Hacker News Reader

I think people really underestimate how much Silicon Valley owes to the world-class universities we have here. Without them, we wouldn't dominate tech and biotech. Stanford pumps out CS/MBA/BioTech, Berkeley pumps out CS/MBA/BioTech, UCSF pumps out BioTech. Their influence can not be understated nor easily replicated to other cities even if they have a ton of VC money.

View on HN

Is Harvard/MIT/BU for Boston any less? I think in addition to great universities, there is definitely something else to SV.

No, and that illustrates his point in a way. Boston has the second largest amount of VC funding, tons of startups, and more institutions of higher learning than pretty much any other metro area in the US [Citation Needed...last I saw it was 84]. But Boston's huge number of universities and hospitals is also one thing that makes it different from Silicon Valley. A lot more smart people can get into PhD programs, so there's a talent drain away from startups.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com