I can't read the whole story (frickin paywalls). But, as somebody who fairly recently (3-5 years ago) left Silicon Valley for the Northeastern US, I'm willing t

I can't read the whole story (frickin paywalls). But, as somebody who fairly recently (3-5 years ago) left Silicon Valley for the Northeastern US, I'm willing to bet they overlook two things that still make Silicon Valley what it is. Those things are a ban on non-compete agreements and state laws that say what you make on your own time is yours and not your company's. You would think this would be standard across the US, but it's not. I've had to turn down a few contract jobs because I refused to sign contracts with similar clauses in them. The ability to take a weekend project and turn it into the next big tech company is one of the things that made SV. The other was easy access to large sums of money, but crowdfunding has made that less of a factor than it was. That and the stories circulating about VCs screwing over founders.