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Comment by mirsadm | Hacker News Reader

That was the most surprising thing for me when I went to check out the Silicon Valley area a couple of years ago. I have no idea why so many people choose to work there. It looks like suburbia mixed in with a bit of industrial wasteland. I really enjoyed San Francisco but the commute must be hell every morning if you choose to live there.

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You choose to work in SV because you get a job at a SV company doing things that you're interested in, or you're accepted at Stanford. That's basically it. The first wave of migrants came for transistors (Shockley/Fairchild/Intel), ballistic missiles (Lockheed), or nuclear weapons (Lawrence Livermore). The next wave came for personal computers (Apple etc.), workstations (SGI, Sun, Xerox PARC, Western Digital), databases (Postgres, Oracle), or networking (Cisco). The wave after that was all Internet, and then mobile, and now it's started to branch out again.

If you're not working on something that is currently hot in Silicon Valley, there is little reason to be here. It's not like Portland, where you decide that you want to live there first and then decide what you'll do for a living. But if you do want to work in one of those hot sectors, there really is no place to do so other than Silicon Valley; nowhere else do you get the same combination of talent, capital, experience, open-mindedness, and risk-taking.

It doesn't surprise me that people are moving out (even beyond personal experience, where basically all of my friends have remarked that they're considering moving to Colorado, or Seattle, or Portland, or North Carolina, and my wife & I are considering it too). We're at the end of a technology cycle, so nobody really knows what the next one will be or if it's something that'll interest them. But there are a lot of fascinating things going on with drones, robotics, self-driving cars, AI, satellites, and hardware, so if any of them seem interesting, Silicon Valley might be a good place to check out.

Are you considering RTP in North Carolina? How's the software scene in NC?

I vacationed in North Carolina and have some input. The research triangle has a decent tech scene and a pretty alright nightlife. While NC has some stigma as a pretty conservative state (drive through rural NC and you'll see confederate flags flapping in the breeze) the major cities are fairly liberal - if that matters to you.

There are Code for America chapters in Raleigh and Durham so there is that. I enjoyed the cities and NC is definitely a contender for escaping the insane rental prices of the Bay Area.

Friend of mine is considering the Asheville area - she wants a more rural setting, and Asheville is a liberal outpost in the middle of what would otherwise be very conservative country. She's thinking of getting out of software entirely and becoming a teacher, so the tech scene is irrelevant.

I've considered the RTP area and idly talked it over with my wife. The big plus is that we could buy a gigantic house on 5 acres of land free-and-clear, with no mortgage. My brother-in-law's family also lives there, and my mom is up in New England, so family reunions would become simpler. The big minus is that I think the work culture in NC is a bit more conservative than I've gotten used to in the Bay Area; I doubt that they'd appreciate me rolling into work at 2 PM, or trying out new programming languages, or openly challenging my VP on product strategy. Plus, my wife works in philanthropy and there are fewer rich people with money to manage there. So it'd really only be an option once we cash out & retire.

Have you considered Atlanta? It would at least get you closer to family. And we've got rich people. (We also have poor people.)

Seems to skew more towards bigger companies - Red Hat, SAS, Epic, I think IBM and Cisco have some offices in the Triangle too. When I checked like a year ago Durham seemed to be getting some smaller startup action, and is a surprisingly fun town for its size.

I've met a ton of people who don't like cities. They like cars and big houses and backyards and filling their homes with big box shopping. It's a bit unfair to say that people only work in SV because they have some attractive opportunity there. Some people just like living in the suburbs. And if you live there, why not work there too. Plus the weather is nice.

Ah yes, because big houses and with backyards are just so affordable in silicon valley ;P

(/s)

This is why I'm in SV rather than SF, but it's a poor reason to come to SV over the rest of the country. Outside of Atherton & Los Altos Hills (where you're looking at $15M for a house), maximum lot size in most of SV is a quarter-acre. You don't really get much in the way of big houses and backyards here.

I grew up in the Boston suburbs and my parents owned an acre of land. My mom just sold it for a quarter of what my in-laws house (1/4 acre) in Cupertino is worth.

It's really just a matter of preference. Some people like the density and excitement of cities, while others like the space and privacy of sprawl.

They both have advantages and disadvantages. As for myself, I tried living in SF for a few years and was convinced that the appeal of city life just did not resonate with me; however many good friends could not do without the amenities and convenience that the city offers. We all just pick what is best for us given who we are and what we value for ourselves.

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