[booi]

except developing AI is very much a knowledge exercise with very little dependency on location.

You don't move your manufacturing business out of Shenzhen because the entire hard supply chain from mining, refining, manufacturing, test, ship and trade are all there. You can't move a refinery that easily much less the entire supply chain.

[brokencode]

Sure, but most of the country’s AI talent is concentrated there. Not to mention venture capital.

What’s the advantage of moving? Maybe lower taxes and a cheaper rent.

That seems like a small price to pay compared to the hundreds of billions they’re putting into data centers.

[alfalfasprout]

They're concentrated there because they've been asked to concentrate there. That can change on a dime.

It's not like data centers are mainly in SF.

[hamdingers]

You've got it backwards.

Well paid engineers congregate in California because it's a nice place to live if you can afford it.

Therefore if you want to hire the best engineers, and want an in-office work culture, you need to go to California.

[terminalshort]

Well paid engineers congregate in CA because that's where the companies that hire well paid engineers congregate, and they (mostly) want those well paid engineers to come to the office every couple of days. I don't know how you could get the causality so completely backwards on this.

[AdamN]

Depends on the type of engineer - NYC for fintech is also a top spot, Boston for robotics, etc...

[ozozozd]

Anecdotal evidence: I moved to CA twice as an engineer.

Once to get my masters after college. Stayed for 13 years. Left during COVID.

Second time to raise kids.

Our reasons include weather, intellectual atmosphere, safety (in many regards), schools, and job opportunities.

The geo area sandwiched between Berkeley and Stanford is only rivaled by Boston. You think Stanford and Berkeley are in the Bay because they’re told to?

And I would also question: what’s the point of living in US if you’re not in California? Once you decide to not live in CA, a bunch of other countries rank better than other US states. Such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand.

If I were to not live in CA, even the imperial units would quickly become annoying.

[FajitaNachos]

How many other places, inside and outside the U.S., have you lived?

[vessenes]

I think you're wrong. The concentration is for a host of reasons. Witness the large number of cities and countries that have tried to create a local Silicon Valley competitor unsuccessfully over the last 25 years.

The data centers I think prove this point, and disprove yours -- huge spend has gone into data centers, but places like Wenatchee remain stubbornly not Silicon Valley.

Intel has not made Portland into SV. Austin, while a tech hub and one of the US supply chain centers for hardware, is multiple orders of magnitude less productive than SV for tech startups. Productive as in numbers of unicorns, total value creation, however you want to spin it.

[shuckles]

> That can change on a dime.

People tried very hard to change it between 2020-2023 and utterly failed.

[bchasknga]

Cries in the number of "next Silicon Valley" in the last 30 years.

[fragmede]

Silicon Alley, Beach, Hills, Slopes, Forest, Prairie, Bayou, Desert, Roundabout, Docks, Glen, Fen, Cape, Oasis... and that's not the complete list!