I think there's a lot of factors at play when you're founding a company and what Brin is hopefully saying is that given the current conditions SV is difficult f

I think there's a lot of factors at play when you're founding a company and what Brin is hopefully saying is that given the current conditions SV is difficult for early stage (bootstrapping or seeding), which seems to be true. In 1998 things were very different so of course they could afford to be in the menlo park area and reap the rewards of the VC network. Now, to stay in the area you need to fund heavily up front which leaves you less time to build that awesome product before funding dries up (or worse, you have to sell too much of your company in order to survive). The reality though is you can try to start up a company in a place like Boca Raton and unless you have some previous connections and major capital you're not going have the funding network and excess of high tech workers your company needs to really take off. Magic Leap basically went this route and seem to be doing fine but most companies aren't that high profile (and well funded).