[aaronblohowiak]

>Boston is doing better for big business, like biotech

There is also a LOT of biotech in sfbay, but it is still in the shadow of internet tech, for various reasons (PhD is minimum cost of entry, longer development times, etc)

[gumby]

Having worked in both fields (computing and pharmaceuticals) and in both areas (Boston/Cambridge and Silicon Valley -- though never in SF) I can tell you the Bay Area is a shadow of the Boston area in this regard. And the VC dollars send the same message. It honestly surprises me that the JP Morgan healthcare conference is still out here -- I imagine it's due to weather: it's a January conference, and a good excuse to get out of NY/BOS at a nasty time of year.

My point in my GGP post was that the opposite is true, first for tech and more recently for internet commerce, in the Bay Area. And I agree that the #1 driver was a healthy attitude to IP laws (which also drove the film industry to California, first to the Bay Area and then to LA).

And the second was an attitude that people don't care so much about your background and what's been done to date, an attitude I believe to be a legacy of the gold rush.