There is a startup scene here, but it's nowhere near as vibrant as the Bay Area. I'm not an expert on this, but one of my coworkers at the Seattle-based startup I previously worked at told me that most local investors were skittish. Supposedly, they tend to balk at any startup that isn't a B2B.
The technical reputation definitely comes from Microsoft and Amazon being headquartered here, along with branches for eBay, Google, and Facebook.