this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2026
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If by "the smart few" you mean highly sort after professionals, such as PHDs. We're often seeing the opposite, a majority of them seek locations at which they'll get the highest pay - Which tends to be USA, due to the exploitation of everyone beneath them
Except we have lost more than 10,000 STEM PhDs from federal departments since Trump entered office, outnumbering new hires 11 to 1 (https://www.science.org/content/article/u-s-government-has-lost-more-10-000-stem-ph-d-s-trump-took-office)
And 15% less PhD applicants, 21% less of foreign PhD applicants (https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/losing-an-entire-generation-of-scientific-talent-top-us-universities-accepted-15-fewer-phds/4023877.article)
Usually people come here for work when trained at that level, but we are quickly heading towards a "brain drain" of losing our highly educated population.
And where did they go? Silicon Valley, Europe or China? This doesn't necessarily mean the US has less PHDs available.
We can hope the 21% drop of foreign applicants for PHD programmes, is reflecting the job market. But I've not seen any data suggesting Silicon Valley having bigger trouble than usually attracting talent when flying million dollar a year contracts in their faces.
OpenAI, Google, Meta and all the other jazz is still attracting the talent. Unfortunately.
It actually does. That's how math works. If you have X - 10,000, your result is less than X
That's just one employer, not all American employers.