of control. Problem is, the salaries are still a little bit lower. Or a lot lower.

Then again you've got the beach and some might say the dating scene is better. So there's that.

The source for this story reports that 89% of software devs work outside the Valley. 89%. Apparently Qwartz didn't find that number punchy enough.

But yeah, 11% of US software devs live in SV? That is remarkable, although not surprising.

http://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=b1c59...

Also a majority of the worlds population lives outside the US. News at 11

Perhaps the take away is that 10% of all the Software Developers in US are in a very small area which is indeed high.

Yes, probably one of the highest areas in the country.

Denver is especially high too.

Haha, thanks for the chuckle. The ability for the US to focus entirely within their own borders is both depressing and amusing to observe at times. I get that people will naturally gravitate to caring about their own nation, but Americans' ability to don blinders that completely disregard the other 95.7% of the world's population is astounding.

What about this article dons blinders in astounding fashion?

Aside from the article's title? "90% of software developers work outside Silicon Valley". Uh, no. 99.99xx% of software developers work outside Silicon Valley. HN had to adjust its title to include the context of "US". It's part of SV culture to present themselves as being at the centre of the universe when it comes to software, when the rest of us know it's the furthest thing from the truth. SV gets all the attention as the self-proclaimed hub of all things development, but if you apply a proper global context, SV is hardly a blip on the radar.

The pride and pure ego involved in having one of the "top 5" on one's resume is funny to many of us outside the self-flagellating ecosystem.

A blip? Dude your fooling yourself

What does SV represent? As a developer, there is very little difference between SV and anywhere else. The business money is there. Business money does not translate to fame and riches to average employees.

It may be funny to you, but you objectively aren't performing as well, so what you're laughing at isn't a joke

Thanks for posting!

I would be curious to see the percentage change over the years. With the growth of tech everywhere (note on the map there's lots of big circles) and cost of living sky rocketing in the Bay Area, Boston, etc...What's the influx like of people moving to Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, etc...

Seriously, I have a very nice house on nearly a quarter of an acre for about 200k and a nice 6 figure programming job in Portland, OR. I can't imagine ever moving to Silicon Valley and dealing with the taxes, high housing prices, traffic, etc.

The talent shortage they refer to is merely a shortage of engineers willing to work at the salaries and under the conditions offered.

In a normal market wages would merely rise to adjust for that. But curiously it seems to be the only area where there is sudden vehement opposition to market forces.

I doubt employers will boost salaries by much... How can we get companies to locate in "suburbs" of Silicon Valley, where rents are cheaper: Livermore, Morgan Hill/Gilroy, Scott's Valley, Pacifica, even Fairfield and Santa Rosa?

If you combine this with studies about the tipping point of ideas starting at about 10% of the population [1], it means SV already has enough of the programmer population to create self-sustaining trends in software.

I don't know whether to feel glad or be worried :-)

[1] http://news.rpi.edu/luwakkey/2902

Is this news to anyone not in silicon valley?

Also, the majority of software developers are not in the United States.

What is the worldwide distribution?

Am I reading a tech related article or a political hit piece that spins numbers to fit an agenda?

This article is terrible. It uses 90% as evidence developers are moving out without any other statistics, namely the percentage from another period of time. Its completely baseless. No shit most of the developers don't live in one city or region.

It is not accurate to conceive of Silicon Valley as a geographical place.

It is really the intersection between a collection interesting memeplexes. Culture basically.

The real lesson here is how inequality is part and parcel of world in which we live.

Sounds like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

The title confused me until I clicked through and realised it was just talking about US software developers (and someone’s since edited it - thanks!).

And yet, 90% of the money is still inside SV.

That might be because a larger share of the moon shots are in SV.

This should not be news to anyone in the industry.

What does a judgement like this add to the discussion? Are you trying to shame people who know less than you?

No. Are you trying to shame me?

No Shit. News at 11. Is this only surprising to SF folk?

How many 10x developers work inside Silicon Valley vs outside Silicon Valley?

How does one determine a 10x vs a non 10x (outside of anecdotes)?

Anecdotes.

You don't. Just wait a minute, and they'll tell you (hopefully before a hiring decision is made). :)

Wow! You really know what you're talking about. How many zeroes do I put on the end of the check again?

10x the zeroes.

000000000.00

If you're lucky, you get to work closely with one. My boss is one such, he spends 50% of his time on managerial duties and still manages to outcode me, and I'm no slouch myself.

Ask one of those people on here that brags about rejecting 95% of their applicants while using questions ripped straight out of "Cracking the Coding Interview" or something lol.

Zero in and zero out.

Controversial statement: the number of actual, honest-to-god "10x developers" that exist in specific, narrow domains or contexts is so small that using them as a standard of comparison in any context (including their domains) is complete nonsense, and the number relative to the entire population of developers is so small that one can do just spectacularly well acting as if such a creature doesn't even exist.

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