I asked David about Paul Graham's claim that "One of the most common emails we get is from people asking if we can help them set up a local clone of Y Combinator. But this just wouldn't work. Seed funding isn't regional, just as big research universities aren't."
David said: "You can't do it anywhere, but you could do it in any reasonable start-up community."
If anything, not being in the Valley will keep your brain from turning into mush.