That uhm, wasn't <i>part</i> of his argument, that <i>was</i> his argument.  And it's a fair one.<p>That said, all startup successes are statistical anomalies.  The implicit irrational assumption is that you can beat the odds.  Some companies beat harder odds than others, and being outside the valley does set them up for that.<p>There are lots of reasons one might not want or be able to move -- visas, family, other attachment to a particular place -- and that just has to become part of the calculation, "This makes it x% more likely that I'm just wasting my time, but I'm still [irrationally] convinced I can beat those odds."<p>We know that this works because there are examples of it.  We also know that it's harder because of how relatively few there are.