California, the model of high taxes, union ownership of state legislators, and bossy government run by inept bureaucrats, is home to 33 of the 62 technology companies in the NASDAQ 100, according to a recent analysis I put together. Texas is home to 2 - Dell and BMC Software. My business-friendly home state of Virginia is home to just 1- the holding company spun out of the Sprint/Nextel merger. No other state has more than 4, and the one state with 4 is Massachusetts, 3 of which are biotech companies HQ'd in Cambridge, a city with one hell of a pinko legacy.
Building a technology economy first requires a technology community. All the garage startups of legend didn't choose their location because of tax incentives, but through collaboration between people with common interests in uncommon topics. Few places outside of Silicon Valley have this. Still, every region/state/city/jursidiction with an econ dev budget is still wasting taxpayer dollars trying to promote itself as a technology hub. But if that's what they really want, then the model isn't Texas, but California.
| First Solar, Inc. | FSLR | Tempe | Phoenix | Arizona |
| Microchip Technology Incorporated | MCHP | Chandler | Phoenix | Arizona |
| Activision Blizzard, Inc | ATVI | Santa Monica | LA | California |
| Adobe Systems Incorporated | ADBE | San Jose | SF Bay Area | California |
| Altera Corporation | ALTR | San Jose | SF Bay Area | California |
| Amgen Inc. | AMGN | Thousand Oaks | LA | California |
| Apple Inc. | AAPL | Cupertino | SF Bay Area | California |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | AMAT | Santa Clara | SF Bay Area | California |
| Autodesk, Inc. | ADSK | San Rafael | SF Bay Area | California |
| Broadcom Corporation | BRCM | Irvine | LA | California |
| Cisco Systems, Inc. | CSCO | San Jose | SF Bay Area | California |
| DIRECTV | DTV | El Segundo | LA | California |
| eBay Inc. | EBAY | San Jose | SF Bay Area | California |
| Electronic Arts Inc. | ERTS | Redwood City | SF Bay Area | California |
| Google Inc. | GOOG | Mountain View | SF Bay Area | California |
| Illumina, Inc. | ILMN | San Diego | San Diego | California |
| Intel Corporation | INTC | Santa Clara | SF Bay Area | California |
| Intuit Inc. | INTU | Mountain View | SF Bay Area | California |
| Intuitive Surgical, Inc. | ISRG | Sunnyvale | SF Bay Area | California |
| KLA-Tencor Corporation | KLAC | Milpitas | SF Bay Area | California |
| Lam Research Corporation | LRCX | Fremont | SF Bay Area | California |
| Life Technologies Corporation | LIFE | Carlsbad | San Diego | California |
| Linear Technology Corporation | LLTC | Milpitas | SF Bay Area | California |
| Logitech International S.A. | LOGI | Fremont | SF Bay Area | California |
| Marvell Technology Group, Ltd. | MRVL | Santa Clara | SF Bay Area | California |
| Maxim Integrated Products, Inc. | MXIM | Sunnyvale | SF Bay Area | California |
| NetApp, Inc. | NTAP | Sunnyvale | SF Bay Area | California |
| NVIDIA Corporation | NVDA | Santa Clara | SF Bay Area | California |
| Oracle Corporation | ORCL | Redwood City | SF Bay Area | California |
| QUALCOMM Incorporated | QCOM | San Diego | San Diego | California |
| SanDisk Corporation | SNDK | Milpitas | SF Bay Area | California |
| Symantec Corporation | SYMC | Mountain View | SF Bay Area | California |
| VeriSign, Inc. | VRSN | Mountain View | SF Bay Area | California |
| Xilinx, Inc. | XLNX | San Jose | SF Bay Area | California |
| Yahoo! Inc. | YHOO | Sunnyvale | SF Bay Area | California |
| DISH Network Corporation | DISH | Englewood | Denver | Colorado |
| Liberty Media Corporation | LINTA | Englewood | Denver | Colorado |
| priceline.com Incorporated | PCLN | Norwalk | NY Tri-State | Connecticut |
| Citrix Systems, Inc. | CTXS | Fort Lauderdale | Miami/Ft. Lauderdale | Florida |
| Garmin Ltd. | GRMN | Olathe | Kansas City | Kansas |
| Biogen Idec Inc | BIIB | Cambridge | Boston | Massachusetts |
| Genzyme Corporation | GENZ | Cambridge | Boston | Massachusetts |
| Hologic, Inc. | HOLX | Bedford | Boston | Massachusetts |
| Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated | VRTX | Cambridge | Boston | Massachusetts |
| Cerner Corporation | CERN | North Kansas City | Kansas City | Missouri |
| Sigma-Aldrich Corporation | SIAL | St. Louis | St. Louis | Missouri |
| Automatic Data Processing, Inc. | ADP | Roseland | NY Tri-State | New Jersey |
| Celgene Corporation | CELG | Summit | NY Tri-State | New Jersey |
| Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation | CTSH | Teaneck | NY Tri-State | New Jersey |
| CA Inc. | CA | Islandia | NY Tri-State | New York |
| Paychex, Inc. | PAYX | Rochester | Rochester | New York |
| Virgin Media Inc. | VMED | New York | NY Tri-State | New York |
| FLIR Systems, Inc. | FLIR | Wilsonville | Portland | Oregon |
| Cephalon, Inc. | CEPH | Frazer | Philadelphia | Pennsylvania |
| Comcast Corporation | CMCSA | Philadelphia | Philadelphia | Pennsylvania |
| DENTSPLY International Inc. | XRAY | York | York | Pennsylvania |
| BMC Software, Inc. | BMC | Houston | Houston | Texas |
| Dell Inc. | DELL | Round Rock | Austin | Texas |
| NII Holdings, Inc. | NIHD | Reston | Washington DC | Virginia |
| Amazon.com, Inc. | AMZN | Seattle | Seattle | Washington State |
| Expedia, Inc. | EXPE | Bellevue | Seattle | Washington State |
| Microsoft Corporation | MSFT | Redmond | Seattle | Washington State |
