In Defense of the Midwest

I moved from Cleveland to the Bay Area two and a half years ago. It was probably the best decision I have ever made. While working down in Mountain View, I learned there is absolutely nothing special about Silicon Valley. What is being done here in the Bay Area can be replicated anywhere. Had I not moved here, I would still have this vision of Silicon Valley being a special place.

I would even go so far as to say you're better off starting a company in the Midwest. It's a hell of a lot cheaper, and you can still find good talent. Sure, it will be harder to raise money; however, money will find the truly good ideas.

>Google and Facebook are expanding up here because there's so much talent that simply won't move to the bay

I think a lot of that is driven by Amazon, because they built the downtown offices. People get used to working downtown and they want to stay there. Easy commutes from Capitol Hill/QA/etc.

Now Facebook is expanding downtown, Google Fremont is growing, etc. because people refuse to commute to the east side.

As opposed to the Valley, where your options are (except for Twitter and mostly startups)

1) Work in the valley, and live the suburbs. Yuck. Pay a billion dollars for the privlege.

2) Work in the valley and live in SF. Pay a billion^2 dollars for the privilege, and have a shit commute (sitting on a private bus is still sitting on a bus).

No thanks.

That being said, I went to Case Western and would move back to Cleveland in a heartbeat, if the salaries and opportunities were even remotely comparable to Seattle.

I was in the exact same boat just two years ago.

I always thought I'd move to the valley to work for a startup and then eventually start my own. After my first offer right out of college with a company in SF didn't work out I ended up taking a job in DC.

My god am I glad that I held out on that one. Not only did I make a comparable salary in DC but the housing cost was at least half. I was paying slightly less than $2k for a nice 600 sqft one bedroom. In SF it would have been closer to $3.5k.

Now two years later I work remotely from Portland for a company based out of Madison Wisconsin. Who would have thought right? Certainly not me 2 years ago. As I've grown and traveled the US I've found the valley to be less and less desirable (and yes, I've been there several times).

Honestly the only draw to the valley is the higher volume of jobs. Aside from Google, Apple, et al, you're going to be saving far less in the valley than anywhere else. There's no incentive to move the valley if you can find a job anywhere else. I know people will tell you the network of VCs, the atmosphere, etc. But it's all overrated. If you're right out of school your number one concern should be saving money and learning. If you work in the valley you're only getting access to one of those and it's certainly not saving money (again, unless you're working for Big Tech Co.).

Now don't get me wrong. There are certainly places out there that are far superior to others. I would certainly rather live in the valley than Houston. The cultural aspect is key. I'm simply saying don't run to the valley because you have some idealized image of it. Research and do the math.

This afternoon I just went to see a new opera that premiered yesterday at the Minnesota Opera Company (The Manchurian Candidate). I hardly feel deprived living in Minneapolis with the The Minnesota Orchestra, The Minnesota Opera, The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, The Schubert Club, and a dozen other ensembles I'm forgetting. And that's just classical music, which is what I'm interested in.

If you're into live theater there's a dozen or more shows going at any one time. I'm sure there's a visual arts scene of which I'm happily unaware, jazz performances, dozens of small clubs, and more.

There's more than enough culture to fill my available time and interest. Living in NYC, I'm not sure I'd go see all that much more of it. Yes, I'd be spoiled for choices (and I miss the American Composers Orchestra) but I'm not really suffering in Minneapolis.

> start with the assumption that all computer programming can be done remotely, from China or India. Now ask yourself, what kind of computer programming can not be done remotely?

Just about any kind of software development can be done remotely, really. It's really a function of the skills possessed by everyone involved in a distributed team vs the obstacles distribution may or may not present (and there's different degrees of remoteness -- same city, same time zone, same country, same hemisphere all present different challenges)

> specially to maintain the relationship links between investors and engineers via a CEO. Those jobs need to be in New York or San Francisco.

Unless the CEO doesn't (or your customers don't) live in SF and NY.

I suppose the next line is "well, the investors aren't going to want to visit flyover country." It turns out -- strangely enough -- there are even investors who don't live in SF and NY, though sometimes they strangely don't all want to invest in a slick social deals pyramid or revenue-free chat app or whatever else is hot at the moment...