A lot of the comments here claim that the deal breaker here is the culture. This could come off as glib, but is Silicon Valley really in any position to be complaining about another culture being too homogeneous, or too exclusive of "different" demographics (e.g., I dunno, women)? Don't make me laugh.

This is particularly disappointing because there are much better reasons to justify your decisions to not found your startup in Utah. Let's start with the fact that the investment scene, and in particular, the angel scene, is completely and utterly toxic.

I won't go into specifics, because badmouthing people on the Internet is mean, but most of funding (especially angel funding) in Utah is structured as a competition, where startups compete for money. The result is that there is no camaraderie between companies in the way that there is in, say, NYC or the bay area. People are friendly, but there is not really any knowledge ventilation because the angels cultivate this atmosphere of competition. The result is a divisive and poisonous atmosphere that is antithetical (IMHO) to hacker culture. In my experience, this lack of sharing knowledge makes it quite hard to build things. You're extremely unlikely to find a successful coworking space here, for example.

So ultimately, the talent pool here is deep, but until this cultural problem is fixed, Utah will always be a distant 11th to other venues.

EDIT: and before we all jump on the hate train, I'm an avowed atheist who left Mormonism. I don't like the culture here either, but let's not forget that Sili Valley needs to pull its head out of its ass on a pretty regular basis too.

EDIT 2: and for reference, I graduated in CS from the University of Utah this year (2013). So my experiences are pretty fresh.