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Comment by Barrin92 | Hacker News Reader

I don't think a week goes by without an article about that but I honestly don't see it. The concentration of talent and capital make Silicon Valley too attractive.

I think people vastly overestimate the long-term impact of covid, underestimate the benefits of agglomeration, underestimate the negatives of remote work, and apart from a few individual companies I don't think there is a trend even. I'm not even sure this move from Palantir is anything other than some sort of strange branding exercise to get more Trump government contracts

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> people... underestimate the benefits of agglomeration, underestimate the negatives of remote work

Absolutely. If you're trying to solve hard problems and don't have incredibly talented people who have 5 or 10 years of experience working on teams, know how to execute tactically and how to develop high level strategies, etc, etc, 100% remote isn't going to work well. You'll get some things done, but the next company over that can develop a new grad into a highly performing engineer/product person/[insert other position here] in a little over a year is probably going to outperform you in almost every aspect of the business.

I agree with you that SV isn't going anywhere. The money people and best talent is entrenched there through their networks and simple things like home ownership.

The other question is where else? Texas? Maybe but not exactly welcoming to the liberal elitist attitudes. Europe? And you thought California is unfriendly to business... Canada? Australia? New Zealand?

Like it or not, the West is still relies on the US for technical dominance. And until there is an alternative, we should hope it stays that way a bit longer.

The general argument is that Remote is the new Silicon Valley, and therefore it doesn't matter as much where you live. I would say the collective talent of software developers distributed around the world rivals, if not exceeds, Silicon Valley talent. The question remaining is, can remote-first companies out-maneuver the centralized Silicon Valley entities?

I'll shill for Florida here. I think a lot of tech companies looking for an alternative to SV would do well to put it on the shortlist.

It has an extremely business friendly environment, a pro-immigrant attitude, no state income tax, one of the top educational systems in the country, a fairly blue-state ish culture, and (given the exodus from NJ/NY) a high concentration of skilled professionals.

Similar to Silicon Valley, there's very little prejudice towards old money or pre-conceived notions of what elites "should look like". Unlike Silicon Valley, there's hardly any aversion to growth or gentrification. Job and wealth creators are celebrated.

Living costs are pretty cheap, especially for idyllic locations. The housing stock is newer and more modern. One can easily afford to live in walking distance of world-class beaches on a FAANG salary.

The biggest downside is the humid summers, flat landscape, and mosquitoes. On the other hand, the air pollution is markedly better than California or the Northeast. There's more hours of sunshine per year. Also, unlike San Francisco, human defecation on the street is virtually unheard of.

> ...one of the top educational systems in the country, a fairly blue-state ish culture...

Not knocking on your statement, but i had not been aware of these as descriptive of Florida. I was under the impression that Florida was more of a red state, and while not at the bottom education-wise, didn't think they were near the top either. Again, not knocking your state, i just never heard of that.

This[1] has a breakdown of state performance in primary education with detailed statistical adjustments for confounders outside the educational system. The results are that Florida performs fourth best in the country (behind Mass, Texas, and NJ).

[1] https://www.vox.com/2015/10/26/9617514/test-scores-naep-2013

Thanks for sharing; TIL!

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