There's definitely way more opportunity in SV - obviously. And the tech brain drain is both overseas and to the disproportionately huge local players - Google HQ in the valley is one player among many big names; Google Sydney is an insane behemoth hoovering up the talent.
It is a nice place to live, though, and the Atlassian guys proved it's not impossible to build a pretty kick-ass startup here. There's also a pretty decent pipeline of smart people around. Part of my hope is that you can do smaller-scale stuff here without the Go Huge Or Go Home mentality of SV. What would be interesting is to work on things that interest me, make some money and influence the field. I don't think SV is mandatory for that.
It is a nice place to live, though, and the Atlassian guys proved it's not impossible to build a pretty kick-ass startup here. There's also a pretty decent pipeline of smart people around. Part of my hope is that you can do smaller-scale stuff here without the Go Huge Or Go Home mentality of SV. What would be interesting is to work on things that interest me, make some money and influence the field. I don't think SV is mandatory for that.