Mark Evans

“Startups prosper in some places and not others. Silicon Valley dominates, then Boston, then Seattle, Austin, Denver and New York. After that, there's not much. Even in New York, the number of startups per capita is probably a 20th of what it is in Silicon Valley. In towns like Houston and Chicago and Detroit, it's too small to measure.”

I'm hoping Graham is just talking about the U.S. given there are plenty of other places around the world nurturing exciting start-ups. In Toronto, for example, the start-up community has really started to flourish over the past year, although it would be nice to see more start-up capital. I'd hazard a guess that Jason Fried (37 Signals) would have something to say about Graham dissing Chicago. While there are certainly advantages to being in Silicon Valley (money, connections, suppliers, etc.), there are other places that have attractive features. A start-up in India, for example, would have a defnite cost advantage over Silicon Valley, while you could argue Chicago has far more cultural appeal than Mountain View or Cuperinto. Then, you have Vancouver, which is not only beautiful but also the home of some very exciting start-ups such as DabbleDB and NowPublic. Stowe Boyd has some thoughts about some of Graham's incongruities, as does Jeffrey McManus and The Fish.