[t4nkd]

This seems to be the thing people ignore, as the Tampa region has a fairly bustling tech scene, and due to proximity with SOCOM at MacDill AFB, more seem to be coming all the time. You could say, "Wow look at all this tech activity, 100 head engineering offices are opening and such-and-such acquisition was so huge, blah blah" but, this is all strictly within the scope of people who are local. I've never met anyone from the Valley area who has come into Tampa and said, "Holy shit you guys are like a tiny Silicon Valley!" -- though sometimes they are somewhat surprised to find out companies like Chase, AmEx, or Neilsen have large engineering offices here.

There's intentionally nothing like Silicon Valley because the Valley has a literal firehose of the most brilliant engineers constantly flowing into it. When Atlanta, or Tampa, ends up with a brilliant engineer with vision and drive, it's mostly out of luck or coincidence.