Where do you live? Minnesota here. One factor I'd agree with is the pay issue. I see local startups and post-startups with lovely websites showing their cool workspaces and how much people love working there. But then you find out during the interview process that they pay like $75-80k for people with 5 years of experience and 100k for 10 years. Sorry, but at that salary level I'll stay at an engineering company, even though the culture/work isn't as 'awesome'. And the bad part is that since the number of high-tech employers isn't that large, they don't have any problems filling their ranks with people apparently happy with these salaries.