Silicon Valley has more engineers, but the Heartland offers easier access to talent

GUEST: A few months after moving to the suburbs of St. Louis, I read a profile of one of the region’s most successful entrepreneurs in the St. Louis Business Journal. I wanted to get to know him, so I sent an email introducing myself — assuming I would never hear back from someone so accomplished (and busy). I was wrong. I received a reply the next day.
A year later this serial entrepreneur would become my consulting firm’s first client, and he later hired my wife to be the dir