Had a great dinner discussion tonight with a group of students, university faculty, entrepreneurs, and other folks involved in the local start-up scene.  The gathering was organized by Scott Kirsner and the focus of the evening was how to stop the brain drain in Boston and spur greater innovation in the Bay State.

It was great to hear everyone’s ideas, and even better just to see the enthusiasm in the room among folks from different parts of the entrepreneurial eco-system.  Some themes from the discussion:

1. “Glory” was a commonly used word tonight.  The idea was that students need to connect with more role models locally who have changed the world by pursuing entrepreneurial endeavors.  They also need less risky career options that also seem “glorious”.  In the Bay Area, landing a job with a hot startup is probably as attractive as getting a job with a top-tier investment bank.  Among students in Boston, landing a role at a local startup is not nearly as sexy.

2.  There seems to be an information gap in the entreprenerial ecosystem.  There is a disconnect between schools, between students and the broader tech community, non-tech entrepreneurs and the innovation economy, etc.  Not sure exactly why that is, but there seems to be a dearth of collaboration and free-flowing information in our community.  Speaking of which…

3. Non-competes were mentioned.  I promise that I did not bring it up, but it was described as one of the biggest barriers to innovation.  It was nice to see that both VC firms represented (myself and Roger Krakoff at Sigma) don’t typically require employees of their portfolio companies to sign non-compete agreements.  See more about our efforts to eliminate non-competes in the Northeast here.

There were some other interesting thoughts, and I suspect Scott will discuss this further in his blog.