Does Silicon Valley Still Matter?

It's a truism in tech that entrepreneurs who want to build the next Google must come to Silicon Valley. The area's importance as a tech hub was reinforced earlier this month by a Milken Institute report saying that Silicon Valley remains "the largest and most influential high-tech center in the world."

I've gotten a close glimpse of why Silicon Valley matters through my research on some of tech's most successful entrepreneurs, including Evan Williams, co-founder and CEO of Twitter; Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame; and Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape, Opsware, and Ning. They and thousands like them could never have gotten their ideas off the ground had it not been for the concentration of ideas, talent, mentoring, and funding they found in Silicon Valley.