[keypusher]

MA beat out CA in the following categories:

* Percentage of state GDP spent in R&D.

* Percentage of "tech" companies vs total companies. This counts software, hardware, defense, pharmaceutical, biotech, renewable energy, etc.

* GDP / employed person.

* Percentage of STEM employees / total employees.

CA beat MA in the following categories:

* Percentage of STEM degree holders / total population.

* Patents / US Total and Patents / million people.

All categories were equally weighted.

[digikata]

So the categories where MA wins are ones that basically penalize CA for having other healthy non-tech industries.

[EthanHeilman]

I would love to know the values at a city resolution.

[dantillberg]

Yeah, that would be more valuable. "Boston" is a huge portion of "MA", while (for example) "San Francisco" is but a small slice of "CA", so if the Boston area were compared directly against the San Francisco area, the results would no doubt be quite different.

[keypusher]

Many of the Boston area tech companies are actually outside Boston (Cambridge, Rt 128) while many of the SF area companies are similarly outside San Franscisco (Palo Alto, Mountain View, Cupertino, Berkeley, etc).