In response to Margaret O'Mara's article about Silicon Valley and Seattle, let's agree that everybody understands that we must build upon our advantages and preserve our distinctiveness, as she proposes. Including John Markoff of The New York Times, who spends a lot of time both in Seattle and in Silicon Valley, and knows each region well.

Let's be sure not to caricature what he said. He simply observed that Seattle is exhibiting some of the entrepreneurial success of Silicon Valley; he described some of the evidence and explored some of the reasons. (By the way, it's worth noting that he wrote a much longer piece – it got whacked severely at the last minute due to a layout change, relegating much of his work and many of his insights to the bit bucket.) We have managed to develop a tech ecosystem here – a feat that has eluded many other regions of the nation. It's distinctly our own, and it's pretty remarkable.

I do want to comment on the idea of creating a second major research university in the region. (Disclaimer: I work at the University of Washington!) There is only one instance in the US of a university becoming world class in fewer than 50 years: UC/San Diego. The best bet in our lifetimes, at least for those of us who don't believe in immortality, is to invest in UW (and in great private research institutions such as the Hutch and the Institute for Systems Biology), and to demand performance and accountability in return.

Just to repeat the standard (but true) line, each year for more than two decades UW has been the leading public university in receipt of federal research funding, and one of the top five universities public or private. Things are far from perfect at UW, but you gotta admit, that's a pretty decent record.

I encourage those interested in the broad topic of our region's future competitiveness to become engaged with the Technology Alliance. The truth is that most areas of state policy here in Washington are not conducive to creating a vibrant future for our children. K-12 policy is a wreck. (No need to elaborate on this, but it is critical to understand that we are doing worse than most of our competitor states, much less our international competitor regions. We can and must do better, because others are.) Higher-ed policy is a wreck. (We rank 5th in the nation in community college participation per capita, but 49th in public bachelors participation per capita, at a time when the vanguard of our economy involves goods that are intellectual rather than physical in nature. Our economy is creating great jobs, and they are being filled by other people's kids.) Tax policy is a wreck. (The sales tax and the B&O tax are truly regressive -- the B&O tax even more so because many companies have figured out how to avoid paying it.)

In fairness to our children, we need to do something about these issues, pronto.