I'm not sure whether YC is actually that great for startup hubs outside of SF. After all, the most ambitious founders seem likely to just go through YC and then

I'm not sure whether YC is actually that great for startup hubs outside of SF. After all, the most ambitious founders seem likely to just go through YC and then stay in SF because all the other ambitious founders have stayed in SF, the VCs are there, the talent is there. Yes, they could head back to Pittsburgh, but that's 2 moves for a fledgeling startup, and they have little to gain from the second. It kinda reminds me of Front[0], another YC startup from France, which decided to eventually move their entire team to SF. I'd wager that the cultural differences in this move outshine those of a Pittsburgh-San Francisco move, and they still decided it was the most sensible option. And if they are sucessful, you file them under SF startup instead of French startup, or Pittsburgh startup, or Berlin startup, because that's where they've spent the majority of their time, and that's where they are right now. Through some mental fudging, it becomes another data point for "If I want to start a startup, I need to go to SF". [0]http://themacro.com/articles/2016/02/pros-and-cons-of-distributed-teams/ http://themacro.com/articles/2016/02/pros-and-cons-of-distri...