
Startup founders throughout the Midwest are doing something new: staying - prostoalex
https://story.californiasunday.com/indianapolis-tech
======
wpietri
To me this is heartening in a variety of ways.

One is that we're finally making good on the promise of the Internet. The hype
was that it made location irrelevant. And it did for a lot of things. But
somehow VC-backed web and companies were immune to that, even though money and
software are both digital.

Two is that this is great news for founders everywhere. Before they often had
to choose between family and success. Now they can have both. (That didn't
matter to me much when I was 25, but now it's easier to see costs of that.)

Three, I think this is great for customers and users. A frequent and
frequently valid critique of Silicon Valley startups is that many only make
sense in our hothouse atmosphere. E.g., Juicero. There are real-world needs
out there that we're missing because we don't see and spend time with the
people who have those needs.

Four, I believe that this is good news for both our cities and our startup
community. The flood of money has driven up prices just like it did during the
gold rush era. That's certainly a problem for people outside of tech. But I
think it's also bad for entrepreneurs: it keeps getting more expensive to
build a team and a company here. Turning down the heat a little will make it
easier for us all to succeed without having to take gobs of money.

~~~
jt2190
> The hype was that [the internet] made location irrelevant. And it did for a
> lot of things. But somehow VC-backed web and companies were immune to that,
> even though money and software are both digital.

montrose did a good job of summarizing a recent Wall Street Journal article
("Why Cities Boom While Towns Struggle", March 13, 2018) about this very
phenomenon:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16611042](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16611042)

To summarize his summary:

> [R]emote exchanges of ideas are no substitute for the elemental human
> process of face-to-face communication. Innovators don’t do their work in
> isolation; they stimulate one another. -- Enrico Moretti

edit: Here's a link to a non-paywalled interview with Mr. Moretti about his
book, "The New Geography of Jobs" (2012):
[https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/enrico-moretti-
geograp...](https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/enrico-moretti-geography-
jobs)

~~~
aaron-lebo
_[R]emote exchanges of ideas are no substitute for the elemental human process
of face-to-face communication. Innovators don’t do their work in isolation;
they stimulate one another._

Historically, many have. And today, when you can ping almost anyone in the
world, it's not an obstacle. Not to mention, most big cities have a research
university (if not multiple). Nobody is lacking for input. The claim about
"elemental" processes isn't based on anything concrete. I work in multiple
remote teams and it's never been an issue. We get more work done than if we
had to see each other every day.

That's hardly an endorsement for SV alone unless SV has all the talent in the
world (it doesn't). I think your post and some of the other posts advocating
for SV have knowingly or not accepted a belief about how things work, but they
are essentially mythologies.

Some work as loners, some work in groups. The biggest mythology of all is that
it takes hundreds of millions in funding and unethical behavior to build cool
stuff - it doesn't. That seems to be the SV way, many of us don't want that.

~~~
bobthepanda
Those historical loner inventors were inventing much simpler things than we
work on today. Every city with a university has a baseline amount of research,
sure, but at some point a critical mass is more useful.

Agreed on capital - all that VC money slushing around is more akin to chasing
the next big thing rather than fixing real world problems. It's just that
tech's reliance on unconventional methods of funding makes SV startups more
prominent than startups in other industries.

~~~
aaron-lebo
Were they? Individuals are more than capable of learning linear algebra, web
frameworks, or any given hot tech in SV. Those historical loners had the
massive disadvantage of not having reams of material detailing it and in some
cases didn't have modern science because they invented it.

There's almost nothing going on in SV that actually requires large teams or
funding, that's just how things are done. Even if individuals have
disadvantages v groups, those disadvantages aren't obvious when the phds and
top of the class people at Google are building incompatible chat apps (what do
they have, 4?) and those at Facebook are forgetting to renew security certs so
that VR headsets don't stop working. There's a massive amount of inefficiency
there, and at times mediocrity, and that's possible when everyone can pass the
buck. It's not nuclear fusion.

Surely the people at those companies as individuals are capable of producing
much more than that?

~~~
wpietri
You seem to be ignoring the gap between "large teams" and individuals. The
sweet spot for a lot of tech innovation is single, modestly-sized teams.

Individuals working alone, though, are very rarely successful. There are just
too many skills for one person to have, and a solo founder loses the advantage
of different perspectives clashing and collaborating.

Unsurprisingly, investors are very reluctant to fund both solo founders and
large teams. Seed money to support innovative work ends up mostly going to
groups of 2-5 people.

~~~
aaron-lebo
I agree with you, but we just weren't discussing it.

My main point is it is possible for individuals to do great things. The gap
between that and 75,000 person companies is not just huge, it's massive.

Honestly, what investors will or won't fund isn't that interesting to me
because it seems to be root of lots of short sightedness. Investors have
concerns antithetical (in many cases) to building great stuff.

My belief is the market's reliance on investors has biased what is or isn't
possible. If so many people weren't concerned about what they would fund, we'd
probably see more solo founders and we'd probably see more success there. With
investor money around, there's less reason to do that, unless you are a
masochist.

But yeah, most projects aren't single person, and groups have advantages even
if they can be.

------
aidenn0
I graduated from Purdue in '04 and the job market in-state was _terrible_. The
best offer I received in Indiana was a one year contract @ $35k in Fort Wayne.
Several talented people I knew took software jobs at $40k or under to stay
close to family.

I didn't even have to go to a tech hub to get more than double that $35k job
offer.

As an aside: I will _never_ work for Caterpillar after seeing the way the
recruiters treated students at the job fair. An actually overheard sentence
(and whatever tone you are hearing in your head is likely less harsh than what
was used): "Our requirements list a minimum 3.5 GPA, why are you wasting my
time with a 3.2?" this was not a particularly egregious example either, but
rather the typical way they talked to candidates once they found a reason to
throw away their resumé.

~~~
froindt
While I was in school from 2011-2015 I noticed the GPA requirements seemed to
drop significantly! Cat, John Deere, and Boeing all had 3.5+ requirements when
I started. Last I heard, John Deere was at 2.8, and the others dropped as
well.

~~~
aidenn0
At the time Cat really knew they were the belle of the ball.

They were local and they hired from pretty much all majors in the College of
Engineering. IIRC they weren't particularly interested in entry-level software
people at the time despite listing it as an opening.

------
yesimahuman
The headline is clickbaity. The point isn't that Silicon Valley isn't a major
force in tech or that other parts of the US will "beat" it. Rather, it's that
you can build valuable tech companies outside of it, and that the Midwest in
particular is ripe for more tech companies. I know first hand, I'm building my
VC-backed (including coastal $) startup in Madison, and we've stayed put. I
realized the pressures we felt to move early on were our own insecurities and
the bias of tech/investor media (which I've noticed has changed recently,
we're not seen as so crazy!)

I'm glad we stayed put, especially as we've started to focus on real revenue
and scaling, and less on trying to be hot for the purposes of raising a big
early round. I feel like the market for engineers around here is becoming an
advantage for us, and we're not having to fight the same talent wars as those
on the coasts. That matters.

~~~
seawlf
Having just moved to SF from Madison, I have to say that the engineering
competence of teams there is disappointing in comparison to the Bay Area. Not
only that, but Madison companies really do not pay well at all. You can't
expect to keep talent if you aren't paying for it.

~~~
yesimahuman
So far it’s working out and we’re excited about growing here. Our data says
we’re competitive on compensation and I’m proud of our retention. I’m very
happy about the level of our engineering talent and this team is building a
successful product used around the world right here in Madison.

I’m sorry you didn’t have a great experience with your last team.

~~~
electricEmu
I'm glad your happy with your company's engineering output.

As an engineer, I would head for Chicago or Minneapolis. Madison doesn't have
"the next job". When that time comes, I wouldn't want to uproot my family.

I'm glad your rention is stellar. I would expect increased retention due to
lack of alternatives.

Most companies believe their compensation is competitive. A lot of them are
wrong.

The Midwest might be a place where companies can skirt those two things fairly
easy.

~~~
ryandrake
Is there any company out there who actually says “our compensation is NOT
competitive?” That’s pretty much the lowest bar. When I hear “competitive
salary” it means the company can’t think of a more positive word to describe
it that is also truthful.

~~~
yesimahuman
I'm really not sure what your point is. If you're losing candidates based on
compensation being too low, then you're not competitive.

~~~
ryandrake
Everyone at least says their compensation is competitive—-it’s not a way for
an employer to differentiate. As a candidate, when I see the word
“competitive” that tells me it’s lower than “generous,” “excellent,” “top of
market,” basically lower than any other description of compensation out there.

------
danschumann
I live in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. We used to make kids clothes, now we make
trucks(military trucks). I've been writing animation software for the past 2
years. I work 3 hours a day freelancing to pay the bills ( my rent is 540 /
month for a 2 bedroom ). When the software is done, it could be a multi
million dollar thing, but for now I'm living on beans and rice. It's quite a
hard thing, quite giant project for one person to do. Hopefully I think it was
all worth it, if and when I get through it.

~~~
drb91
Wow that rent though, a great place to live frugally. How is your health
insurance (if you don’t mind my asking)?

~~~
pnutjam
In my experience, health insurance is no cheaper in the midwest, but you have
lower quality care in many areas. Care can be especially difficult in rural
areas.

For comparison, I pay about $600 / month for a High deductible plan that pays
nothing until I pay $6k. This is through a company with about 300 employees.
I'm in an urban area (Indy).

------
aaavl2821
The abundance of startup jobs and VCs in Silicon Valley is not matched
anywhere else, and this makes quitting a stable job and working for a startup
/ starting a company a far less risky proposition than if you lived in an area
where there were maybe 1-2 startups big enough to hire reliably. In those
places people just don't make careers of working in startups because there
aren't enough jobs / funding

That said, there are a lot of complicated industries where domain expertise
trumps tech ability (healthcare is a prime example). Most successful health
tech companies are not in CA (epic in Madison and cerner in Kansas City as two
big examples). As more people learn to code I think there will be a growth in
startups with relatively simple tech that is just well suited for the problem
it addresses. Solutions that don't scale to millions of users / are not
optimally performant but are designed by users can win in a lot of sectors

------
twblalock
I suspect that when Silicon Valley loses its dominance it will be to China,
not to other parts of the United States.

~~~
gowld
Does China export consumer webtech? The unique "Chinese characteristics" as
they call it would seem to make it hard to export consumer services.

~~~
gaius
No one knows if Chinese consumer sites/apps like Weibo, Tencent etc can
compete in an open market. Maybe they can but if so, why hide behind the Great
Firewall?

~~~
varjag
And the few Web companies from China that took off globally all seem to
specialize in selling physical goods originating from China.

------
PhilipA
As a Danish company who a year ago moved to Minneapolis, I can tell you that
there is hidden gold in the mid west.

Especially in Minneapolis there are tons of universities and cost of of living
is much lower than the west coast. It makes it a lot easier to keep your
employees once they want to start a family, something far too many companies
neglect.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Unless you want a bunch of people from CA to show up and ruin it you should
stop bragging about how great it is.

Sincerely, Denver

~~~
twblalock
Yeah, that's the irony of other cities trying to compete with Silicon Valley.
If a city succeeds at this and a lot of well-paid engineers move there, that
city will end up a lot like Silicon Valley, including the high housing prices
and the traffic.

~~~
tjr225
The worlds population has gone from 1 billion in 1800 to 7.6 billion in 2017.
This will keep happening. This is not California's fault.

~~~
doctorless
Except that most of the places in the world that were responsible for that
population boom have vastly decreased in children per family as of late.

------
EADGBE
_But she was hesitant to move. She’d grown up in Northern Indiana and studied
communications at DePauw University. She and her husband, a commercial real
estate developer, had built a life for themselves and their two kids near the
capital city._

This is an important aspect that I can't assume is only important to the
Midwest, but something that I come across myself here, also in the Midwest.

Occasionally an over-enthusiastic recruiter will reach out about a relocation
opportunity. I sometimes can't help but reply "No. I love it here." Much to
what I assume is confusion.

We can still move fast and break things out here in Fly Over Country. And our
salaries can afford us better opportunities in comparison. I think a lot of
'Coasters have a hard time even rationalizing that. No technology I've
encountered is locked down to a location.

~~~
tjr225
I dunno...I make a lot more out here on the coast...I graduated from school at
the end of 2014 and I make 2.75x more than my first job offer out of school
back in my home state of MI. The weather is a lot more mild and pleasant.
There are also things on the coast that you simply can't get in flyover
country- mountains, ocean, vast empty national parks, for instance...I swear
it feels like I'm on vacation every other weekend. OTOH I don't really want to
buy a house out here just because it's a daunting prospect but there are pros
and cons to living and working in each area.

~~~
closeparen
>mountains, ocean, vast empty national parks

None of which are relevant if San Francisco's transportation policy is
effective and you go car-free.

~~~
tjr225
Good luck going car free anywhere in the Midwest outside of Chicago- and I
mean at all, period. Even if you do, you still don't have the opportunity to
experience the other- say, if you have friends with cars...which sounds pretty
plausible to me(SF or otherwise)...if you think public transportation in the
Bay Area is bad...every single city in the Midwest(outside of Chicago) is
shockingly bad. You can commute 5-20 miles round trip by bicycle if you want
if you feel like having your life threatened by motorists on an almost weekly
basis(I speak from experience).

~~~
EADGBE
FWIW, my confrontations on public transportation haven't been any worse than
confrontations on the road (rare occurrences; current 60-mile commute, 24
years driving).

A car is very much a rite-of-passage here still, sure. For those that can
afford it (that is the bad part about it), it's the most freeing, invigorating
thing you can own at 16.

Being car-free seems completely asinine here; you're going to need it for
something. That's the lifestyle here. No worse than a bicycle. And one day,
when we can go emission-free; it really won't be.

------
cirgue
Silicon Valley has a radically different viewpoint and set of priorities than
the rest of the world. This discrepancy still has not been exploited to
anywhere near its full potential.

Edit: To clarify, I think SV is increasingly insular, and there is untapped
innovative potential outside the bubble.

~~~
IAmEveryone
The singular success of SV might point to some of its values being linked to
its success. “Correlation is not causation” doesn’t even apply, because
regardless of causality (a->b, b->a, or even x->a && b) it would seem that
it’s difficult to have one without the other.

It’s also important to note that the high reaches of other creative industries
espouse values very similar to those of The Valley.

~~~
jerf
Times change. The "SV values" of 40 years ago are noticeably different than
the ones of today. Heck there's been a pretty noticeable shift even in the
past 5 years. If SV did have the right values for success 20 years ago, I'd at
least put out the suggestion that that opens the possibility that it doesn't
have the success values today.

------
chaostheory
> She was running into the same issue that Case had observed in other cities.
> It had been easy enough to scrounge up seed money and desk space in
> Indianapolis, but the venture capital she’d need to bring her company to
> scale was much harder to find locally.

> Case acknowledged that the investment culture of Silicon Valley is unique.
> It “encourages fearlessness,” he said, “and that’s something to be admired.”
> It can also be difficult to replicate elsewhere.

This is one of the many things that keeps SV dominant. Unless this changes in
the MidWest, things will stay the same. It will still be more beneficial for
your company to move to California than stay if you need money. Investors in
other parts of the country (and the world) are just less risk tolerant than
California.

------
arthurcolle
Apologies for the tangent - I have never been to the bay area, but I am
frequently reminded many times when I meet a “pure tech company” ala google,
msft, amzn, fb software engineer (I’m only 3 years out of school, studied CS)
of this self-righteous and condescending narcissism that I haven’t seen
repeated across other workers in other industries and a kind of deep sense of
self-congratulatory entitlement. It is a little bit akin to what you see with
Ivy League students -> Banks/Mgmt Consulting, but infinitely more detestable
given how flippant toward the rest of the world the tech attitudes can be.

Silicon valley is obviously the new wall street in terms of attracting the big
brains and bringing a focused collection of hard working or brilliant
individuals - yeah, we need the infrastructure to make the world spin faster
but it can really bring out the worst and most myopic visions even from the
“best and brightest”. I like automation and disruption, purely for its own
sake, because we can. But the hyperaccumulation of wealth driven entirely by
advertising is absurd and is effectively non-productive and I hope more people
refuse to take classical VC funding and instead opt for organic growth and/or
pure public raises. The only reason a web app development company (basically
all these startups) that is 6 months old needs 5 million bucks is to create a
legal fiction that from its inception is designed to create liquidation events
that make VCs extremely wealthy, done in a way that gives the impression of
“risk taking” without any real risk being taken because of the ability to
create unicorns from deliberate successive raises - all of these entities
exist within the same monoculture, with huge overlap in board of directors and
investor groups.

I think that ICO related innovations can help in potentially mitigating the
development and solidication of this monoculture as we have seen in Wall
Street, but unfortunately the criminality of some of the newer players in this
field is staggering and equally disappointing

Tech almost certainly doesn’t need Silicon Valley and a decoupling of peoples
thinking in those terms will be very useful step in the right direction

~~~
aaron-lebo
There's a lot of truth to what you say, but you are preaching to the wrong
audience.

~~~
sneak
It is very difficult to get a person to understand something when their salary
depends on them not understanding it, or so the quote goes.

~~~
arthurcolle
is this directed at me? not seeing applicability of the quote in this context

~~~
Zarath
I think parent was agreeing with what you said, in that OP is preaching to the
wrong audience because their salary depends on ignoring this information

------
arca_vorago
I think this conversation is missing a big piece of what made SV in the first
place. Namely, the military industrial congressional complex. I can't remember
the author but he gave a good Google talk on the origins of SV from war
engineering.

I think since the type of warfare of the future is largely informational, and
governments are increasingly neo-fuedal and authoritarian, in the future SV
will be seen as a base of operations of the enemy of tech. Not only does tech
not need SV, but they are going to largely be at odds. SV will probably still
have the highest concentration of VC to IPO cycles but the problem is so many
of them aren't solving problems with products or services and are generally
focused on how to turn customer data into an advertiser money pit while they
angle for the IPO boom and exit (betraying users more and more the closer the
exit is)

I'll tell you what tech does need though... non SV big money representation on
the hill.

That said, there some good things in SV like the EFF, and I don't have much
knowledge of the area other than riding my Harley up 1 to visit a friend a few
times. I do know Pelosi is a a horrible authoritarian in democratic clothing
and it surprises me SF hasn't gotten rid of her yet.

~~~
pfarrell
Was it Steve Blank's "The Secret History of Silicon Valley"?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo)

~~~
arca_vorago
Indeed it is. Thank you.

One thing I forgot to mention is how bad, constitutionally speaking, NSL's and
other pressures from the government are. We just don't know how prevalent it
has become, perhaps the government is NSL strong-arming companies left and
right at the moment... Which is why the legislation that enabled NSLs is
unconstitutional imho.

------
TulliusCicero
> Poring over the available data, Case discovered that plenty of Midwestern
> and Southwestern cities were leveraging tax incentives to stanch local brain
> drain, and a few, such as Pittsburgh and Indianapolis, were cultivating
> their own robust startup scenes.

Tax incentives means competing on price, which is a loser in the long run.
Lower taxes sounds good until you consider the implications: less money
invested in the society itself.

> “We have a lot of quality-of-life advantages: not a lot of congestion, good
> restaurants, low home prices,” he said. “It’s a place where a young family
> won’t bankrupt themselves buying a house with a yard.”

* Not a lot of congestion just means they have car-dominant sprawl that hasn't hit a huge economic boom yet. That's a downside to me.

* Somehow I really doubt their restaurants are significantly better than the bay area, NYC, or Boston.

* Home prices aren't so much a quality of life advantage as a cost of living advantage.

~~~
briandear
> Lower taxes sounds good until you consider the implications: less money
> invested in the society itself

Or, perhaps the Laffer Curve? Maybe revenue actually increases? Look at Texas:
huge budget surpluses and lower taxes and public schools ranked higher than
California.

I am not trying to debate which state is better, but I am trying to make the
point that lower taxes does not correlate to a lower quality state. A poorer
state does correlate: such as Mississippi for example, but low tax “rich”
states do just fine.

~~~
TulliusCicero
Yes, but look at what usually happens. For example, most of the top 10 GDP per
capita states are blue (and the ones that aren't are tiny petro states), while
most of the bottom 10 GDP per capita states are red. This directly contradicts
the conservative mantra of "low taxes spurs economic growth", if anything it
looks like the opposite is true.

> I am not trying to debate which state is better, but I am trying to make the
> point that lower taxes does not correlate to a lower quality state.

Well, "quality" is a pretty subjective word, but it does seem to _generally_
lead to certain things being worse, like social safety nets, education, etc.

For example, in the case of Texas, it also has an insanely high maternal
mortality rate, and while public schools there may outrank California's,
California has an extremely strong public university system.

------
jdhn
As someone who went to school in the Midwest, moved away, and then moved back,
I think it's good that this is happening. That being said, I plan on moving
away from the Midwest for good later this year, as there are better
opportunities (and weather) elsewhere.

------
jonathankoren
sure Silicon Valley sucks from a housing stand point, and you’d think that you
can fire up an AWS instance from anywhere, and you can. However SV has one
thing no place else has, a density of talent and capital unrivaled in the
world. That’s why it continues to exist.

Compare it to Hollywood. Sure you can make movies anywhere, but you don’t.

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-silicon-
valle...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-silicon-valleys-
success-is-so-hard-to-replicate/)

~~~
wpietri
Hollywood's not a great example. Their centrality to the movie industry has
been declining for decades. E.g.: [https://www.thewrap.com/louisiana-
california-movie-making-ca...](https://www.thewrap.com/louisiana-california-
movie-making-capital-world-2013/)

Or an article from this year listing LA as the 3rd-best place, after Atlanta
and Vancouver, for moviemakers to live:
[https://www.moviemaker.com/archives/best_of/best-places-
to-l...](https://www.moviemaker.com/archives/best_of/best-places-to-live-and-
work-as-a-moviemaker-2018-big-cities/)

One important factor at work here is the Internet. Effects companies, for
example, are all over the place, including London, New Zealand, Vancouver, LA,
and even here in San Francisco. Big movies will often use multiple companies,
something that would have been very challenging 30 years ago.

Silicon Valley does have capital and talent. But it's not like that capital is
in doubloons in a vault. It's purely digital. A big reason it's not more
mobile is that VCs wouldn't deign to stop in a flyover state. Talent isn't
quite as mobile, but a) advances in technology mean talent is less necessary,
and b) the rise in remote work means the location of talent is less and less
meaningful.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Much of this is due to unfair tax credits in various areas. And instead of
competing, the geniuses in Cal/LA have been raising taxes.

~~~
majormajor
Actually tax credits for staying local have been increasing, e.g.
[http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-amazon-
sn...](http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-amazon-sneaky-pete-
tax-credit-20180319-story.html) today

~~~
mixmastamyk
Nice, a new program. However the total tax burden is still high, e.g. there is
a "freelancer" tax in Los Angeles with onerous reporting rules.

~~~
sedachv
> However the total tax burden is still high, e.g. there is a "freelancer" tax
> in Los Angeles with onerous reporting rules.

BS. The online form literally takes 5 minutes to fill out. "Creative artists"
earning under $300,000 are exempt from paying city taxes, as are small
businesses grossing under $100,000.

~~~
mixmastamyk
You have a strange idea of not high and onerous if you think taxes in LA are
attracting work rather than repelling it, as the top of this thread explains
clearly.

Take 30 seconds to search and you can find stories of folks who got shafted
for thousands because they didn't even know such a thing existed and needs to
be reported early even if you do. The fact you most get an exemption is
another example of big brother showing who's boss for no gain to the city.

~~~
sedachv
> Take 30 seconds to search

How about you stop being a libertarian keyboard jockey and actually try to get
involved in running a business or two in Los Angeles, like I am doing?
Everything you have posted is bullshit.

My wife happens to be a "creative artist" who does a lot of work in the film
industry here. She is also the type of person who did not do basic research
into starting a business and did not bother to find out what taxes she was
supposed to be paying. I don't know why you think that being an airhead is the
city's fault. The fine was not "thousands of dollars," it came out to
$80-something for two years of unreported city taxes. It was literally a
letter and a couple of phone calls to settle that.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Yeah, I'm a former VFX developer and now freelance developer in LA. This is
site mostly for programmers if you hadn't noticed.

[http://www.laweekly.com/news/did-you-just-
get-a-500-freelanc...](http://www.laweekly.com/news/did-you-just-
get-a-500-freelance-assignment-the-city-might-bill-you-30-000-6040715)

[http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-horowitz-taxes-
ta...](http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-horowitz-taxes-tax-day-
freelancers-gig-economy-20170418-story.html)

[https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/LA-Freelancers-
Get-...](https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/LA-Freelancers-Get--Tax-
Bill.html)

Not to mention the links from the grandparent making the case of the declining
industry:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16621760](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16621760)

Oh, and the recent hidden trash tax, 35 million a year:
[http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-trash-bills-
los-...](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-trash-bills-los-
angeles-20170820-story.html) (Rent went up $100 in an already soaring rent
environment.)

Paid shill from the city government? Sure sounds that way. It's obvious you've
never lived in sane tax environment like New Zealand where you file in about
thirty minutes a year on their website. That's what you're competing with.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Forgot to mention the newly raise CA gas tax.

------
lowpro
I grew up in Fishers, and currently go to Purdue (an hour north). I can say
from what I've seen that tech really _is_ coming here, it isn't trying
anymore. I know there is a lot of 'Silicon Valley of X', but I don't think
Indy is trying to be the next Silicon Valley. It feels like the people here
are content at solving problems big and small, and not as focused on capital
and business. Personally I think this a good thing, and prefer it. And of
course as the article states, a little Midwest politeness pervades the area.

Salaries are also way higher in the area then they used to be (expect maybe
$50,000-60,000 in the area, at least for new grads in the area for larger name
companies). It's not SV wages, but it's not city living either, and the area
is great.

To follow some of the people in the area, I'd look at @DonWettrick [0] on
twitter, he's an educator in the area and a lot of his students are a part of
Launch Fishers and are coming into the local start up scene. If you care about
the next generation, definitely a class to keep up with!

[0] [https://twitter.com/DonWettrick](https://twitter.com/DonWettrick)

~~~
lotsofpulp
In my experience, if you like working and you're top 10%, you will do well in
a big city. By the time you're 26 to 28, and you have an MBA/JD/MD, I see my
friends making $200k+ easy. If you're in this group, then you're household
income is $400k+ easy, but the big difference is the connections you're making
which can enable you to go up to 7 and 8 figures or more. Really depends what
you want to gamble on, but if you're top of the class and want to make money I
would definitely try out a major city.

------
hokumguru
I live in Lincoln, Nebraska and this has been clear to us for years. We've a
few startups and agencies of decent size and reputation that have made their
home here.

Quite interestingly, it's not been that terribly difficult to find tech jobs
paying 80-110k here where one might find a good rental for 600-700/m (I should
add home ownership in Nebraska is quite large).

I quite like the idea of the west-coast salary in a midwest cost of living.
Hoping it stays that way :)

If interested you could check out
[http://siliconprairienews.com/](http://siliconprairienews.com/)

~~~
Tempest1981
I see 2 companies with looking for software developers on your Jobs page: D3
Banking, and Proxibid. Is that typical?

~~~
tortasaur
If you're asking if it's typical of the area, no. It appears that job board
only has two companies posting to it. Indeed or LinkedIn are better indicators
of the market.

------
swanson
If you happen to be an Indianapolis-based (or surrounding area) developer
reading these comments, please tweet me @_swanson and I'd be happy to get you
invited to our local Slack instance.

------
lettergram
As a startup founder who moved to the Bay area and moved back. I can see why,
literally I own a house, with better internet, 5 minutes from a store, with no
traffic, no distractions, and can communicate with anyone online...

Honestly, location matters to an extent, but it's really what you make of it.
I know people across the country, they intro me to others. Many I never meet
in person, yet we all help one another. I think it's more than possible to
grow connections in the absence of presents, just harder.

------
omot
Kind of an irrelevant tangent, but I think the reason why Snapchat is
suffering is that HQ is in LA. I noticed that you have to pay great
developers/designers more to relocate away from the Bay Area. You also get
slower iteration on new hires since they have to fly to/from SF/LA for
interviews. It's great that these founders could stay in the Midwest, but if
they're ever to compete against the giant companies, they'd probably have to
relocate to the Bay Area or Seattle.

------
uptownfunk
The internet I would contend didn’t make location completely irrelevant. I
think the existing gap lies in access to capital. And while we do not have
crypto done anywhere near correctly, the true democratization of capital will
do a lot more for the redistribution of wealth displacing the SF VC CF that
currently exists today.

------
_bxg1
Hopefully this will reduce some of the techno-elitism that's been on such a
sharp rise for the past decade. It's heartening to see an intersection of the
progressiveness of tech with the groundedness of people outside The Valley.

------
tschellenbach
Boulder is actually getting quite close to SF in terms of engineering
salaries. This is article is a bit late with spotting the trend.

~~~
whalesalad
Does Boulder count as the Midwest? Plus... Colorado/Denver/Boulder has a lot
more sex appeal than Des Moines IA or Columbus OH so I’m not surprised it
isn’t facing the same salary challenges as the actual Midwest.

~~~
shagie
Colorado is in the West - Mountain region in the Census (
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Census_Regions_and_D...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Census_Regions_and_Division_of_the_United_States.svg)
).

It isn't part of the breadbasket / midlands culture (
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/11/08/w...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/11/08/which-
of-the-11-american-nations-do-you-live-in/) )

It doesn't have the midwest linkages in Facebook (
[https://petewarden.com/2010/02/06/how-to-split-up-the-
us/](https://petewarden.com/2010/02/06/how-to-split-up-the-us/) ).

It isn't part of the hopelessly midwestern culture (
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3B9iu3QAwM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3B9iu3QAwM)
).

So nope... Colorado isn't midwestern.

~~~
matthewwiese
Love that last link. As a kid who grew up in the Midwest with a soybean field
outside the kitchen window, the song put a wide smile on my face.

------
influx
What would Microsoft and Amazon have been without Silicon Valley?

~~~
irrational
Do you mean because they are located in Seattle instead of Cali?

~~~
aaavl2821
They also raised very little venture capital (Amazon did one round led by KPCB
I think, Microsoft took only like $1M in venture money)

------
Erlangolem
Silicon Valley needs tech, not the other way around. Tech needs investment
though, and often flocks to where the money is. Right a lot of people are
throwing a lot of money around Silicon Valley, so a lot of tech (or bullshit
masquerading as tech) lives there.

------
carrja99
No.

~~~
munk-a
Seconded.

------
rdiddly
Betting now that Peter Thiel's recent "move" is mentioned. Now off to read the
article.

EDIT: Well I lost that one. It's about the Midwest. They did mention Thiel
though, just not in that way.

EDIT 2: And now the title has been changed (an improvement), making me look
like (more of) an EEEDIOT!

