The stats can be viewed here
http://igeejo.com/crunchbase_stats.txt

Cheers
Jim Karsten

The stats can be viewed here
http://igeejo.com/crunchbase_stats.txt

Cheers
Jim Karsten

I think you're dead on about capital efficiency. The “right amount” of
capital for a lot of companies is certainly heading south.

I kinda feel like there is a early phase of a company that ends with the
founders hopefully saying, “Holy crap! We're really onto something!” I
think reaching that point used to be a lot more expensive. That being said,
once you reach that point, it's not always cheap to go from “onto something”
to “changing the world”.

Great post. I love that you looked at this question with data in hand. I agree that without “the denominator” as you mentioned you can't really calibrate if there's an “edge” to being in the Valley.

You mentioned this, but I think it's worth reiterating, that in the (old) VC startup game, having access to large amounts of capital was critical, and the Valley clearly has an edge with that metric. However, I think this is changing. Startups will always need access to the “right amount” of capital to grow their business, but it could be that trends toward more capitally efficient companies and business models/strategies will further skew results away from the valley.

Speaking of capitally efficient… I see you have BuddyTV listed as an exit for Seattle, WA, I'm pretty sure Andy and David would disagree… they're still independent and working on making it big.

Your data also suggests that the “hit” rate for SV investing might actually be less than for other regions. There is so much more capital being deployed in SV, you could argue that the percentage of the US should be much higher than it is.

The bottom line is that now that certain technologies, particularly software are becoming more of a commodity, they do not have to be in a partiuclar location to succeed. They just have to be in a good technology cluster, which can by SV, Boston 128, Washington, DC, Raleigh Durham, Tel Aviv, etc.

A more interesting question, I think, is where the next wave of innovative technogy is going to be developed. Will it be nano materials? New types of energy production? Space elevator and related technologies? More likely those efforts, were they to occur, would initially be centered around the drivers of that new industry. It could be in an existing technology cluster, or one that isn't recognized as a commercial center yet.

The mistake that is often made is to look backwards to see the future. SV was important. But it's future importance is not certain, nor apparently is its current dominance.

Jonathan Aberman, Managing Director, Amplifier Ventures

I'm just saying, “silicon valley” is a marketing term, not a reality

Great people and great technology and great startups happen all over

Over on tech crunch Sarah lacy also punctures the silicon valley myth
machine a bit also

http://bit.ly/LNHvr

SF destroys everywhere else on shear quantitative volume, but what was more striking to me was the qualitative aspects. esp. sf internet engineers, take a look at the _types_ of jobs there you'll see CTO's position for angle backed cos, vp of engineering, next-gen technologies mentioned… look over at boston and its all exchange admins positions at car dealerships and a variety of old school technology (ASP seems to be popular on the east coast).

you let top tech talent browse sf , bos, and sea and let him pick which list he wants to choose from and he'll pick sf everytime. so top talent will come here. and as a guy that's doing the hiring i'll be able to recruit that talent and I'll know that they wernt doing ASP at a Hospital Management Co. so they'll “get it” (get all the next gen tech ruby et all)

Maybe the counter is ,, “the elementary schools are better out here” “Think about the lifestyle!” ,, well I personally don't have hobbies, outside interests so I sure as hell dont want my developers to have any! I want 1-dimensional startup guys like me!!

Take L.A. (I lived there many years.) Certainly many think of it as a
“company town.” But that's mostly the people who work for the “company” and
like to preen.

Hollywood (very broadly-defined) employs maybe 250,000 people in Los Angeles
County — out of a total population of 10 million, out of which maybe 75%,
or 7.5 million are not children. (These numbers are from census.gov and
bis.gov.)

Your post itself pokes a hole in the myth that Silicon Valley is such a
concentration of the digital workforce. But here's some interesting figures
on whether or not “Silicon Valley” really exists as popularly described
(e.g. a “company town”,) and who works there:

http://www.viewfromsiliconvalley.com/id296.html