> Do you think those people starting companies would do any worse, if we placed them in, say, Denmark?
Yes. Facebook, Apple, Google, Tesla, etc. would never have happened in Denmark. I'm really glad my parents did the annoying work of immigrating to the SF Bay Area from Germany when I was a kid. Otherwise I would have wasted years of my life doing it myself.
Did you watch the Elon Musk interview posted here the other day? He said more-or-less the same thing: it was really obvious, growing up in South Africa, that California was the place to be to make things happen.
Edit: I don't know much about Israel. They seem to be doing a pretty good job, based on what little I do know. It doesn't sound like they're at SF Bay Area levels yet, but making progress: http://aleph.vc/the-israel-venture-capital-index/
