This comes across strangely for me. As as a founder of a startup who moved from the west coast to the east coast, I certainly didn't do so to be a big fish in a

This comes across strangely for me. As as a founder of a startup who moved from the west coast to the east coast, I certainly didn't do so to be a big fish in a small pond. Personally, I find that a bit of a copout--if what you are doing is awesome you'll work hard to make it work even in a tough environment. That said, I suppose it objectively makes sense. I moved my project to the east coast for completely different reasons, primarily to make good use of the strong medical community in the Boston area. The advisors and collaborators we have here are amazing, and they understand some of the special challenges of being a medical/life science company (things like scientific validation). Sure, you can do arbitrage with geographically distributed startup resources, but imo it's more important to focus on expertise and mindsets pertinent to your work.