[avichal]

Starting a company is different than building a disruptive startup. Elad is really getting at potentially disruptive startups. Disruptive startups require a supportive ecosystem and often need to burn cash for years before they can monetize. Those sorts of companies are almost impossible to build outside of the ecosystem of Silicon Valley. Starting a small business or starting a nice, healthy enterprise business that makes a few million a year can be done in a lot of places but those are not disruptive startups.

[NickKampe]

While I agree that starting a company is vastly different then starting a disruptive startup, other than the valley having a heavier density of VCs what you've stated about supportive startup ecosystems practically not existing anywhere else but in Silicon Valley is utterly false.

Just look at New York, while it's honestly pretty much on par with SV in terms of cost of living, it's got a fantastic startup ecosystem in which many startups burn cash equally as fast.

Step outside the SV bubble, I'd venture to say that two thirds of the states within the continental US have fantastic and thriving startup communities with plenty of talent and venture funding to boot. You just have to know where to look.

As fellow nerds you should realize that with the power of the internet as well as the sheer amount of interconnectivity we now experience, there are virtually no location barriers.

[erichocean]

One thing I think SV companies don't try and do is actually figure out how to do disruptive startups that don't burn cash for the first few years.

I'm sure that's because money is so readily available in SV, but there's no actual reasons why startups can't be disruptive and still cash-positive early.

The main benefit of funding is actually social connections and social proof, not money, in my experience. (If anything, the money is a drawback, because it most cases it causes companies to do stupid things -- grow big when they haven't even figured out the product yet.)