It is going to be tough if he wants to invest in software startups. U of Minnesota's CS department is not very good (I dropped out of the PhD program). The job

It is going to be tough if he wants to invest in software startups. U of Minnesota's CS department is not very good (I dropped out of the PhD program). The job market for programmers is dismal - everyone good moves to the Bay Area, Seattle or NYC. Culturally the mindset of the area is very scandinavian-socialist, with an odd anti entrepreneurial snobbery. If you have a college degree and start a company you are looked upon with pity: "oh, she wasn't smart enough to get a secure job, now she's stuck fending for herself." If you eventually become successful, everyone will claim they've been supporting you all along. Definitely not the same attitude as the HN.YC crowd. There's an obvious win if he wants to invest in biomedical startups, the UofM is much stronger in the health sciences, and the Mayo clinic is only an hour out of the metro area. I hope he's successful. I would have loved to stay closer to my family. I have younger friends with engineering degrees who want to stay in the area, and are pretty much working at Starbucks, playing online poker and scrimping along with their own projects so they can avoid the horrible "enterprise" work that makes up 99.9% of the programming jobs available in the area. Note: I grew up 4th generation Minnesotan, I think more recent immigrants probably avoid most of the cultural baggage.