Is Boston an entrepreneurial city?

My anecdotal impression is that the Boston area is letting a lot of potential high-tech industry potential from MIT slip through its fingers.

It's ludicrous that we have MIT right here in town, yet graduates often thinking they need to move elsewhere for the best jobs or for the best environment for doing their own startup.

We do have some good high-techs. We just could use more, to capitalize on our natural resource of talent and the energy around MIT.

The only objections that high-tech entrepreneurs and workers should have to staying in Boston is that the weather could be better and that it's harder to see Broadway plays.

FWIW, which ain't much, I know..

My corp is already domiciled out of state and I will be following it sooner rather than later. It really is just too damn hard here to bootstrap or just really get by day to day. They've done an amazing job of creating the appearance of efficiency and ease, without actually providing it. Web sites, forms, hot line numbers... forget it. There's nothing at the other end worth interacting with.

For some reason, standard off the shelf health insurance in California (and many other states I checked) costs less than state-subsidized health care in MA.

For some reason, standard off the shelf car insurance in California (and many other states I checked) costs less than state-rate-set car insurance in MA (I know, MA is deregulating... for the next millennium or two, cuz they can't do it all at once)

Start with that, and extrapolate... it's not that hard really.

I would add the difficult-to-calculate cost of "getting any damned thing done" in MA - particularly in the Boston area - compared to just about anywhere else I've had to get any damned thing done anywhere else in the country. Out in the sticks? Everyone's neighbor knows someone who can come over tomorrow and take care of whatever it is that needs taking care of... cheap. In the real cities (NYC perhaps) there are three guys down at the bodega in your block who can either take care of what needs taking care of, or they have a cousin who can...

then there's Boston. Ten phone calls later and the guy still doesn't show up... that's my experience, over and over and over in my experience and that of a great many people I know.

Ever try to make a doctor's appointment in Boston unless you've got gold plated care and are an old friend of the receptionist? DAMN, people... it's like asking for a favor.

Need to take the commuter rail or the T to an appointment? Please see elsewhere on this site for thorough coverage of the uncertainty associated with most forms of transportation in this state, and public transit in particular, though MassPike and its roadways are holding their own in the confusion/unreliability sweepstakes.

I have no clue what the "cost" of the "Grunt, grumble, mumble, shuffle" economy is, but Boston has perfected it and made it into a standard way of doing business... and I really have not seen anything to compare, in any other place I've been in the country, where I've had money to spend and something to get done that needed the help of the person on the other side of the counter/telephone/transaction, who's busy staring at their shoes, talking to co-workers, walking off without saying a thing to me, or just generally acting the too-important asshole. Who needs that?

That "cost" is the cost of uncertainty. I can make one general statement here about business that is absolutely true: Business does not like uncertainty. Uncertainty equates to risk.