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Comment by bennyg | Hacker News Reader

Exactly. The heyday of SV (think microprocessor and early PC heyday) had insanely low real estate prices. A guy could get buy doing manual labor and tinker on computers as a side project in the garage back then. Today that's unthinkable. It sucks that tech companies willingly WANT to be in SF/SV, as if it's some magical technological cloud city where the rest of the world can't compare.

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It is a magical technological cloud city. For certain business models.

If the company in question is betting on very strong growth, then it needs a large pool of experienced talent to draw upon. Paying 3X or 5X as much to get top talent can easily save money in the long run.

If you want to be taken seriously by big fish VCs, you have to be able to speak intelligently about how to spend more for a disproportionately positive payoff. The problem here is not the VCs, but the aspirations of the founders.

Finding less experienced talent for cheap may be the smarter move. For other business models.

I think the problem is the belief that top talent only exists in SV - which is false. To me, I think top talent would be less willing to work insane hours, less willing to have long commutes, and less willing to spend a TON on housing. If Google and Apple HQ moved - it would be seen as the end of SV. The VCs would go too. And I think stuff like this will be happening soon.

If only there was something that let you videoconference all day with your colleagues at virtually not cost.

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