It's weird, in Portland there is at least enough density and activity that they get a sustained push and startups either get off the ground or go bust, Eugene seems to have a bunch of lifestyle companies that were formed elsewhere and moved here for the amenities. The only local company that broke the 100 employee barrier recently is sinking fast because they only ever had one customer, who decided to take things in house.

On paper, this town looks ideal; university, low cost of living, easily accessible to the west coast/I5 corridor, very livable friendly town, plenty of cheap commercial real estate if you need offices, a couple of decent sized datacenters if you feel a need to be close to the machines. Plenty of technically savvy people, and there are a few entrepreneurs locally, but the company building part of things seems to happen elsewhere.