The past Tuesday night while at the Boulder New Tech Meetup I was introduced to Sarah Lacy, a reporter for BusinessWeek and co-host for Tech Ticker on Yahoo! Finance. Sarah just released a book called “Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0.” Her presentation was largely about who she is, what her book is about and how she hoped to talk to “interesting entrepreneurs” after the Meetup.

Once the Meetup ended and everyone went home, Stacy started ripping into Boulder’s entrepreneurial spirit on her blog.

Root Root for the Home Team from sarah lacy on Vimeo.

I’m an entrepreneur and I’ve never heard of Sarah Lacy before. I opt for Inc, and WIRED over BusinessWeek. I don’t give a rats-ass about Yahoo! Finance. I, like many other Front Range entrepreneurs enhance my knowledge via blogs, podcasts, Twitter postings and local powwows like the Boulder Tech Meetup.

I believe it’s a mistake to compare Silicon Valley to the Front Range, but inevitable people do it. Sure we have similarities. There are many ex-Californians who’ve migrated to the Front Range, we have a ton of VCs and in general we are a young tech-minded group of people.

We’re Different!
For us (Imulus) it’s about building something of quality, it’s about lifestyle, it’s about building a company that doesn’t want to be sold to a bunch of soulless shareholders. We don’t have an “exit strategy” we don’t “measure success by revenue” and we don’t sit behind a desk for 60+ hours a week. I disagree with Sarah’s premise that “people in Boulder are trying to create global companies.” Why does a company have to be global? There certainly isn’t a damn thing wrong with becoming a national success or even a regional one, if that is the goal the founders seek to achieve.

My recollection of the Silicon Valley boom days wasn’t so glamorous. I remember considering a job in the Valley which would earn me a starting salary of $75k per year, plus shares in the company. This in exchange for working 60+ hours a week. Not to mention I’d be living in a dump of an apartment by the time I returned home from work.

Sarah, I’m sorry that you didn’t get the Tweetup turn-out of Los Angeles or London when you visited Boulder. Like Matt Galligan mentioned, Kevin Rose only had 20 to 30 people show up to his Tweetup.

I’m not saying we’re perfect though. The local community can do much more to share ideas. I think the hunger for community-building is evidenced by the awesome turn out of the Tech Meetup.

Don’t discount us, we’re not the Valley. We’re the Front Range and we’ll be making our difference known over the next few years.