A few weeks ago, I was sitting with Scott Kirsner at a symposium on the draft bill to modify the terms of non-compete agreements that is beginning to work its way through the Massachusetts legislative process. Scott, of course, is the “Innovation Economy” columnist at the Boston Globe.
Since Massachusetts law currently allows relatively onerous non-compete agreements and California law completely precludes non-compete agreements, and since non-compete agreements are shown to stifle innovation, one can rationally conclude that non-compete agreements are a factor in constraining innovation in Massachusetts and further that eliminating non-compete agreements can bolster innovation in Massachusetts.
In support of eliminating non-competes, Scott commented that relatively few companies in the NASDAQ-100 are located in Massachusetts, whereas, many companies are in Silicon Valley. NASDAQ listed companies tend to reflect new economy business sectors, in contrast to listings on other stock exchanges which tend to reflect more traditional business sectors. Within the NASDAQ-100, 50 companies are in the Technology sector.
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The differences in the number of NASDAQ companies in Boston area and in Silicon Valley are striking. To better show those differences, I constructed the following map of NASDAQ-100 company locations and the associated views of several metropolitan areas.
The first view shows all 87 NASDAQ companies located within the continental U.S. The scale of this first map is too broad to show any significant geographic differences.
On this and subsequent views, you can select a pushpin icon, and a popup balloon will show company information. You can navigate and zoom around and outside of the U.S. to see companies located worldwide. You can also navigate more easily on a larger version of the map by selecting the link below each view.
To see the map and pushpins on the following map views, javascript needs to be enabled for google.com and gstatic.com.
View NASDAQ-100 in a larger map
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The second view shows NASDAQ-100 companies in the Boston area. It is the same underlying map as above, zoomed in to the Boston area.
View NASDAQ-100 in a larger map
The Boston area companies shown are:
Biogen Idec Inc.
Genzyme Corp.
Staples, Inc.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc.
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The third view shows companies in the Silicon Valley area.
View NASDAQ-100 in a larger map
The comparison of between Boston and Silicon Valley metropolitan areas is striking. There are 6 companies in the Boston area, only one of which is in the technology sector, and there are 26 companies in the San Francisco area, almost all of which are technology companies.
Clearly, something different is happening in Boston and the Bay Area.
The San Francisco / San Jose area companies are:
Altera Corp.
Apple Inc.
Applied Materials Inc.
Autodesk, Inc.
Cisco Systems, Inc.
eBay Inc.
Electronic Arts Inc.
Gilead Sciences Inc.
Google Inc.
Intel Corp.
Intuit Inc.
Intuitive Surgical, Inc.
KLA-Tencor Corp.
Lam Research Corp.
Linear Technology Corp.
Maxim Integrated Products Inc.
NetApp, Inc.
NVIDIA Corp.
Oracle Corp.
Ross Stores Inc.
Symantec Corp.
VeriSign Inc.
Xilinx Inc.
Yahoo! Inc.
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The next view is of the Seattle area:
View NASDAQ-100 in a larger map
The Seattle area companies are:
Costco Wholesale Corp.
Expedia Inc.
Expeditors Intl of Washington Inc.
PACCAR Inc.
Starbucks Corp.
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The next view is of the Los Angeles / San Diego area:
View NASDAQ-100 in a larger map
The Los Angeles / San Diego area companies are:
Amgen Inc.
Broadcom Corp.
DIRECTV Group, Inc.
Illumina Inc.
Life Technologies Corp.
QUALCOMM Inc.
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The last view is of the New York / Newark area:
View NASDAQ-100 in a larger map
The New York / Newark area companies are:
Bed Bath & Beyond, Inc.
CA, Inc.
Celgene Corp.
Cognizant Tech Solutions Corp.
Henry Schein Inc.
IAC/InterActiveCorp.
News Corp.
Paychex Inc.
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I will look at mapping other company lists.