Something techy that Massachusetts beats Silicon Valley at

I work on the marketing side of the tech industry and I moved from Massachusetts to the San Francisco Bay Area two years ago. What they say is true; the jobs are far lesser in number and pay worse in the Boston area. The opportunity here is seemingly limitless in a lot of ways, and although our plan is ultimately to return to Boston within the next few years (the west coast thing is supposed to be temporary by design), I'm worried how I'd ever find a job as good as the ones I've now become accustomed to.

I remember not long ago--until the early 2000s dot com bust--when it seemed Boston was second only to Silicon Valley in these things. Nowadays it counts in engineering but not much else; Boston has been surpassed by NY, DC, even Seattle, Chicago, some of the Texan cities... it's really sad.