[brandonmenc]

> location would be a factor mitigated by technology

Do you want to be surrounded by people on the cutting edge of tech? They all congregate in one or a few places, and you have to move where they are to reap the benefits of community.

People will always seek to associate in meatspace, regardless of society's tech level.

[wpietri]

Having lived in SF 15 years, I think that advantage is steadily declining.

When I moved here, people came here because this was the place where all the interesting technology happened. It was hard to keep up. But now, the number one reason to move here isn't the technology. It's access to capital.

Since Bubble 1.0, the Internet has become an excellent distributor of technology. But VCs still aren't interested in getting on planes.

[kilbuz]

I recently moved to SF from a large Midwestern city. I don't know what things used to be like here, but I would say number of job opportunities here compared to where I moved from are somewhere between 20x and 50x. Maybe that's confounded by the access to capital.

Not to mention living here is nice for many other reasons.

[wpietri]

Well, the competition is higher, and a lot of the jobs available right now are not funded by revenue, they're funded by investment. So I think the current picture is misleading.

It is a swell place to live, though. But even that advantage has declined a fair bit. 20 years ago, a lot of places in the midwest were cultural deserts. Books, movies, magazine, ideas: all severely restricted. The Internet has changed that. And San Francisco is rapidly losing the diversity of culture that was a big draw for me.