In case that disappears, I wanted to capture my comment here:

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I remain amused by the casual bigotry exhibited by so many Silicon Valley denizens that OF COURSE all the smart, motivated, ambitious entrepreneurs will move to the Valley. Most of them would be incensed if a colleague displayed a comparable level of bigotry about race, or sex, or national background, or the rest of the litany. But it’s socially acceptable — at least west of I-5 — to dismiss 99% of the country as full of failures. “Sure, maybe they did great in AAA ball, but they couldn’t make it in the Big Show.”

Which has led to the Valley being a hothouse of artificially-compressed geniuses building products for each other instead of for the real world.

But not everyone is a brilliant 23-year-old willing to share a flophouse with three other geniuses while coding 20 hours a day. In the real world, people have spouses… kids… mortgages… elderly parents… heck, maybe they just like sweet tea! There are all sorts of reasons that they won’t move to the Valley, even if they have plenty of talent to compete at that level.

I submit that looking for the best of the best among that 99% of the country is a heck of a good way to make money. It’s harder, because you can’t sit on Sand Hill Road and watch the universe rotate around you. But with some hustle and some brains, there’s plenty of opportunity for non-Valley entrepreneurs, and non-Valley investors, to do very very well.

I’m not going to try to embed a picture here on HN, but check out the link and let me know if you want a button! (I think Fred Wilson would wear one; I doubt that Paul Graham would.)

http://academicvc.com/2009/07/not-the-valley/

Great post, and I completely agree! It sounds like the Atlanta community is figuring out how we must embrace what we do the best.

On a personal note, I just got an email from Melanie Brandt earlier today detailing a digital entertainment proposal for the State of Georgia explaining how we are “uniquely positioned to meet the competitive challenges and economic development opportunities for what experts predict to be a globally proliferated, digital-technology-driven future, where consumers have the ability to not only be content consumers, but also be content creators.”

Upon reading the rough proposal & hearing her desire to include Rank ‘em, I could not have been more pleased to call myself a native. I think we’re in a wonderful position and situation to thrive as long as the community becomes whole and fully embraces our strengths.

From my naive perspective, I believe that over the last year, I believe more positives have emerged for our local market than the last couple years combined. I can’t wait to see what lies ahead as we continue along this path!

-Adam Wexler

Here is another post of mine that provides some of my more current thoughts on the subject:

http://tinyurl.com/o7vdyw

Cheers.
Scott