I always felt that Silicon Valley was a bit overrated. It was definitely a good place to work, at least at one point in time. Since then, higher interest rates have killed investment, which everybody knows. But the other issue that's practically never mentioned is that there's very little innovation left to be done in the IT field. Ideas have run out, and people have realized by now how silly it is to make start-ups that just reinvent an age-old technology but over the internet.

In any case, I think there are plenty of other wonderful large cities to find good software jobs, based on personal experiences, things that I've read and other colleagues' experiences: Amsterdam, Berlin, Boston, New York, Los Angeles are (probably) the biggest outside of SV and all wonderful places to work. Others, like Munich, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, Oslo, Toronto, London might be a bit smaller, but still great places to be. And in my opinion, they have less of the "hustle culture" that seems (or seemed) to be pervasive around SV. To be honest, they always seemed much more attractive to me.