To some extent the problems you describe cover many places outside SV, though French bureaucracy is notorious. It doesn't strike me as obvious that SV is going

To some extent the problems you describe cover many places outside SV, though French bureaucracy is notorious. It doesn't strike me as obvious that SV is going to remain any better for gestating startups into the future, largely thanks to the cost of living, but simultaneously I don't see excessively bureaucratic countries pulling it off either. Balancing government services that can help small business (and I put state health care in there) with a low tax and admin burden is the magic combination that would foster true growth. France can only do that if it can convince the piles of public servants it is in their interests to do it - but they're not stupid, and it isn't. Basically any country where a significant proportion of the population aspires to being a civil servant is just going to enter a sort of slow decline.