Hey JG,
That figure combines LA, OC, and SD. The NE figure is just the city of Boston and suburbs. So it took this long for the 15 Million-person strong SoCal region to finally surpass 1 Million-person Boston in VC$$ investment. Congrats.

The SoCal figure still pales in comparison to the Bay Area ($8 Billion in 2006). Also, the majority of the investment in SoCal is medical/biotech. These are lab type jobs, not software or silicon architects who make way more.

What do you do? I’m in sales, and Boston is a much richer Fortune 500 high tech sales environment than SoCal will ever be. Besides, where else can you make $250K and buy a house in an upscale area for $500K-600K?

Sorry, but high tech salaries in Boston and the Bay area will always be higher than SoCal. No one moves to SoCal for the money. Ask anyone in high tech.