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Comment by ZanyProgrammer | Hacker News Reader

And yet there's nothing inherent with software development that makes SF and the Bay Area any different from lots of other cities, other than inertia. It's amazing that an industry that prides itself on being non traditional is so tied to a specific geographical location, as if there's some valuable mineral that can only be mined in SOMA and downtown Palo Alto.

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There is nothing inherent about finance that makes New York and London any different than a lot of other cities, other than inertia.

It could be otherwise than it is, that's sort of the truth of network effects, but it's difficult.

Favorably comparing Bay Area software to Wall Street is an odd thing to hear from you.

I don't like big banks, but that doesn't mean finance has been bad for NYC.

Actually, there is: non-compete clauses. They're unenforceable in California. Everywhere else, they are. That makes it an attractive place to be a tech worker, since tech workers tend to change jobs relatively quickly. In the Bay Area, you can easily switch jobs, even going to a competitor; this isn't the case in other states.

And then you get the chicken-and-egg problem: with all those workers there, companies want to locate there to have access to that talent pool. And then the workers want to stay there so they have access to all those jobs that they can hop between.

How much of this is down to VCs/incubators insisting startups move to the Bay Area?

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