Jason’s prediction was that in the following years a “massive middle” of tech workers (especially developers) would leave the Bay Area/California for lower‑tax, lower‑cost places like Reno or Austin, significantly shrinking the Bay’s mid‑tier tech workforce.

What actually happened looks more mixed and much smaller in scale:

1. There was notable pandemic‑era out‑migration – but it was modest relative to the base.

   • California did see large net domestic outflows after 2020: over 400,000 more people left than arrived in 2021, and substantial net losses continued through 2023.(en.wikipedia.org)
   • These losses included higher‑income, college‑educated, often remote‑capable workers (a group that overlaps with tech). But the Public Policy Institute of California estimates that in 2023 the net outflow of college graduates and of higher‑income adults was only about 0.4% of each group’s in‑state population—small relative to the total stock.(ppic.org)
     This suggests some middle and upper‑tier tech workers did leave, but not at anything like “massive middle” scale.

2. Austin (and other hubs) gained tech workers, but the Bay’s losses were not huge and were partly temporary.

   • LinkedIn data for May 2020–April 2021 show Austin had the highest net inflow of tech workers of any major U.S. city, gaining about 217 tech workers per 10,000 existing tech workers, while the San Francisco Bay Area was the biggest net loser at about –80 per 10,000.(cmswire.com) That’s meaningful, but still under 1% of the base over that period.
   • Later LinkedIn/Microsoft analysis shows that by the 12 months ending July 2022, the Bay Area had flipped back to a net gain of tech workers, with about 1.12 tech workers moving in for every one leaving, after having been in net‑loss the year prior.(microsoft.com)
   • Reporting on where San Franciscans actually moved during the pandemic finds that most moves were local or to other parts of California; Austin and Denver were the only out‑of‑state destinations in the top 20, with nearby Alameda County the top destination, and Austin just one among many options.(axios.com)
     Austin therefore benefited from migration, but it did not absorb anything close to a “massive” share of the Bay’s mid‑tier developers.

3. Bay Area tech employment did fall after a pandemic hiring boom, but it mainly reverted to pre‑pandemic levels and the region still added tech talent overall.

   • According to data cited in regional coverage, Bay Area tech industry employment peaked at about 960,400 jobs in 2022 and declined to roughly 880,200 by late 2024, dropping below the peak but only slightly under the 2019 level of 885,700—an ~8% pullback from the top, not a collapse.(seattletimes.com)
   • Overall Bay Area employment in 2024 was still at about 98% of 2019 job levels, indicating a cyclical shock plus tech layoffs rather than a structural hollowing‑out of the mid‑tier workforce.(vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov)
   • At the same time, CBRE’s 2023 and 2025 “Scoring Tech Talent” work finds the San Francisco Bay Area remained the #1 tech‑talent market, with the largest tech‑talent labor pool in the U.S. and the highest concentration of software engineers. The Bay added about 75,000 tech‑talent jobs between 2017–2022 and another ~36,950 tech‑talent jobs between 2021–2024, even after accounting for layoffs.(cbre.com)
     These figures are hard to reconcile with the idea that the “massive middle” of developers has substantially left; the region still has by far the biggest and one of the fastest‑growing pools of tech talent.

4. Austin and similar hubs grew, but from a much smaller base and did not displace the Bay’s mid‑tier workforce.

   • Austin’s tech and STEM employment grew quickly; one recent analysis shows about 42% growth in STEM jobs per 1,000 positions from 2019 to 2024, and around 180,000 tech jobs (≈14% of its workforce).(statesman.com)
   • By comparison, the Bay Area still has on the order of 700,000–900,000 tech‑related jobs, roughly 1 in 4 jobs in the region, several times Austin’s total.(axios.com)
     Austin’s growth is real, but it does not represent a dramatic hollowing‑out of the Bay’s mid‑tier tech labor force.

5. Many early movers also returned or stayed within the region.
   News coverage in 2021–2023 documents tech workers who left the Bay Area at the height of remote work and then moved back as offices reopened and urban amenities recovered, and emphasizes that a substantial share of pandemic moves were to nearby counties rather than permanent out‑of‑state exits.(planetizen.com) This runs counter to the idea of a one‑way, sustained drain of mid‑level developers.

Putting this together:

• There was a measurable, pandemic‑era outflow of tech workers and higher‑income residents from California and from the Bay Area, and low‑tax hubs like Austin clearly attracted some of them.
• However, the scale of those moves, relative to the enormous Bay Area tech workforce, remained small (often on the order of fractions of a percent per year), and LinkedIn plus CBRE data show the Bay Area regaining tech inflows and adding tech talent overall by 2022–2024.
• Bay Area tech employment is somewhat below its 2022 peak, but roughly back to 2019 levels, and the region still dominates in absolute tech‑talent numbers and concentrations.

Because the evidence shows moderate, mostly temporary migration and cyclical job cuts rather than a lasting, “massive middle” exodus that significantly shrank the Bay Area’s mid‑tier tech workforce, Jason’s prediction, as normalized, did not come true.