Got Skis? Love Software? Head to Utah's Silicon Slopes

When arriving in Salt Lake Urban center, the start thing that grabs yous is the awe-inspiring spectacle of the Wasatch Range, which stretches 160 miles across Utah.

Well, that and the fact you can go a TRAX lite rail train from the drome—literally right outside the concluding—into town for just $2.fifty. Non many cities can say that. TRAX ferries 80,000 commuters each weekday to its 50 stations, many of whom I saw brought their bicycles, skateboards, and the odd guitar onboard.

This kind of depression-cost, high-efficiency public infrastructure is a large draw to a immature, well-educated, and geeky tech workforce. Utah has a population of three million and a median age of just 30.vii, making it the youngest state in the United states, with an unemployment charge per unit of 3.ane percentage.

I've visited before; in January, I was in Park City for the VR exposition at Sundance, and concluding yr, I tele-operated a Guardian GT while wearing an exoskeleton at Sarcos. Back recently to comprehend Pluralsight Live, I took some time after the event wrapped to explore and talk with local tech execs to get their take on the urban center.

Where Silicon Slopes Brainstorm

The mountain range is important, not just visually but as the backdrop to what'due south now known as Silicon Slopes—Utah's reply to their tech cousins out due west.

It's home to the Silicon Slopes Tech Top, Qualtrics X4, Domopalooza, and next week's Saintcon cyber security conference. In 2022, nearly 100 Utah startups raised more than $ane billion in venture capital, and unicorns proliferate, like Fusion.io (caused by SanDisk for $one.1 billion), Omniture (bought by Adobe for $one.8 billion), Banjo, and Qualtrics.

SLC is a very dissimilar place to Silicon Valley, or the other wannabe startup havens springing up around the state. But at that place are the usual electric scooters waiting for riders and a proliferation of co-working spaces.

This is Utah, which means The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints looms large. The church building's founders are responsible for the big broad highways, sensible street filigree (you actually can't go lost here), ornate street lamp restoration, and the more bourgeois of the two daily newspapers.

So there'southward the Utah geek crowd: an increasingly diverse group of rugged, bearded and/or outdoorsy types clad in Utah is RAD clothing. The city has a thriving alternative coffee house scene (cheque out Nostalgia Buffet with its chess boards, shelves of battered cult paperbacks, and dairy alternatives), street art, zines and freesheets, music stores, and an arthouse pic fix.

Many of these Utah geeks are besides involved in the burgeoning cyber security underground, centered around events at DC801 and the 801 Labs hackerspace.

That's my have. But what virtually those who alive hither? I reached out to a few execs in the tech space to discover out what they dearest most well-nigh the expanse.

Why is Silicon Slopes a swell place to start a company?

"We are xxx minutes from six of the best ski resorts in the world and within a couple hours from v of the near stunning national parks. If there is some other identify where y'all can responsibly run a rapidly growing startup and still manage to ski over thirty times a year, I'm not aware of it. Combine that with i of the most robust talent pipelines in the state, low cost of living, established funding infrastructure, and ane of the most supportive business concern communities available and it creates the all-time place in the earth to exercise business."

—Eric Rea, Co-founder/CEO, Podium

"The Utah tech economy is incredible and it has been amazing to picket it abound over the past decade. I have always said that no i expanse has the exclusive on smart people. In Utah, we tin just put our heads down and go to piece of work. We aren't distracted. Plus, nosotros become to work in the place anybody else comes to vacation. That's a pretty astonishing thing. Final yr alone we had over 200 people relocate to Utah to piece of work at Qualtrics. People desire to work with great people, tackling exciting problems and exercise it in a beautiful place. That's what we offer."

—Ryan Smith, CEO, Qualtrics

"University of Utah, Brigham Young University, and the other bookish institutions create sharp engineers and entrepreneurs. The big tech companies like eBay [and] Adobe have opened local offices and our homegrown public software companies—like Pluralsight and Qualtrics—add to that past bringing in talent attracted to the outdoors and low cost of living. At that place are multiple angel networks and early stage funds, while investors outside of Utah are starting to take notation. Common salt Lake Urban center was a stop on Revolution'due south Ascension of the Rest tour, and funds similar Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, TCV, and Insight Venture Partners have all invested in Silicon Slopes in the past few years."

—Minna Wang, Bioengineer & Analyst, Kickstart Seed Fund

"This is the second tech business organisation that I've started and grown deliberately in Silicon Slopes. My get-go company was Omniture and back and so, the world didn't talk near Utah and engineering in the same breath. That's changed dramatically in the last decade every bit we've seen an influx of majuscule and talent. The past five years have been some of the nigh dynamic in Utah'due south tech history."

—Josh James, Founder/CEO, Domo

Where'due south the 'tech side of town'?

"There are a few pockets of activity: Cottonwood Heights is kind of Utah'due south Sand Colina Route, where all the VCs are. Silicon Valley Bank also has an office there and the Salt Mine [coworking space] is nearby. The Lehi-Orem stretch, [has another co-working space] Kiln. You'll also observe some of Utah'due south scale-ups along there (Nuvi, Jane, dsco, etc.) South Jordan ("SoJo") right off the freeway is likewise starting to become a lot of activity. Big names include Homie, Pluralsight, Lucidchart, and HireVue. And of course, Provo (Qualtrics campus, for example) and downtown Salt Lake (where Skillful Voice and Church & State—a coworking infinite—are). You tin can likewise find a lot of activity at the universities, like the Lassonde Middle at the University of Utah."

—Minna Wang, Kickstart Seed Fund

"We are partial to the heart of Silicon Slopes in Lehi, where nosotros just opened our new headquarters. Halfway between the nightlife and entertainment options in Table salt Lake City and the education hub in Provo/Orem, it is platonic for businesses to thrive (Adobe, Oracle, Vivint, Nuvi, Workday, and ancestry.com are all neighbors). Likewise, Utah Jazz games take proven to be the most dependable hangout spots for Utah tech.

—Eric Rea, Podium

"My two favorite spots to grab coffee and meet upwardly with my tech colleagues are Park Urban center Roaster and Hugo Java—ii spots off the beaten path with amazing mountain views."

—Joy Driscoll Durling, CIO, Vivint Smart Abode

Relocation Tales

"I grew upward in South East Portland, came to Utah, fell in love with it and settled hither with my wife and started Pluralsight. Silicon Slopes was created to foster growth in the tech space, and information technology'south working. Nosotros're bringing in tech talent from around the globe and hiring grads from BYU and University of Utah, both of which have strong informatics programs. Utah is a great place to start a business concern and abound a business, combined with a high quality of life and a low cost of living. It's an exciting time to be role of the thriving tech community here."

—Aaron Skonnard, Co-founder/CEO, Pluralsight

"When we were looking to expand beyond our Atlanta function and set up a Due west Coast headquarters, we knew we didn't desire to be in the Bay Surface area and we found Utah to have the best mix of talent, accessibility, and community—the dozens of ski resorts about the metropolis, hiking trails, national parks, and Sundance Moving picture Festival was the icing on the block. The state also has a growing blockchain community and a large Distributed Systems Meetup that happens monthly, which has been great for our team at Storj Labs, as we are a decentralized cloud storage provider."

—John Quinn, CoFounder/CSO, Storj Labs

"After living in California and working for Adobe, I was attracted to Utah for not only the emerging tech opportunities, but this is an incredible identify to raise my family unit in a beautiful setting with all my favorite activities seconds away. I have more than 300 miles of hiking and biking trails correct outside my dorsum door in Park City. I've experienced incredible career opportunities and honey beingness part of this community of talented people who want to make a difference in both tech and the community. Our state motto sums it up perfectly—Life Elevated."

—Joy Driscoll Durling, Vivint Smart Domicile

"When you add together Utah's natural beauty, low toll of living, and industrious culture to a job offer at an exciting startup, many companies are besides cartoon talent from other tech networks such as the Bay Area. Equally a new transplant myself, I was surprised when a coworker showed me how to climb a nearby mountain only 20 minutes later on leaving work last Th."

—Todd Grierson, Senior Manager, Business Development and Strategic Initiatives, BambooHR

"Every bit a recent transplant to Utah—having spent my career working for tech companies in Silicon Valley, Portland, and Boston—there's no doubt that Utah has a unique tech scene. There is a common recipe used by many of the Silicon Slopes companies—bootstrap, figure out the business model, then scale responsibly. It's a recipe we have used at Lucidchart to smashing effect. We scaled to 10 million users with zero burn, driven by a deep focus on fundamentals. This is the common recipe [hither], but information technology's quite pervasive, and supported by a deep pipeline of concern and tech talent coming out of local universities that are familiar with, and supportive of the fundamentals-showtime arroyo."

—Nathan Rawlins, CMO, Lucidchart

Local Government Back up

"The supporting ecosystem for businesses, peculiarly tech, is astonishing. The Governor's Function of Economic Evolution has a particular focus on tech. Ane specific example is support for information science education. They have passed several bills and provided millions of dollars in funding to help keep our talent pipeline potent into the futurity (e.k., SB 190 - Pedagogy Computing Partnerships). We likewise accept fantabulous tech-focused industry associations similar Silicon Slopes and Women Tech Quango."

—Vance Checketts, COO, dsco

Festivals and Summits

"Qualtrics' X4 Experience Management Height takes identify in March of every year. We'll take over 10,000 people at the event this year, making information technology the largest experience direction issue in the world. Nosotros've had everyone from Michael Phelps and Lin-Manuel Miranda to Arianna Huffington and Malcolm Gladwell join us there."

—Ryan Smith, Qualtrics

"Definitely check out: Silicon Slopes Tech Height—recall SXSW for the Rocky Mountain region; Urban Lounge SLC for the hip local music scene; Rooftop Concert Serial - family-friendly, but even so hip local music scene; Love Loud Fest, a new festival which drew tech titans like Tim Cook to SLC; [and] FanX Salt Lake— annihilation they do is a colorful and powerful, especially for our tech community."

—Vance Checketts, dcso

Finally, sum upward Silicon Slopes in iii words

"SaaS and snow."

—Minna Wang, Kickstart Seed Fund

"Grit, Entrepreneurial, Limitless"

—Joy Driscoll Durling, Vivint Smart Home

"Efficient, gorgeous, and growing."

—Eric Rea, Podium

"Secret applied science stronghold"

—Todd Grierson, BambooHR

"I'm always looking for efficiency [so] I'chiliad going to go with only two words: vastly underrated"

—Nathan Rawlins, Lucidchart

(Due south.C. Stuart was a invitee of Pluralsight in SLC to comprehend its annual tech conference.)

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/vivint-sky/29490/got-skis-love-software-head-to-utahs-silicon-slopes

Posted by: ashbeills81.blogspot.com

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