Though all I know about Jawed Karim is what I’ve read about him on the internet over the years, or what he has written, I really respect his level-headedness and disposition to hype.
The fact he is not a media-whore, went back to academia even though he could have made more $$$ going back to YouTube when things started taking off, and now actually, and I believe genuinely, wants to help other founders who may not be exposed to as much opportunity (principally due to their background and geography it seems) makes me like him more.
He used to have some good reads on his site (http://www.jawed.com/), but sadly they have all gone now (a consequence of fame, and hence too many eyeballs on his thoughts, not being in-line with his character?).
Silicon Valley has a lot of noise, a lot of hype. People are very excited about all of the Facebook stuff, Facebook applications. It's just been a huge hype over the last year when actually ... there isn't really that much value. It's just a bubble. It's almost a distraction.
I think this is absolutely true (especially regarding fb), but I also believe that the hype & noise comes with the territory. Viable business model or not (YouTube is still struggling in that regard), SF has a significant pool of both human and fiscal resources which is critical to execution and survival.
In a crowded market or where there is limited resource (VC money, media attention, etc.), people need to promote themselves. Unfortunately this often results in hype.
It is going to be tough if he wants to invest in software startups. U of Minnesota's CS department is not very good (I dropped out of the PhD program). The job market for programmers is dismal - everyone good moves to the Bay Area, Seattle or NYC. Culturally the mindset of the area is very scandinavian-socialist, with an odd anti entrepreneurial snobbery. If you have a college degree and start a company you are looked upon with pity: "oh, she wasn't smart enough to get a secure job, now she's stuck fending for herself." If you eventually become successful, everyone will claim they've been supporting you all along. Definitely not the same attitude as the HN.YC crowd.
There's an obvious win if he wants to invest in biomedical startups, the UofM is much stronger in the health sciences, and the Mayo clinic is only an hour out of the metro area.
I hope he's successful. I would have loved to stay closer to my family. I have younger friends with engineering degrees who want to stay in the area, and are pretty much working at Starbucks, playing online poker and scrimping along with their own projects so they can avoid the horrible "enterprise" work that makes up 99.9% of the programming jobs available in the area.
Note: I grew up 4th generation Minnesotan, I think more recent immigrants probably avoid most of the cultural baggage.
I spent a number of formative years in Minnesota, and being a 4th generation Scandinavian immigrant, I couldn't agree more with your assessment of the area.
I'd also add that conformity is a very strong value in the upper Midwest. It's really hard to break out of the box because there are such strong cultural morays against doing anything different from what the people in your community are doing.
Finally I'd like to add as a data point that most of the smart CS/Tech guys that I went to college with in Minnesota spent the majority of their spare time playing Dungeons and Dragons and participating in the Society for Creative Anachronism.
Its great to see this guy try to find talent outside of SV. Minneapolis-St.Paul probably has a lot of hidden talent because of their outstanding universities. It'll be interesting to see what comes of this.
As a student (and founder) at UW-Madison, I can honestly say, we are still very much lacking in financial resources necessary for a web/tech based startup. Most of the VCs around here are interested in Biotech/bio based businesses and the angel networks are also heavily skewed toward that type of investment.
That said, both Google and Microsoft are opening offices here and the CS dept. is accepting more people into their program.
We've also recently gotten a Kauffman grant for UW-Madison, and student orgs like the UW Entrepreneurship Association and Collegiate Entreprenurs' Organization have been gaining popularity to allow for lots of different types of business ideas to develop if you're not looking for web based software. That's not to say there aren't any (We're one), but there are definitely fewer than SF/Boston/Twin Cities.
As a student at U.Michigan and member of its local student entrepreneurship organization, I would also add south-east Michigan as another prospect, particularly the UM in Ann Arbor.
@incomethax, like Wisconsin though, VCs around UM are skewed more towards biotech-related startups. And, like Wisconsin, Ann Arbor also lacks the financial resources of a S.V/Boston
Most people forget that uiuc consistently has one of the top 5 engineering programs nationally (an honor it shares with the likes of MIT, Berkeley, and Stanford, and Cal-Tech).
And I'd feel pretty confident claiming it's the best in the midwest, hands down. Yet, I can't count the number of people (in Cambridge) that have no idea what I'm talking about when I mention 'uiuc' or the 'university of illinois.'
I think part of the problem is that besides a handful of great programs (like engineering and accounting), uiuc is rather easy to get into. I suppose this means that the average uiuc alum that you'll meet isn't likely to be as bright as the average stanford alum, even though our engineers stack up quite well.
I've thought for years that the Upper Midwest would be a future hotspot. Around 1999-2000, I had the sense that Manhattan would grow very strong during the 2000s, which it did, and that Chicago/Twin Cities would come up during the 2010s in a major way, which seems likely.
One important demographic trend is that, even though people may be marrying later, they seem to be forming long-term, serious relationships earlier-- often in mid-college. This means that people are actually less mobile/nomadic than they were in the past two decades, and so you're not going to see the bulk of the talent gravitating to 3 or 4 coastal cities; you'll see it gravitating toward 10 or 20 more well-distributed cities.
The fact he is not a media-whore, went back to academia even though he could have made more $$$ going back to YouTube when things started taking off, and now actually, and I believe genuinely, wants to help other founders who may not be exposed to as much opportunity (principally due to their background and geography it seems) makes me like him more.
He used to have some good reads on his site (http://www.jawed.com/), but sadly they have all gone now (a consequence of fame, and hence too many eyeballs on his thoughts, not being in-line with his character?).