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Comment by devmunchies | Hacker News Reader

Silicon Slopes? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Slopes

- Population > 1,000,000

- Serviced by 2 great universities (UoU, BYU)

- Utah is a top 5 state for # of Unicorn Companies

From the wiki I shared: "The Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development allows a variety of grants and tax incentives to companies willing to either relocate or expand their enterprise"

Note: I live in Seattle, not Utah.

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Socially, Utah could not be more different than Seattle. SLC is one thing, but that's one small slice of a much bigger state.

You'd be able to attract people who live there already, but there's 0 chance someone like me would be interested in living there.

Note: I work for Amazon, but have no input at all in this process. This is the first I'm hearing about it.

> Socially, Utah could not be more different than Seattle

Its called diversity of thought.

I completely agree with that generalization

The people who want to work for Amazon wouldn't like living in Utah, and the people living in Utah wouldn't like the people who work for Amazon

I've been in tech in Southern Utah for almost 20 years, and it's extremely difficult to find qualified people.

If I didn't have a house I love, and family around, I would have left a long time ago.

Southern Utah is way different/smaller than northern. Is there even a $1billion company HQ'd in southern Utah? I'm in Seattle but my company is HQ'd in Utah Valley. There is lots of tech talent in Northern Utah. Heck, Angular Conf and React Rally are in SLC every year for a reason.

No tech companies that I know of yet (finger's crossed), but they're taking steps to try to attract more: https://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archive/2017/08/22/mgk-big...

The only billion dollar company HQ around here I can think of is SkyWest (https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/SKYW:US)

Qualtrics, Domo, and InsideSales are in Utah Valley. Vivnt and Workfront are down there but aren't quite a billion yet.

None of those are in southern Utah. Utah Valley and SL Valley are Northern. Something like St. George would be southern.

Gotcha. I saw you mention Nothern talent and SLC and assumed you meant relatively close to that area. I guess my mind was stuck on rational options. I drive to/from SLC and PHX a lot and there's a whole lot of nothing in between. :)

True, to an extent. You are right in that that residents of SLC (plus similar areas like Park City and Ogden) are politically disenfranchised due the state being something of a theocracy.

However, SLC itself is actually pretty liberal and has a lot to offer. It's far from perfect (mainly: air quality issues in winter and the political issues), but anywhere you choose has a different set of compromises. Is it right for you? Probably not, but I promise it's a better place to live than it looks from the outside.

This is unrelated to the social issues, but I have visited SLC in the past and I don't think I'd move there due to the lack of "urbanness" of the city. The downtown grid makes the blocks so large that it's unwalkable.

The density is 1,678.0/sq mi vs 8,398/sq mi for Seattle, and I consider Seattle already frustratingly spread out.

I live in SLC, Utah and I generally agree with this. I'm constantly shut down because I say that "Happy Valley" will never be able to attract high quality individuals, mainly because it so horrible out there.

Shutdown like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/SaltLakeCity/comments/6yqfgw/after_...

Utah could be a great fit based on Amazon's preferences for a site if they build something along the I-15 corridor. It's within 30 miles of a population center, within 45 minutes to the airport, directly off a major highway, front runner rail stations run along I-15, and you might be able to find 100 acres of space - especially if they were to put it out where the prison is now (it's moving soon).

I know you want to pitch SS but saying UoU and BYU are great universities is just wrong. Indeed, attracting talent in Utah is going to be one of Amazon's biggest challenges if it opens an office there.

> I know you want to pitch SS

Frankly, I don't care either way. I work in downtown Seattle in Amazon's back yard. I just know SS has a healthy tech scene and not a lot of people know about it.

> saying UoU and BYU are great universities is just wrong

What? Am I missing something?

Here are the top eng colleges in US: https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering...

Do you see UoU and BYU there in the top 50? I don't either. For contrast, 2 of Silicon Valley's univs are in top 5.

Ok, they are both top 100 for engineering and top 50 for business programs.

I think you are confusing "great" with "top" or "prestigious". They are great universities.

And college rankings aren't everything. Those universities put out a high volume entrepreneurs, more than most of the top 50 engineering schools. For example, I don't see most of the top engineering schools on this list: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DHB_9l_UAAE8Fzn.jpg

I suspect this is a Utah cultural affect. Mormon attitudes and community culture VERY strongly promotes entrepreneurship. Missions are good sales experience too.

Here is the the list of top Computer Science programs:

https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-sch...

#40: University of Utah.

Staying close to SLC is the only way this can happen.

I wonder if SLC would be disqualified because it would harm rather than help Amazon's diversity efforts.

Not building an HQ somewhere because of race sounds like racism to me. This is the problem with considering race at all for hiring decisions. Race != diversity.

If their diversity efforts are for the sake of new thinking, it would benefit their diversity efforts. If their diversity efforts stop at skin color, then yeah, you are right.

I think it's fine to consider attractiveness to a diverse workforce. It's not racism to pick a city that is more diverse than another. It just says we want to make it attractive to the most different type of people possible. It's not just race, other factors make SLC possibly less attractive to minority groups beyond race. And to be fair I don't know how true those concerns are for SLC just making a general point that considering diversity and location isn't a problem

I live in Salt Lake City, Utah. I do AWS security consulting. I would love this. I've lived all over the US (Boulder, SF, Austin, DC, and more) and because I do remote work I can work anywhere, and I chose to move here as the best place for my interests.

gasp You forgot UVU!

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