Don't agree at all, I find the same attitude in many major cities in the world ex. Sao Paulo, Shanghai, NYC, Tokyo and others - it also strongly depends on who you talk to.
Yeah I've lived in a lot of places and I could see NYC (and I could see Hong Kong too; most definitely not Tokyo, nor Shanghai nor Sao Paulo unless you're just talking about wealthy neighborhood ex-pat communities). I think it's an env that's hard to find, at its scale anyways.
That's an odd thing to say about Tokyo, considering it's something like a mixture of LA and NYC. Anyone who wants to make it in the arts or entertainment (both large industries in Japan), moves to Tokyo.
Yes, they don't (and maybe never will) have the same kind of tech entrepreneurship as the valley, but there's no shortage of ambitious people there.