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Comment by ThePawnBreak | Hacker News Reader

There's an article like this written about 90% of Europe's capitals. There are no tech hubs in cheap places, because smart people move away from low wage, low cost of life places. Libon stands no chance, I would say the only contenders are London, Stockholm, Berlin and maybe 2-3 others. The only low-ish cost country I could see becoming a serious contester for a tech hub would be Poland.

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"smart people move away from low wage, low cost of life places."

I understand what you're getting at, but you should qualify that statement. There are many smart people interested in things other than money.

Yeah, but the super expensive places tend to also have other great stuff apart from great salaries. For example, Donald Knuth lives in Silicon Valley, and I doubt that VC capital is the reason.

> For example, Donald Knuth lives in Silicon Valley,

Maybe because he works in Stanford, which is in the heart of Silicon Valley? And he's been a faculty there for 40+ years, so he probably could afford a house there. AND Stanford has a program where you can lease a house on campus? Lots of reasons, all containing the word "Stanford" :)

"Tech", as the article uses it, tend to be less Donald Knuth and more Woody Allen in the sense that "80 percent of life is showing up". The "best of the best" is mostly busy being the best. Cities usually fail to attract talent because there aren't enough substance to their claims and they therefor can't get people to show up.

Cities don't fail to attract talent at all.

It's more likely that Knuth remained in Si Va after his retirement because he didn't want to sell the house, buy another house somewhere else, make a new set of friends and learn to get around a new city, rather than his making some list of places he could be living, then picking Si Va from that list.

But you have to admit, there's an obvious need/desire for there to be other/more tech hubs. As cool as it might be for some to have a single tech hub, that kills affordability, hence distributing the hubs to numerous spots around the world. Let's face it: if you happen to be a tech employable person, wouldn't it be cool if you COULD spend a few years in tech hub A, then be able to move to tech hub B, etc.? Instead of really only having one (or too few) options? I think so anyway.

I think tech hubs are intrinsically centralized, because you need to get the best people in the sample place. If you have N tech hubs, then you have no tech hubs. If Europe is to have a real tech hub, it needs to have the best minds in Europe (at the very least) be there. And for now, there is not really any such place. Language is also a big issue.

There is such a place. That's called London and the language is English.

Source: Me and the dozens of tech people I meet every days who have left their countries to come here.

hub: the effective center of an activity, region, or network.

You'll need a new word to describe this thing you're looking for. ;)

There's a reason why hubs exist, and it's nothing to do with there being many of them to choose from.

Isn't that already the case? San Fran, NY, Austin, etc.?

Not to mention plenty of companies allow you to work remotely.

Berlin is low wage. Bad example, shows you're a bit talking out of your ass.

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