For starters, the idea that some people are just inherently exceptional programmers and others can only be competent is elitist. Is it any wonder that every programmer in Silicon Valley thinks they're God's gift to the programming world? We've been taught that to be hirable we have to be "10x" engineers who spend all of our free time hacking.
But ok, maybe you don't agree with me on this point. You feel as though there truly is some kind of "master race" of programmers who are inherently gifted in ways that nobody else can learn to be gifted. That still doesn't mean that you should agree with PG.
Why do we need to import all of these engineers into Silicon Valley? One of the great benefits of Software Engineering is that it can be done from anywhere in the world. Why can't people choose to stay where they live? My suspicion is that it has more to do with entrepreneurial arrogance than anything else. Company executives simply want to build big empires with lots of programmers all under their thumb under one roof.
So what happens? If you want to be an engineer, you have to come to Silicon Valley and displace someone who already lives in the Bay Area. It's displacement that breeds displacement.
Ok, maybe you still don't believe me. You think that we need exceptional engineers and they have to be in the Bay Area. The immigration policies that tech companies are pushing for aren't based on merit. The STEM visas only apply to people who are schooled in the US. In other words, the people who will be coming to the US on these new visas aren't coming here because they are one of the exceptional engineers tech companies fawn after. They're here because they have parents who can afford to send them of to the US to fancy schools. We're not getting the "poor and huddled masses" that made this nation great anymore.
Is it any wonder people in the Bay Area hate us? We're elitist, we displace people, and we're importing people from affluent backgrounds.