[jiffylu]

Mark is right to point out that each geographic region has its advantages. Places like Boston may not be known for home runs in the consumer space but because of MIT, it's been known to produce some heavy tech winners (A123 systems, ITA, kiva)

There's also a reason why Google has offices in Seattle, Boston, NYC, and soon, Pittsburgh. Hiring is tough in the valley and there's an abundance of talent elsewhere.

If you want to innovate on web technology, the valley is the place to be. If you want to innovate on business models, content, or heavy technology (to name a few) there are other places where you can thrive.

[cyrus_]

Google has had a small office in Pittsburgh for a few years. They moved into a much bigger space recently and are hiring pretty ferociously out of CMU.

[jiffylu]

Yeah I heard they were heavily targeting CMU. Here are some pictures of the new offices.

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-pittsburgh-office-2011...

[sroussey]

And Google just leased an office to hold over 1000 people in L.A.