That's a romantic view of California that has long gone by the wayside, James. Companies of every description, including high tech, have been leaving California in droves for many years now.
Sure, you'll still find a lot of big players in the high tech area based in California, but most of them have built satellite locations in other, more business friendly states, and are gradually shifting operations away from their headquarters.
Come to North Texas and see how many well known high tech company names you see emblazoned on business park structures. I don't think there's a one that I haven't seen here.
I am a consultant and spend my time hopping geography and time zones between Austalia, Asia, California and Texas.
As much as folks would like it to be otherwise, California still is leagues ahead of every other location in terms of an infrastructure for technology, a fertile university system and available talent.
I work for companies that make high end machinery for industrial and consumer markets. Most of them have shifted production to places like South Carolina and Texas, but find themselves unable to move R&D out of California. The pool of talent just isn’t the same elsewhere, and it is an industry-recognised issue.