While the move is very far away for me, I'm worried about 
  a possible lack of interesting positions and a smaller 
  talent pool to run my own startup.

I can't compare with the Bay Area, since I've never lived there, but this area is known for having a lot of smart, talented, well educated people. The whole concept behind this area being known as "The Triangle" was based on the presence of 3 research universities (UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke and NC State) forming a triangular shaped area. In addition to the big three, there are several smaller colleges in the immediate area: Meredith, Peace, St. Augustine's, NC Central, Durham Tech, Wake Tech, and Campbell jump to mind. With the presence of IBM, SAS, Red Hat, Cisco, and others, there is a constant influx of tech savvy people from other areas of the country. In particular, this area seems to pull a lot of people from Northern climates (Pennsylvania seems to send a lot of folks here) maybe because of the weather?

Anyway, just to illustrate a point about the Triangle... Cary (smaller city on the outskirts of Raleigh) is reported to have - IIRC - the highest concentration of Phd holders (per capita) of any city in the United States. Now it's not necessarily the case that Phd == talent, but the point is that people here are smart and well educated in general. Forgot any stereotypes about "Southerners," the Triangle is it's own little nice with different demographics from the more rural areas. (Not that there aren't plenty of smart, well educated people in the rest of NC as well, mind you).

If anything, the problem we have here is how to keep the smart kids who graduate from Duke, UNC, NCSU, etc, in the area. Since this area doesn't - yet - have the reputation for being a startup hub, it seems that people come here, go to school, and then start thinking about moving to San Fran or somewhere "sexy." There are a number of us here who want to change the culture here so that people think more in terms of founding (or joining) startups here. F%@* California, you guys have Stanford and Berkeley, etc. to feed you talent! :-)