Also, while many rightly note that Silicon Valley is sui generis in terms of scale, the diversity of successful startups in Seattle is remarkable. Starbucks, Costco and Amazon are just the most prominent examples.
In some important ways, these developments are highly complementary to the growth of venture capital and entrepreneurship in China.
The excerpts below are from today's Washington Post.
"Seattle has arrived in the big leagues," said Scott Darling, a general partner at Frazier Technology Ventures in Seattle. "We're not Silicon Valley, nobody is, but we're playing for real." Darling lived in Silicon Valley from the mid-1970s to 1990, when Andy Grove, one of Intel's founders, asked him to move to the Northwest to continue working for Intel. Darling said Washington state is now tied with Texas for third place in terms of VC money, behind Silicon Valley and Boston.
The recent boom in Seattle could be partly due to Microsoft's decreasing stature as a cutting-edge technology leader, at least according to one theory from an investor. Silicon Valley and Boston both boomed after a great company began to slow down -- in the valley, it was Fairchild, and in Boston, Digital Equipment -- leading bright minds to leave and start their own businesses, said Jeff Schrock, a partner at Monster Venture Partners in Seattle, who used to work for Yahoo in California.
"I think we're at an interesting stage in Seattle with Microsoft becoming more of a slow and steady growth company," he said. "For the first time, there are lots of people coming out of Microsoft looking for entrepreneurial opportunities."
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