

Mass. drops to third in venture capital cash for first time - ahalan
http://bostonherald.com/jobfind/news/technology/view/2011_1013ny_deal_top_bay_state_mass_drops_to_third_in_venture_capital_cash_for_first_time

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jleyank
I thought one of the big problems in MA is that the courts favor the employer
re: non-compete clauses. If I'm remembering correctly, this would be a real
damper on the ability of talent to pursue opportunity.

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nknight
They do that in pretty much every state. As far as I know, California's
treatment of non-competes remains unique. Everywhere else, they're fully
enforceable with rare exceptions, even on grunt-level code monkeys.

Debates surface every once in a while as to just how important California law
has been to the development of Silicon Valley. It's obviously had some impact,
but it's impossible to strictly quantify, and muddying the waters is that it's
definitely not the only place with a notable tech concentration, even if it is
perhaps the biggest and highest-profile.

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hga
Hmmm, for me it's sufficient to note that California's policy and Silicon
Valley's success are both unique (I think you vastly understate its success
when you say "perhaps the biggest and highest-profile"). I think it's hard to
argue that having the nation's most liquid market for talent was not
significant.

There are probably a few other things that in combination were or are unique,
I'm thinking good weather in the vicinity of 2 of the world's best EE and CS
departments (Stanford and UC Berkeley). Other things like a culture more
accepting of failure may have followed, though.

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jbellis
The full report is here: [http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/venture-
capital/quarterly-ven...](http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/venture-
capital/quarterly-venture-capital-report-q3-2011)

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wanorris
Can anyone speak to why New York has become such a good locale for venture
capital? I live in Seattle, and haven't really kept up with the state of
things in New York. Is it simply that the firehose of capital available there
is being turned in a new direction, or are there other structural reasons why
NYC is a great place to start a business?

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bh42222
I'm guessing it's the combination of firehose of capital and huge, densely
packed population. And due to the computing needs of wallstreet there are
quite a few skilled programmers around. Basically $ + hackers.

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mdda
In the past, people have cited the presence of Wall Street being the thing
that prevented the 'pure tech' startup scene from developing - since Wall St
paid developers too well.

The real eye-opener for me was how crowded and positive the Startup Weekend
events have been in NYC : And the number of Meetups is staggering. It seems to
me that some kind of critical mass has been achieved, and New York no longer
feels like a staging area before moving to the Valley.

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suking
Good - Boston VCs need a serious kick in the pants with how they treat
entrepreneurs. I don't think this will be ego-busting enough to do it though.

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refurb
Meh... I don't think this is really big news.

"Massachusetts firms experienced a year-over-year decline in the number of VC
deals in the third quarter"

This is looking only at this quarter vs. the same quarter a year ago. Take a
look at VC funding over a year and it's not a smooth cash flow. You get peaks
and valleys and it's often a few really big investments that drive those
variations.

If, at the end of this year Boston is raising less cash than NYC (comparing
all of 2011 to all of 2010) and then I might concede something is happening.

