I don't know when the wave actually broke but I was very disillusioned by the vibes of the bay area when I stayed for GDC in 2009. It seemed like they drove out most of the hippies a long time ago, more often than not people were just acting, very superficially and with a creepy adherence to a lost cultural heritage that felt more like selling out (get your shrink-wrapped Jerry Garcia T-shirt and GTFO).

To make things even more depressing one could feel the omnipresence of a rampantly ignorant / myopic tech monoculture.

I remember that I felt very relieved when I got back to Vienna.. :/