I bet you Bill Gates is hearing the footsteps now. If you don’t believe me, take a look at the latest issue of Entrepreneur magazine. The publication lists the top 50 cities for entrepreneurs, and Lawrence checks in at No. 23.

Despite not having invented Microsoft or having figured out how to charge approximately $180 for a cup of coffee, Lawrence is just one spot behind the technology and Starbucks hub of Seattle.

The magazine lauds Lawrence for being a combination of all the rights things for an entrepreneur: centrally located; a small city next to a large metro; easy access to major highways; and home to a major research university.

University communities got a lot of love from the report. Boulder, Colo., was ranked No. 1 in the survey, and the top six communities all are home to major universities: Austin, Texas; Provo, Utah; Charlottesville, Va.; Chapel Hill, N.C.; and Ann Arbor, Mich. The report looked at about 2,200 cities with populations greater than 20,000.

Some other cities in the region also did well. They include:

• No. 8 Columbia, Mo.

• No. 18 Lincoln, Neb.

• No. 19 Kansas City, Mo.

• No. 27 Omaha, Neb.

• No. 32 Manhattan

• No. 43 Iowa City

• No. 45 Norman, Okla.

• No. 48 Oklahoma City

As always, you will have to decide how much stock to put into these rankings. This one was conducted in conjunction with the website Liveability.com, which measures a lot of quality of life factors. Unfortunately, the authors didn’t get real detailed in how they measured each community. They did say they looked at 17 economic indicators that included growth in businesses and employees from 2011 to 2015; unemployment rates, the number of venture capital deals, business tax rates, SBA loan amounts, the percentage of college-educated locals, access to high-speed broadband and a few other factors. The rankings also looked at a host of quality of life factors.

The online article highlights a couple of statistics. One is employment growth from 2011 to 2015. The article states Lawrence has seen 16 percent employment growth in that time period. The article, however, doesn’t state what set of employment numbers it is looking at. The federal numbers I look at generally have not shown that type of increase for Lawrence.

For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has released its preliminary figures for Douglas County job totals through 2015. Those numbers show the average number of jobs in Douglas County — including Lawrence — grew by just 5.9 percent since 2011.

That’s not meant to throw cold water on the latest ranking. It is great national publicity for Lawrence, and it makes sense that the city will start showing up on more of these lists. Community leaders have invested in projects such as the business incubator facility on West Campus, and the private sector and nonprofits are creating things such as the makers spaces and other programs aimed at helping startup businesses.

But Lawrence probably shouldn’t use such rankings to get a false sense of confidence on the job front. I’ve been aiming to report the latest job numbers from the BLS, so here’s a good chance to do so. These are countywide numbers, and they measure jobs that are located in the county. A Lawrence resident who has a job in Johnson County won’t be counted in these numbers, for example, while a Franklin County resident who has a job in Lawrence will. I don’t know why the Livability study looked at 2011 to 2015, but I’m going to look at 2015 compared with 2010.

• Douglas County: 48,358 jobs, up 4.6 percent

• Johnson County: 334,682 jobs, up 12.9 percent

• Riley County: 28,879 jobs, down 0.2 percent

• Sedgwick County: 248,287 jobs, up 4 percent

• Shawnee County: 96,963 jobs, up 3.4 percent

• Wyandotte County: 88,302 jobs, up 8.4 percent

Those numbers aren’t bad for Lawrence, and the better news is that job growth totals were more robust in 2015 than they were in previous years. Douglas County had a job growth rate of 1.6 percent from 2014 to 2015, which was the third highest on the list above, trailing Wyandotte (2.2 percent) and Johnson (2 percent).

In other news and notes from around town:

• I have news of another bank deal. Sunflower Bank, which has a branch in Lawrence, has signed a deal to merge with Texas-based Strategic Growth Bancorp.

Sunflower long has been known as a Salina-based bank, but the new corporate headquarters for the combined company will be in Denver. The combined company will have about 60 locations in Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico and Texas. The company will have approximately $4 billion in banking assets and about $3 billion in net loans and deposits, according to a press release.

Mollie Hale Carter, current chairman and CEO of Sunflower, will serve as CEO and president of the new holding company. The company’s 10-member board will be split equally between appointments made by Sunflower and SGB.

The press release doesn’t specifically address whether there will be a name change for the actual banks. Currently, the two companies operate banks and financial institutions under the brand names of Sunflower Bank, First National Bank of Santa Fe, Capital Bank, SSB, and Guardian Mortgage Company Inc.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The deal is expected to be finalized in the first quarter of 2017. Customers are not expected to see a disruption in services as a result of the merger, company officials have said.