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There is a field called economic geography that works to explain your question. It's too complex to summarize, but the short version is that SV has lots of startups, lots of investors, and lots of hackers in a small space, so people who want to do those things move there, creating a cycle.

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Yes, but that's why I'm mentioning college towns. Lots of hackers in any town with a top-rate software/engineering department. And a start-up is just a hacker with a bit of extra ambition.

Investors and start-up culture sound like the missing ingredient more than any shortage of technical know-how.

Austin is much cheaper than SF and SV but salaries are still in the $100K to $130K for talented devs.

Surely the TX labor laws are worse for the employee than CA's, though? It might make sense.

Well, we don't get 8 weeks of guaranteed paternity leave if that's what you mean. But Texas has some nice protections for employees. Non-compete agreements, for example, are almost unenforceable in Texas, which is nice.

Also in California, actually.

Well, no income tax either.

Talent is a commodity and is pretty fungible. But you can't replicate the pre-existing ecosystem of companies, nor the funding apparatuses that are present in major tech hubs.

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