Reply to Nothern Virginia is going to unseat Silicon Valley as tech startup

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Mark my words.

With the terrible tax and anti business policies of California it is only a matter of time until companies leave and go to more hospitable environments like NOVA.

Don't forget MD and VA have some of the best STEM universities in the nation which produced a google founder .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/washington-area-pops-onto-tech-radar-as-alternative-to-silicon-valley/2014/01/20/b16003c4-6662-11e3-a0b9-249bbb34602c_story.html?hpid=z1[/quote]

As someone who has run tech companies here and in the bay area, tax policy isn't going to make a difference in anyone's decisions, unless you are building a factory or distribution center with lots of floor space and low wage labor, like the Google data center or a PC manufacturing operation.

The power of Silicon Valley is the concentration of expertise in all areas pertaining to technology, on the business and technical sides.  No matter what kind of job you need to fill, chances are someone there has done it before.

The negatives of SV are the very high wage rates and the willingness of employees to hop from company to company.  If you area already working in multiple geographies, you quickly realize that you are paying 50% more than the East Coast employees and more than double what you can get in other countries, and not just low wage countries but pretty solid tech pools like Israel.  These SV wages are not created by tax policy.  It's the demand for talent.

DC has one strategic advantage, which is that the Federal Government is a large consumer of services, a buffer against market cycles, and the source of some pretty unique technology demands.  Wages are pretty high here, better than SV but it is more of a struggle to find the top level of talent here, and consequently they also cost a lot even though the average programmer, sysadmin or DBA is lower paid.

Ultimately, SV's grip on technology will have to loosen, because the importance of location will increasingly weaken.  But it won't be because of government.[/quote]

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