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Comment by malvosenior | Hacker News Reader

If that's the case they should absolutely stop complaining about housing prices. It's self inflicted pain. If you must live in the most expensive city in the world due to your own desires, you have no right to complain that it's expensive. The option to live somewhere cheaper exists, you just choose not to take it.

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Try and look at it another way...

It's not that they MUST live in the most expensive city. Rather, they MUST live with (and work) the most bright minds. That creates a geographic pooling problem.

I don't think that's an entirely dismissible goal, by the way. Humans are social beings and more often than not we're better off working with other smart people. Collaboration of bright minds is responsible for some of the incredible achievements of humanity.

I've seen no hard evidence that the minds there are actually brighter. More arrogant maybe?

What a ridiculous comment. Who exactly do you expect to be collecting this "hard evidence" to prove such a thing to you?

Clearly if the likes of some of the biggest, and most successful tech companies in the world are located in the bay area, that might be proof enough that some pretty impressive minds reside there? I'm merely making the point that IF one wanted to work with like minded, smart people, moving to the bay is one way to maximize your chance of finding said people. I think we could both agree you're less likely to find them in Nebraska, though of course there are some very talented people there as well.

Furthermore, who is being arrogant here? The person who wants to live in and among bright minds, or the person who denies the bright minds exist? Takes a pretty arrogant person to deny that there's a lot of talent in the bay.

Talent appears to be a myth.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/07/22/the-talent-myt...

If talent is a myth, then the New Yorker should fire their editors and let anyone who can write a sentence publish freely on their platform. Certainly that makes sense if there's no such thing as being a "good" writer.

Isn't the stereotype of SF arrogance? Most of the smartest people I've met work in O&G or aerospace, in places like Texas and Connecticut.

Well that and your labor market power is maximized in places where there are many potential employers. If you put down roots in a one company town, they can just tell you to go pound sand when you ask for a raise or promotion. Also, being in a place with lots of employers is a hedge against layoff risk.

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