All Forum Posts by: Joe Bertolino

To add on to what Matt was getting at... it isn't just silicon valley. I have written insurance policies for over 60 biotech start ups in Davis CA in the past 4 years. These are fast growing companies that pick up $20M rounds of financing every few months. One just sold to BP for $100M... same company started with 3 kids strait out of UC Davis in 2009 and has grew to 100+ employees in a matter of months. I write their group health insurance as well so I would talk to new employees as they were enrolling... PHD's from MIT, MBA's from Vanderbilt, Duke, etc. These are not "non contributors" as others have suggested. These are young, smart, successful people and they all say the same thing after living here for a year... they never want to leave CA. We have the best college system in the country that attracts the best and brightest from around the world.

California supports other parts of the country... More conservative states that claim to have their act together. California receives about 77 cents for every tax dollar sent to DC... States like Alabama, Alaska, etc receive closer to $1.30 for every dollar. If CA received 83 cents our state deficit would be whiped out. CA is a great place to live but it is not for folks that are middle class W2 employees. The people I know that moved were middle management types or call center managers at AAA Insurance, USAA or Waste Connections. My day job is as an insurance agency owner and I work with about 800 small/med sized business owners in CA and NV... The owners that moved to NV are not happy about it... The educated talent is not there and $4+ gas has stripped away any cost savings they originally realized. Low skill jobs like call centers may relocate away from CA but if your business requires a lot of brain power, there is no place else that can compete except maybe MA, NY and DC/VA and those places are just as expensive as CA.

It is miserable out here in CA, whatever you do don't come here:)