How Utah Became the Next Silicon Valley

The New Yorker has a great article on how Utah is attracting the top technology companies. Salt Lake, Provo, and Ogden are all in the top 15 cities of the “super-sector” for technology companies according to a recent study. With apologies to a specific Friend of the Park Rag, you’ll notice Park City is not on this list. The Friend recently pointed out three people, sitting at tables nearby, who had just started technology companies around Park City (in rebuttal to an article we wrote on “where’s the economic diversity”). Yet, how does Ogden get on this list and we don’t? For that matter, how does Ogden take our recreation companies? We suppose that’s an article for another time.

If you have few minutes, we’d recommend reading the New Yorker article. It manages to bring together religion, transportation, education, and relationships between local governments in order to explain why Silicon Valley has moved east. Three out of four of those things … we don’t really have going for us. And with education, it’s not likely too many of our Park City High School grads are forgoing college to work at one of the 3, billion dollar startups in Provo.

It’s just a little bit of an eye opener.