swell, there are a number of silicon valley startup vets from the 70s retiring here. it beautiful and we think traffic means it takes 20 min to get to work, rather than 15min. i also think in milwaukee we have the best beer in the world. in madison, milwaukee, and chicago the startup communities are growing fast in web tech, but even faster in biotech. i know in the valley most of you don't see it, but here there are new hospitals going up all of the time. we have one of the first telerobotic heart surgery terminals in the world. in this area, we have GE, Abbott, and Baxter; its pretty much like having google, microsoft and yahoo in your bio-tech back door. when the baby-boomer are aging and using medical care that money will fall through this state at some point.
don't forget that we have 2 of the worlds largest financial processors, fiserv, and metavante. wisconsin is on a great path to take advantage of chicago's resources too. since 9/11 chicago has passed new york in trading value, and chicago is the 4th largest fiscal market in the world, with $460 billion in production value, where SF is 15th on that same list.
and don't forget our schools where UW Madison and UIUC take the 9th, and 6th position in CS school ranking. if only we had the risky VCs that the valley had, i suspect that many of the world largest computer companies would have stuck here in the midwest, near their alma mater.
also, do not discount our work ethic, one day we should eclipse the west coast in tech companies all together.
ps. who do you think will build the nanotech manufacturing economy too?