Why Startup Hubs Work

<img src="http://www.virtumundo.com/images/spacer.gif" height=15 width=1> Want to start a startup?

<img src="http://www.virtumundo.com/images/spacer.gif" height=15 width=1> 想要创业吗？

Get funded by Y Combinator .

获得 Y Combinator 的资助。

</td > October 2011 If you look at a list of US cities sorted by population, the number of successful startups per capita varies by orders of magnitude.

</td> 2011 年 10 月 如果您查看按人口排序的美国城市列表，您会发现人均成功创业公司的数量存在数量级差异。

Somehow it's as if most places were sprayed with startupicide.

不知何故，好像大多数地方都喷洒了杀虫剂。

I wondered about this for years.

多年来我一直想知道这个问题。

I could see the average town was

我可以看到平均城镇是

like a roach motel for startup ambitions: smart, ambitious people went in, but no startups came out.

就像初创企业野心的蟑螂汽车旅馆：聪明、雄心勃勃的人进去了，但没有初创企业出来。

But I was never able to figure out exactly what happened inside the motel—exactly what was killing all the potential startups.

但我始终无法弄清楚汽车旅馆内究竟发生了什么——到底是什么扼杀了所有潜在的初创公司。

[ 1 ] A couple weeks ago I finally figured it out.

[ 1 ] 几周前我终于明白了。

I was framing the question wrong.

我错误地提出了这个问题。

The problem is not that most towns kill startups.

问题不在于大多数城镇扼杀了初创企业。

It's that death is the default for startups,

死亡是初创公司的默认，

and most towns don't save them.

大多数城镇都不会拯救他们。

Instead of thinking of most places as being sprayed with startupicide, it's more accurate to think of startups as all being poisoned, and a few places being sprayed with the antidote.

与其认为大多数地方都被喷洒了创业杀剂，不如认为初创企业都被毒害了，而少数地方被喷洒了解毒剂。

Startups in other places are just doing what startups naturally do: fail.

其他地方的初创公司只是在做初创公司自然会做的事情：失败。

The real question is, what's saving startups in places like Silicon Valley?

真正的问题是，是什么拯救了硅谷等地的初创企业？

[ 2 ] Environment I think there are two components to the antidote: being in a place

[ 2 ] 环境 我认为解毒剂有两个组成部分：身处一个地方

where startups are the cool thing to do, and chance meetings with people who can help you.

在那里创业是一件很酷的事情，并且有机会结识可以帮助你的人。

And what drives them both is the number of startup people around you.

推动这两者的因素是你周围创业者的数量。

The first component is particularly helpful in the first stage of a startup's life, when you go from merely having an interest in starting a company to actually doing it.

第一个组成部分在初创公司生命的第一阶段特别有帮助，当你从仅仅对创办一家公司感兴趣到真正开始做这件事时。

It's quite a leap to start a startup.

创办一家公司是一个很大的飞跃。

It's an unusual thing to do.

这是一件不寻常的事情。

But in Silicon Valley it

但在硅谷