Michael Arrington at Techcrunch wrote a somewhat defensive piece on Silicon Valley vs. Seattle yesterday An outsider’s flawed view of silicon valley. I happen to agree with much of what Mike says – as I posted on back in October – but I found the comments the most amusing reading.

They include the usual “I agree plus…” and “all the reasons you’re wrong” type of comments, but I took note of the number of comments that found the post arrogant. I don’t typically find the entrepreneurs in the valley arrogant – except for those who made it big because they were lucky and think it was because they were smart – and yes there are a few of those. There’s a high level of confidence, and sometimes hubris, but arrogance tends to kill off startups really fast so the arrogant people don’t last long in the system. You either have a good idea and can execute, or you don’t, and if you don’t no amount of arrogance will carry you through.

I do think that we have access to the best technical talent in the world here – that is then combined with passion, drive and singlemindedness – combined with the capital and infrastructure that is without equal – and that is what makes silicon valley different from the rest.