As a MS grad of the UNC CS department who has spent time working with researchers at both Duke and NC State, it's interesting to me to think about why we don't

As a MS grad of the UNC CS department who has spent time working with researchers at both Duke and NC State, it's interesting to me to think about why we don't have a thriving startup culture. I certainly know people who have gone through those programs, stayed in the area, and are interested in startups (as both founders and places to work). My perspective (which clearly can't cover all the students in those programs or hackers in the area) is that a small number of successful (ie, more profitable for the founders than taking a job with IBM, Fidelity - before the layoffs, NVidia, SRA, SAS, or one of the other, non-tech focused companies in the area that suck up tech grads) would go an extremely long way in jump-starting a startup culture. Heck, I wonder if semi-decent mentorship for founders from people who actually got something out-the-door would be more helpful than just having some VC opening the checkbook. I always think of SV as kind of nirvana, where joining a startup with some decent chance of being successful is much more a normal story than it would be here in RTP. I think a big part of the lack of a startup culture here is that people create interesting software, but then kind of sputter out on getting it in front of people. Maybe RTP has the tech talent to be a startup hub, but lacks a local and cutting edge,technically-driven customer base? Or the critical mass of like-minded founders is what we desperately need as pg speculates in his essay? Certainly the focus at the big three universities isn't on startups . . . All that said, in my peer group, several people have gone on to work at small, startup type companies in RTP. But it seems like the common story here for hackers who "make" it are ones that seem to involve consulting for one of the bigger companies in the area or maybe less commonly developing software in 1 or 2 man shops on a custom basis (ie, roll-your-own ERPs and whatnot) for comfortable income. I think RTP is getting closer to being more startup-oriented, but we (the area and hackers in it) need to be more driven in becoming entrepreneurs. But I don't hear hackers in RTP say anything about being satisfied with a nice beach house . . . I'm not defending the RTP hackers too strongly here because I do think we are missing some critical piece of what a startup culture needs but I'm not sure we can chalk it up to "passivity, complacency, and parochialism." I would love to hear other thoughts from HN readers in RTP or with connections to it (ie, did you do school here and head to SV?).