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Comment by sooham | Hacker News Reader

As an intern nearly done with work in the Bay Area I find the whole idea of permanently immigrating to Silicon Valley repugnant. Housing prices are in the millions, terrible healthcare, earthquakes every other week, dire state public transportation, apathetic attitude towards its homeless and, lots of groupthink. I suggest any YUPPIE (in a developed nation) with offers from a big four here reconsider their local offices imho. It is depressing to think this is the best place for STEM careers in the world.

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"It is depressing to think this is the best place for STEM careers in the world."

There are many amazing places well beyond Silicon Valley for STEM careers. And in startups if that is the route you want to go. I'm in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. We have a vibrant startup community and the unemployment rate is near 0. No matter if you want to go startup, small company, or large, you can find it here with great pay and benefits.

The people here are fantastic. You can live in the city or suburbs for an affordable amount of money and escape the city in 30 minutes if you want to get away. Great place.

Not to mention Austin, Chicago, and so many more. Don't limit your looking to just the valley. There is much more out there.

I live in silicon valley and * My health care is just fine * I don't feel an earthquake every other week - perhaps you are just afraid of them? * Take Caltrain to work - it's clearly not "dire" * groupthink - yes, and you appear to be among them, bashing the bay area as if was on the verge of collapse.

The bay area has lots of problems, but also lots of good. Great weather, health care, job and recreational opportunities, can ride a motorcycle all year, can work at places that make things I care about.

If you were in NYC, you would have another massive set of problems, Chicago as well.

> It is depressing to think this is the best place for STEM careers in the world.

It might be the best place to make money in software. It's not the best place for “STEM careers” (which is a thing that doesn't exist: STEM is to diverse to have a meaningful best place; the best place for agricultural biotechnology careers isn't the best place for civil engineering which isn't the best place for high energy physics which isn't the best place for computational finance.)

> It is depressing to think this is the best place for STEM careers in the world.

I don't think that's the case.

Oh yes, I've heard about the earthquakes. If they're half as bad as I've seen in movies, that must be pretty bad!

I'll bet it disrupts your whole day when the Earth randomly splits open and your car falls in, eh? Every other week, too?

> earthquakes every other week

Ridiculous hyberbole is right.

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