[raheemm]

PG might be on to something here. I used to live in Austin back in the mid-90s. It has has great weather, a great university and several startups that went onto become big (Dell, Pervasive, etc). And yet Austin has failed to compete with Silicon Valley and in the last decade might have even become less relevant in the tech sector.

[iamelgringo]

I've really been amazed at the caliber of people that I meet through the Hackers and Founders meetup that are from Austin. There's really a great little sub-culture here of ex-Austinites that are interested in founding startups.

Austin's loss is Silicon Valley's gain.