This stat is not surprising. The tone of the article assumes acquisition is the only interesting result. I prefer profitability. Stats on profitability of startups is sparse. I would guess some locations would show higher rates of profitable startups simply because its your only meaningful goal.
Wait, why would you guess that? There's a rational reason for a higher number of sales in the Valley - there's a concentration of acquirors - but profitability generally has very little to do with proximity to paying users/advertisers, except for very large numbers (i.e. TV and cable networks).
I don't think you can say one is necessarily better than the other. Some people may be better at going from zero to something than running a larger, steadier firm. These people are probably better off building and selling. Likewise, some people may be great at profitably running large (or at least more stable) firms, but fail at creating something from nothing.
I'm sure acquisition is much better for many, just not what I go for usually...don't get me wrong, I'm happy to get acquired as well ;). The reason I'm wildly guessing that other cities might show better profitability ratios is simply that they have less expectations from the start of acquisition.
