Background: I grew up in the midwest, lived in London, and now live in SV. Here's my 2c. The average person in SV is on their 4-5th startup (whether started or

Background: I grew up in the midwest, lived in London, and now live in SV. Here's my 2c. The average person in SV is on their 4-5th startup (whether started or early employee), as compared to the 1st-3rd elsewhere (YMMV). Think of it this way - instead of BigCo wasting away money on a new product launch (good example - Microsoft Kin), there's loads of money being poured into 100's of Kin-like products, and only very few emerge victorious. This is only possible because of the massive amount of recycled money in tech startups. The rationalization of failure in SV has less to do with commercial progress and more about sociological factors. In other words, there is a huge support network of people who have experienced failures, so it eases the pain of it happening to you. Think about going to an AA meeting where there are 100 recovering alcoholics vs one that has 5. The one with the 100 makes it much easier to recover. You get a large pool of like-minded people and can create allegiances/relationships with much more variety. Want to find someone who also failed a Fitness Tech wearable company in Chicago? Good luck. In SV? There's probably one living down the street from you. Lastly, there is a fair share of fakers here. Number wise, more than anywhere else, but relative to the successes, it's no different than anywhere else. People can hustle their way into the industry with little effort. People rarely check backgrounds here, and there is a winner take all attitude (integrated with a passive, pay-it-forward mentality). > What is worse is that breaking into the funding market is rather difficult unless you have a success story under your belt. This is slightly a myth. One thing that is preached here and does bode well, is that traction matters. If you can build something (that people want), get traction (prove they want it), then there is more than enough money floating around to get funding. Is it easier to get funding once you've proven yourself in the Valley? Absolutely. But you'd be surprised to find that funding isn't everything here.