Podcast · ~7 episodes, ~30 min each

Beyond Silicon Valley

Michael Goldberg · Case Western Reserve University (Beyond Silicon Valley) Free Beginner

Michael Goldberg's series is built entirely around founders and ecosystems away from the famous hubs, from Cleveland to Macedonia to Vietnam, so it speaks directly to building without a metro founder network around you. The recurring point is that the answer is not to move, it is to find your handful of local peers and connect outward to founders in other places. It is a peer's-eye view of the exact tradeoff you are weighing.

• You do not need a dense local startup scene to build; you need a few committed people and links to founders elsewhere.
• Being one of the larger tech companies in a smaller place can be an advantage, not a consolation.
• Ecosystems get built deliberately by founders on the ground, not inherited from a location.