[manglav]

You're right, I was referring more to the startup culture in those areas. Unfortunately, all the examples I named are the large markets, but I would also include Portland, and some parts of Texas maybe? I've heard Las Vegas is trying to turn itself into a hub as well. If you know any cool places near Ann Arbor, MI, let me know! Olark and some other security startup is based in this really cool building, and we have a few events as well monthly.

[vampirechicken]

Since I'm in Columbus, I'm probably supposed to say that there are no cool places in Ann Arbor. :-)

But the way to find the start ups is to go to the local tech scene meetings: Perl, Ruby, Python, Node.js, big data. Check meetup, etc. Find a few meetings, go and meet people. Make acquaintances, and before you know it, sombosy will be coming over to you to say something like "Hey manglav, didn;t you say you were really good at technology X? Wanna consult for a couple of hours?"