Buzzkill on the Great Silicon Valley Exodus
Ohio is great and the Bay Area has problems, but let’s pump the breaks just a little
“I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees…”
I often think about this line from the song “Bloodbuzz Ohio” by The National,¹ when I read pieces about the desire for people to leave the Bay Area to head to places like Ohio. Silicon Valley is over, so the story goes. And goes. And goes…
I happen to be from Ohio. I spent the first eighteen years of my life there. I spent the next four in Michigan, another popular catch-all in these breathless stories longing for the simpler lives of the Midwest. Never mind that it’s debatable whether either state is even in the Midwest.² Just go with it, it fits the narrative.
This narrative rubs me the wrong way on both sides. It manages to be both insulting to Silicon Valley and to Ohio. Never mind that San Francisco, the city often being referenced in the exodus pieces (and where I currently live and have for the past decade) isn’t actually in Silicon Valley. Again, just go with it. It fits the narrative.
To boil it down: Silicon Valley is too expensive, as such, people are getting paid too much, as such, the people are too much in their own heads, as such, this bubble is blinding people from what is happening in other parts of the country, as such, we should all move to other parts of the country.
Step 4: …
Step 5: Profit.
I mean, a lot of that is true! The Bay Area is too expensive. And people are getting paid too much. And the culture is in many regards too insular.³ And it is probably getting worse.
But there are very clear and pretty obvious reasons for all of this.⁴ It’s not just that the people in Silicon Valley are assholes. (Which, make no mistake, is the underlying current running under much of this.) There are a lot of assholes — maybe even more than other parts of the country. That seems like it would be hard to measure. But sure.
Yet having everyone up and move to Ohio wouldn’t solve that. Assholes are often assholes not because of money but because of who they are deep down in their souls. Money is often an enabler, sure. But if it weren’t money, it would be something else to trigger such behavior.
Said another way, if a lot of the jokers that people read about and dislike in Silicon Valley moved to Ohio, they would still be jokers that people dislike. They would just live in Ohio!
“I still owe money to the money to the money I owe
I never thought about love when I thought about home
I still owe money to the money to the money I owe
The floors are falling out from everybody I know”
We are in the midst of a new gold rush. With Bitcoin and the like, we even have our own “mineral” to mine!⁵ But we’ve had many of these. Fools rush in and when the good times end — as they always do — fools will rush out, as they always do.
At the same time, things are different too. It is increasingly becoming easier to start a company anywhere in this country (let alone the world). The tools at our disposal enable remote work the likes of which was never possible before. This will only continue.
And that’s great, because I’m a firm believer that it takes diasporas to seed ecosystems. That is, you need people on the ground who have had some level of success being a part of something bigger, who then go and start their own thing, or help fund the next thing, etc.
The remote workforce tools are helping to propagate all of this to the country as we speak with the right people to help build the next hubs at the right times in the right places. But it hasn’t and it won’t happen overnight. By their very nature, these things take time. Because the success (or at the very least, the learnings from near-success) take time to live through.
So can we stop trying to get everyone in Silicon Valley to move to Ohio? Trust me, most of them actually would not like it. And very much vice versa! Instead, let’s let this all happen naturally. Which it is! It just takes time.
“…but Ohio don’t remember me.”
¹ Here’s a more in-depth look at the meaning of the song and Ohio and bees…
² Northeast, bitches?
³ As someone who spent a year away, I believe wholeheartedly it getting outside the bubble for a bit. Perspective.
⁴ I could obviously expand on this. And will over time. But it will take several post of 500-ish words in length, to say the least.
⁵ Of course, much of this mining is taking place in China, not Silicon Valley — but it fits… you get the picture.
