San Francisco-OaklandHayward, CA

Silicon Valley might need a new name. While it’s still home to plenty of startup activity, the tech industry’s vanguard largely have moved 50 miles north to San Francisco. The Bay Area’s biggestname startups—including Uber, Airbnb, and Slack—have taken root here, along with influential VC firms, like Benchmark. The migration is due to downsizing—thanks to cloud computing, software companies don’t need server rooms. Meanwhile, they can outsource business functions via Gusto and Zendesk. The main obstacle is the astronomical commercial rents— think $100 a square foot—and the higher salaries the cost of living requires. It’s a little cheaper in Oakland and Hayward, where food-science and energy startups are flourishing. Among the best-funded is the solar-panel financing company Mosaic, with $487 million in capital.