“Small-town America is primed to beat Silicon Valley in innovation”

College towns don't have pools of investors with tolerance for high risk. They don't have a culture where working 80 hours a week is normalized, what is normal is spending Saturdays in the fall drinking and watching college football.

Anyway, Marc Andreesen left the small town to team up with Jim Clark of Silicon Graphics fame to found Netscape in the valley. That's not to dismiss the long history of computing at UIUC, but the "Mozilla invented here" historical markers erected by the chamber of commerce reflect the belief that marketing is more important than product that runs rampant in small markets. It's not that everyone doesn't believe their own bullshit, but young people tend to arrive in Blacksberg via an application process, not because they want to build the future.

So basically all three of those cities put together gets you half of a Santa Clara.