Agreed. This is very true of many wannabe SVs. I worke in the Bay Area (Mountain View, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Redwood City) for 10 years. I then moved to

Agreed. This is very true of many wannabe SVs. I worke in the Bay Area (Mountain View, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Redwood City) for 10 years. I then moved to Europe following a trail of jobs (London, Lyon, Paris) and I now live and work still in software in Portland Oregon. There is nothing like the Silicon Valley. Every city or metro area who tries to mimic its unique ecosystem is better off charting its own trail with a different approach I think. There is only room for one Silicon Valley but other metros can create a unique distinctive environment for very focused types of industries (Open source in Portland for instance - Linus T. even chose to live here ;-) Also, not every senior software person wants to deal with the Bay Area's urban and suburban environment ; and the lack of diversity (non-tech industries) it certainly features.