My experience is that in the Bay Area, there's a critical mass of "talentless hacks" that basically support each other and create barriers to entry for actual talented people. Scoble is their king. Sarah Lacy is queen.
That being said, there's a ton of really talented people in the same area, just that most of them have either cashed out, work for Google or Apple, or are so busy building stuff that they don't have time to blog crap.
I'm blushing ;-) Though seriously I was in the center of it all for 2 years so I think my impression is, at the very least, an honest opinion. Which is something that seems exceedingly rare in the Bay Area.
