If you want money, which let's be honest, is one of the most important things in this context, it highly does. All of the major VCs are in SF or NYC, and have shown very little desire to branch out from there. While we occasionally hear stories of a startup outside of those places doing well, it's generally the exception, not the rule.
You can start a company anywhere, but if you want to grow quickly, there are a few places where you can get the capital, infrastructure, community and talent quickly.
What a strange metric they must be using: Silicon valley erupted (and continues to erupt) in CA, land of high taxes and high regulatory environment. And it seems many areas are trying to figure out how to be the next silicon valley.
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/texanomics/article/...
Houston is a quiet tech hub, it's completely overlooked. But if you're building robots wouldn't you want to sell to the industry that actually uses them and has lots of money to spend? However, Houston has livability issues, and the nice places to live aren't that cheap especially when you factor in property taxes. Still better than NJ.
All of the Democrat candidates for NJ governor want to raise taxes even more.
NJ also has the most underfunded public pension system in the country. -- a $44 billion shortfall. As a tech entrepreneur, I'd be very nervous about locating in a state that could, at any moment decide that those "wealthy tech companies" ought to be bailing out decades of financial mismanagement.
NJ also ranked 49th in "Small Business Friendliness" -- California was 50th. New York was 48th.
http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2014/12/nj_is_a_terribl...
South Dakota, Nevada and Texas were the top three.
If anywhere should be the "next" place, it should probably be Houston -- one of the most diverse cities in the country, low taxes, access to a massive academic medical center, NASA, the energy industry, low cost of living, Rice University (pioneers in nano-tech including a Nobel winners,) University of Houston, including Paul Chu in superconducting. Texas A&M is about an hour away with more Nobel winners, including the 1996 Nobel in Physics and substantial engineering and science research programs
New Jersey does have Princeton of course and access to NYC (if that actually matters.) New Jersey's only "attraction" other than Princeton is "proximity to New York." I would have to see some actual data to be convinced that "proximity to New York" actually has a material affect on the success of startups. It's a fallacy that being in San Fran or NYC actually matters.