Because MV has resources that those other places don't have. If you can succeed without those resources, MV isn't the place for you. However, if you need them and acquiring them costs more than $9k/year somewhere else, MV is cheaper.
I meet smart developers everyday, and have lots of hacker types friends.
As the expression goes: You can't swing a dead cat on the bay area without hitting a good engineer/startupper in the head
Try that in any other place. You have to swing that a lot harder.
If you are trying to build a great startup you live by the talent, and die if you don't have it. Execution is key. Being frugal and cheap is second.
