| If you move here, your options are 1. start lean: Only hire founders who will work for nothing. You can also hire new people and train, but that's /very slow/ and not really recommended if you are a "startup" rather than a lifestyle business. or 2. get funded. take the money (and the publicity. 1% of a funded company is going to be perceived as more valuable by most people than 50% of the same company before it's funded) and hire good people. For both 1 and 2, the valley is great. It's a great place to meet people who have the technical skills (and the financial acumen) to become a co-founder. It's also a great place to find people who might fund you, and it's a wonderful place to find people you'd want to hire if you had a lot of money. The thing of it is, people get paid more around here, but standards are higher, too. A mediocre SysAdmin in silicon valley, if you move him to, say, the Sacramento area, will be like a minor god. This isn't to say that you can't find good people outside of silicon valley, but the average here is higher. I'd say high enough higher to justify our inflated wages. If you are paying market rate for market skill, even though you are paying more here, I'd say you are at least getting as much skill per dollar as you would elsewhere, and maybe more. Hang out at the hacker dojo, go to various meetups, meet people. It's pretty great. Personally, I think it's worth the extra cost just for the social life. I feels pretty great to be surrounded by all these smart people who are interested in the same sorts of things you are interested in. But really, if you want to hire people on the cheap, this is not the place to do it. You would be better off almost anywhere else in the world. Hiring foreigners (or Midwesterners) and having them work remote is one way to do it. Moving to Texas is another popular option. |