The topic was entrepreneurship at a luncheon breakout on Friday, but much of the discussion focused on why California has done a better job of nurturing innovative tech startups for the last 30 years, despite New England’s abundance of fine colleges and universities.

One reason noted was that California is the only state that doesn’t enforce non-compete contracts. That makes is possible for the best people to move around at will and quickly disseminate good ideas. There was some discussion of starting a campaign to strike down non-compete laws in Massachusetts, but no one could come up with a candidate to spearhead such a campaign.

A lot of it comes down to culture, people said. The attitude in New England – and many other parts of the country – is that failure in business is something to be ashamed of, whereas in California it’s considered part of the learning process. There’s also just an inherent optimism in the west coast culture. “In California, people refuse to believe that things won’t turn out well, and that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said one attendee, crystallizing the issue particularly well.

There is clearly some anxiety about the flight of venture capital to the west coast. Firms like Greylock Partners and Carlyle Group have moved more people and even headquarters westward, said one participant. This is an alarming sign that they don’t see the opportunity in New England that they used to.

Google was cited as a source of increasing concern. One attendee said he’d heard Google was offering top MIT graduates nearly $200,000 to join the company (I have no idea if this is true) and another told of how Google had stamped out a promising investment he’d made by introducing the same feature for free. Do I hear antitrust rumblings?

The mood was lifted, though, by one successful and respected entrepreneur who closed the session with a “darkest just before the dawn” remark. He noted that new businesses often experience their strongest growth in challenging economies. “Historically, New England always lands on its feet,” he said. “The bad times are a great time to get things done. The bad times are, in fact, the good times.”

Note: The Nantucket Conference is a not-for-attribution event.

Labels: nantucketconference, venturecapital

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