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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.

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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, no income tax either.

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.

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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