&gt; The problem isn&#x27;t that there are no talented people.<p>You&#x27;re right, there are <i>tons</i> of talented people in the midwest. The problem I saw over &amp; over was there&#x27;s no incentive to learn something new when the majority of openings are Java and Drupal shops. I saw so much quiet desperation at the meetups I attended. These people would jump on any chance to break out of their bubbles and learn something new. But if startup founders want someone who can hack on their Scala codebase from day one like they&#x27;d find in the Valley, that&#x27;s not going to happen. Everyone already optimized for the available work.<p>(And your other comments are spot-on too)