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Comment by hos234 | Hacker News Reader

This has nothing to do with national borders. In US, UK and Germany the Nobel's don't come from all over the country but from very small areas.

If Princeton/Newyork/Boston declared independence tomorrow those new countries would be at the top of the list too.

Where cash concentrates Science happens.

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National borders do actually have a relevance for Switzerland IMO because it involves serious hurdles, particularly today, for many people to move there so it often isn't just a haven for the best-educated and/or wealthiest people in a region.

Switzerland has relatively strict immigration policies, always maintaining a layer of separation from the EU/EEA and other developed countries though that's less true for EU/EEA countries today, but it still has nowhere near the freedom of movement from other countries that is the case between the rest of the US and Princeton/NY/Boston, or the rest of the UK and London, etc.

Switzerland is part of the EU free movement zone, so European citizen can settle in Switzerland automatically is they find a job.

Right, that's why I mentioned that it's less the case today, but that freedom of movement is always at risk of being cancelled much more easily than a country leaving the EU. There has already been a referendum that passed that would have done so. Also, non-Swiss Europeans can be expelled for certain criminal convictions and (as you mentioned) need to be able to support themselves financially which aren't generally the case between EU states except in extreme circumstances.

It seems to be a combination of things: cash, investment into education, political will, peaceful political climate.

The Bay Area/SV dominates tech because of a bunch of decisions made starting around the 1850s to turn California into a world player.

Maybe you mean 1940s? The Bay Area benefited from fairly massive government subsidies to the Military Industrial Complex in California. WW II shifted military attention to the West Coast and San Francisco Bay was a major Naval Base. The Atomic Energy Commission took over and expanded Lawrence Berkeley Lab and established Livermore Lab. The aerospace industry moved to California due to the continuous availability of good flying weather and proximity to aluminum sources based on hydropower. This was mainly to southern CA, but a lot of aerospace electronics came from the Bay Area. NASA also established Ames Research Center. Plus, as its congressional delegation grew in size and influence, and during the Reagan years, Federal money continued to flow into the state.

In the 1850s there was the Gold Rush, which was unplanned. Around 1900 the southern CA oil boom made it the largest oil producing state in the US.

Look up the history of Stanford to see early investments in the infrastructure of the Bay area. I agree post-war was when the rapid expansion happened but many of the important foundations were laid using gold money and railroad money. Similarly Caltech in the South land shows work prior to world war II. La was already in aerospace powerhouse when world war II happened.

Thanks for pointing out the oil boom I left that out because I forgot

People matter, compare vs the oil rich Gulf states.

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