[josephmosby]

There are a couple of buried pieces in here.

The first two examples are founders who moved from Europe to San Francisco. Given the entrepreneurial ecosystem in most mid-to-large U.S. cities and more favorable ways of working, I would imagine that you could get a win by moving to any U.S. geography with >1M people versus being a software entrepreneur in a EU regulatory environment. San Francisco is one of the examples... but Chicago probably is, too.

And if you're a founder, there are all sorts of things you need for your business beyond software engineers. You need access to capital, and most VCs are based in the Bay Area and would prefer you be there too. You need access to talented advisors, and later on, experienced hires. Those are also often in SF. It's not impossible to do elsewhere, just more challenging.

Neither of those examples make the case that it's better to hire your engineering team in SF, or that your rank-and-file employees should be there. Yet the article jumps to imply that's the case.

[snowpid]

None of the founders mention the EU regulatory environment.