It's not about being smart enough. It's about time required to retrain and the cost to do so. Until Google, or PeidPeiper, have a on-job training program sufficient enough that they can walk into every Shop of Kreutzberg and say "here, we we'll teach you the skills you need just come work for us" -- we should assume their setting up shop will displace a ton of people. Until those companies add to that "and we'll pay your cost of living until you transition" their movement into a neighborhood should perceived as a Tax by the state.

I fundamentally disagree. The only reason why tech is hard to get into is because tech education is so terrible that teaching someone to use Word is what passes for IT. Something that makes as much sense as writing dotted lines with chalk as a prerequisite for mathematics.

And not everyone working in tech has to work at a FAANG. Or wants to even try to pass their hiring interviews. There is plenty of work for utility programmers like me in all industries. Yes, you won’t be able to humble brag about your salary but we all do pretty well relative to the median.