Being in bay area, (being charismatic white male helps), around YC and VC circles, with some traction of previous startup success, it's the perfect place to take high risk, high reward bets.
Bay area is an outlier where you can raise billions of dollars, lose millions per month for decades, incrementally work on a moonshot, that's seen as OK. 1% of successful bets offset the 99% failed. They rain money! Some change the way the world works.
Watching Sama's videos, he has very high conviction on AI, he understands the tech, he is able to get top talent together, he has raised billions in war chest to be a solid contender. I think he makes a fantastic leader.
Cruise is another good example. Kyle Vogt has raised a huge war chest, losing millions a month, far from profitable. However they have driverless cars in SF right now. Other than Waymo and Cruise, no one else has been able to achieve this feat.
The valley is a different beast in that regards. Bottomless capital, high concentration of talent, top tier universities like Stanford and Berkley. It's the place where turning science fiction into reality is highly encouraged.