[D] Is a move to SF and SV truly a necessity for working at the cutting edge of ML and related areas?

People have been saying since forever, "You got to come to the valley! It's expensive and a heavy lift, but it's the surest way to stay at the cutting edge"

Is it really the case and will it continue to be the case? I wondering about this from multiple perspectives of startups/applied research/product engineering.

If so, why do you think this is the case and how can we otherwise make up for the disadvantages of working from outside the tech …

case edge machinelearning people valley will