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Comment by HillaryBriss | Hacker News Reader

other HN threads have debated heavily about why the startup industry is centered in SV, given its ultra high cost of living and labor. and yet, despite everything, SV remains at the center.

and that's why i think your explanation is closer to the truth. higher salaries for older workers wouldn't matter. what does matter is that management thinks older workers will bring the wrong sauce to the product, exhibit reasonable skepticism of the (probably unsuccessful) product concept, generally fail to buy in to the vision and sass their 24 year old masters.

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The startup sector is centered here because the money (VC firms) is here. The reason for that is largely historical accident.

Money can easily move. Money chooses to be there due to wanting to be there, good weather, terrain, politics, etc. There is some due to historical effects, but more people than not consider CA coast weather to be pretty ideal, hence the higher cost of living.

Why move if you can entice people to move into your back yard with all that money and not have to go anywhere?

And, weather doesn’t adequately explain the high CoL anywhere outside California or Hawaii. “It’s where the jobs are, so everyone wants to be there does,” and it also explains California. (Hawaii is special— it’s an archipelago, so, cost of shipping goods plus weather is really the best explanation, given the lack of a compelling employment story.)

Because there is more money in SV. All else equal financially, as it was in 1960s, CA is better. Now all else is not equal, except that cost of living may have finally caught up so residents are paying what the weather is worth.

And why is there more money? Because more people want to live there than other places. Why is that? That’s where the jobs are. You’re not rebutting my argument at all.

The jobs were in other places too, but generally people with money move away from less desirable to more desirable places. How many people desire to move to a place is shown by the prices people are willing to pay.

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