PR is being decentralized. Thanks to blogs, Skype, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook you can get onto TechCrunch no matter where in the world you are.
If your idea of decentralized PR (or effective PR) is "you can get on Techcrunch from anywhere in the world" you may have been living in the Valley too long.
Silicon Valley used to have a lock on geeks.
That's so wrong I don't even think it is worth refuting.
I think this mistakes cause and effect. The hypothesis of the article is that new trends, like the cloud, being exploited globally make the Valley less important. But I think that other places are adopting Valley trends, like exploiting the cloud, because the Valley is becoming more important. And the reason the situation is improving for entrepreneurs in those other places is because they are copying Valley trends.
I know Cambridge, UK best since that's where I'm from. And increasingly, new companies are forming there with little funding and young, highly technical founders. More people there are reading TechCrunch, have heard of Y Combinator, and are more able to re-locate to the Valley thanks mainly to the spread of knowledge. In the future, the startup visa might come into play too.
The Valley's culture is going global, and other locations will benefit as a result, but the main beneficiary is the Valley itself.
I dunno-- the Seattle startup scene has seen pretty insane growth over the last 5 years... It was purportedly nearly non-existant 5-7 years ago. Harj and I threw together a YC Seattle meetup that was over 100 people in about a week.
You could attend a startup related event in Seattle almost every day of the week.
I did some really weak science and found:
"In 2007, 45 of 110 (41%) acquired companies were in the Valley. In 2008, only 18 of 115 (16%) were."
I also (with some help) crunched all Crunchbase data here: http://bit.ly/Mapl1
The globalization make sense to me. 5 years ago, you couldn't even roll the dice without a million bucks. Now plenty of startups spin up with pennies. And while the Valley has a few advantages, the really CLEAR advantage that it has (which has diminishing value for the earliest stages) has always been the huge number of investors.
Still, though-- starting up might be getting easier, but when you need funding relocation might still be right thing to do.
Thanks for the research. Just a little nitpick - could you please not use URL-shorteners. It's nice to know where you're going before you hit the link.
There've been a decent number in the years in between too. Farecast (founded 2003, acquired 2008) and Twango (founded 2004, acquired 2007) come to mind as successful examples.
I was with the author before the lame foursquare plug. I am not going to go to a coffee shop anywhere and ask anybody what foursquare is, because that does not prove anything and I am not going to foursquare's advertising for free. But I am going to make mental note that any blogger that mentions foursquare gratuitously without relevance is a shill and should not be trusted.
I think you missed the point. What the author was trying to show was how different regions adapt new technology.
In my "world" almost no one uses Twitter, 4square or any other new technology/tools. This means starting a new trend and getting early adapters (from within my social circle) is extremely hard.
Twitter could never get started here.
FourSquare would of never got enough usage to prove the concept.
IMHO, this is a very important point for social (and many other types) of startups.
The first paragraph says it all: worldwide to Scoble means US, UK, Canada, France and Israel. What does Scoble know about how hard it is to start up in Hungary or Russia or ...? Nothing.
I don't think you're quite doing justice to his lack of perception. There's plenty more demonstration of superficial understanding of the world and the industry, including
- the obnoxious plug for "his company." It's a little hard to miss amongst the idiocy suggesting that until recently, the only place you could find data centers was in Silicon Valley. Never mind that "his company", Rackspace, is located in Texas and has nine data centers, none of which happen to be in California.
- this bit about foursquare:
"Go to a local coffee shop in your neighborhood, for instance, and ask people what Foursquare is. I guarantee you that in most Silicon Valley coffee shops you’ll find someone. Not so in most other places in the world."
I can think of many neighborhoods where this is demonstrably false, starting with the neighborhood in NYC where Foursquare is located.
- the paragraph talking about how low corporate tax rates are in Vancouver (noticeably discounting the rest of Canada), a city probably best known for insane cost of living, immediately followed by a paragraph talking about how the rest of the world has much lower cost of living than the bay area.
Not only doesn't he have a good understanding of the industry he works in, but he seems to lack a basic understanding of geography, politics and economics.
My personal theory is that one of the key reasons for the "globalization" of the startup culture is the preponderance of cluelessness in the pundit community in northern California.
There's far better places to startup than the valley, there always have been though. That's nothing new.
Probably if you're into the whole 'build to get acquired' thing, then it's an advantage, but if you're in it to build a profitable company then I'd say the valley puts you at a disadvantage. High cost of living, no public health care, not to mention all the software patent DMCA sue everyone legal risks.
If your idea of decentralized PR (or effective PR) is "you can get on Techcrunch from anywhere in the world" you may have been living in the Valley too long.
Silicon Valley used to have a lock on geeks.
That's so wrong I don't even think it is worth refuting.