I moved here a few years ago and it feels like the culture nudges people away from defining their life based on their work (compared to SF/NYC at least), but that feels like a generally handy-wavy explanation. Presumably there's enough MS + Amazon money floating around to get a decent angel/venture scene started.
Note that the threshold in WA is around $116K annual salary and I imagine that most senior tech employees would be above this level.
Source: https://foley.com/insights/publications/2023/01/non-competes...
Seattle is a city of transplants who are only there because Amazon/MSFT brought them there.
It is a city that is enjoyed on a big tech lifestyle. Weekend get aways are amazing. The suburbs are nice as far as suburbs go. So the demographics that love seattle and ones that do startups are diametrically opposed to each other.
The city of Seattle itself lacks charm and appeal. The Scandinavian coldness merged with tech introversion makes it the loneliest tech city. Among tech cities, it has the worst weather (if I'm indoors all day, I want sun at will when I do go out).
I have lived in SF, Seattle, Boston and NYC. Seattle is easily the least "city" of the lot.
That being said, those same traits make Seattle an amazing 2nd location for a startup.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Freeze
https://rightasrain.uwmedicine.org/mind/mental-health/winter...
I’ve gotten to know many talented non-us devs while working in enterprise but I can’t do a startup with them, couldn’t even hire them.
Their visa makes them indentured servants who will be deported if they’re doing anything other than working at a big company for the next 4-10 years. This exists in every city that’s big in tech, but in Seattle it’s a quantitative difference that becomes a qualitative difference. I’ve worked with at least a hundred developers in Seattle over the last decade and only three of them were from the region or attended undergrad here.
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