Comment by hpoe | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hpoe | Hacker News Reader

So I live in Utah been here for most of my life and been involved in the Utah start up scene, and quite frankly I've been wondering why Utah has been at the top of more tech hub lists. The fact of the matter is you have a very edicated population with two major universities a younger population and a government that looks favorably on business. I'm surprised it took anyone this long to notice. I think there are two factors that work against the traditional SV perception in Utah.

Both of them stem from teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints ( of which I am a member) the first is the emphasis on families. A commonly heard refrain is "no success can compensate for failure in the home", this emphasis on family doesn't always meld well with eh working 80-100 hours a week, FAANG obsession mentality that is caricatured as part of being an SV startup.

The second is also another teaching of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that counsels it's memebers to avoid excessive debt. Whereas the entire SV startup mentality is get as much VC as you can and blow through it as quick as you can to fuel growth hopong you can claw your way out later. As data point on this until a while back I was working at ones of Utah's biggest, hottest most profitable startups as one of the first employees. The CEO didn't take out a bunch of business loans or get VC, he had owned quite a bit of property and liquidated it all to start the company.

Now the objection will be that everyone in Utah isn't a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, however the culture still is pretty pervasive.

That being said there are exceptions to every rule and things are changing. But most importantly.

There are too dang many of you coming to Utah and filling up my mountains and desert stay out find somewhere else live.

As someone outside looking in who's skied there once and know a few people from there or lives there:

1. Big pay differential. This is probably why it only hires locals for the most part.

2. Mormonism is ascendant, and the tech industry is mostly non-religious. You hear stories about it can stifle your social life your not mormon or don't wish to participate in mormonism. Like if your kid marries a mormon and your not mormon, well you're not going into the temple to participate in the marriage ceremony levels of soft social exclusion.

I've lived in the bay area, startup to big co. And 80-100 hour weeks are fairly uncommon in practice unless your working in a very small startup fighting for its life. Along with having a family being anything much of a real problem.

Overall I find it unfortunate that equity financing is looked at as debt, vs the joint venture with the rich that it's more like. Nothing wrong with bootstrapping, but it's obviously limiting as you pointed out.

I live in SLC and work in the Silicon Slopes and as a non-Mormon and latino I'm positive I've been passed on promotions because I can't relate enough to the management which is overwhelmingly white, middle-aged and Mormon so you can guess that they pay attention to the other white Mormon's accomplishments because they see each other on Sundays too.

I also experienced this kind of bias at my first tech job in Utah. If you talk to any non Mormon in Utah they will have a story of bias in employment, housing, education or community due to religion. It’s incredibly pervasive.

Totally agree with this as a non-Mormon living in Utah. The culture is pervasive -- largely in a good way IMO. We moved here from California (ahem, sorry for filling up your mountains and desert) and love it. It's totally normal to have a family in your twenties, head out of the office at 5:00 sharp, and make friends hanging out with the kids in the mountains. Even as an ex-coastal democrat I am totally fine with the Mormon "compassionate Republicans" like Romney, Huntsman, and Cox. Wouldn't want to live anywhere else at this point. Now if we can just figure out traffic in the Cottonwoods.....

> Now if we can just figure out traffic in the Cottonwoods.....

This problem is actually the main reason I haven't moved to SLC yet. So much of the draw there is about being able to get up into (and out of) the mountains quickly, and during ski season (as you know but other readers might not) it can get really terrible. Like worse than I-70 west of Denver terrible

I have tried the ski bus approach, but had a frightening experience of being on one of the last buses down on a crowded day when LCC went into an interlodge event. I have heard a lot of proposals for solving the problem, from gondola to restricting car access and pushing people toward the buses, but so far I think there is no end in sight?

I hate to say it because Alta is maybe my favorite place on earth, but I just avoid them now. We moved up to Summit Park area (just over the pass, in Park City school district) and ski Canyons, plus a lot of backcountry in the Wasatch back. The cottonwoods are getting loved to death and I don't see a great solution -- widening the LCC road and adding a dedicated bus lane would work, but it's a narrow canyon and I'm not sure it's even possible.

The traffic in the Cottonwoods is not that bad as long as you avoid the weekends particularly powder days and holidays. But if you head up to any of the cottonwood resorts midweek there's not really any traffic. I often ride Park city on busy weekends instead of in the Cottonwoods because Park city is better able to handle the crowds. But if your trying to do a weekend day in the Cottonwoods get up and in the canyon early before the conga line starts.

They should add an expensive toll. Voilà, problem solved.

Curious by your username: are you from Venezia, Italy, and/or are Italian?

(I am Italian, living in San Francisco)

Thanks for sharing. May I ask how much of a paycut should we expect for the move?

This is anecdotal based on my experience in both the Bay Area and SLC, but the pay differential is extreme at the top end, and practically nonexistent in the middle bands. That is to say, the kind of developer who might be able to command a $400K+ salary in the Bay Area may be able to get $200K in Utah. But if you qualify for the kind of position that pays $150-180K in the Bay Area, maybe at a startup with equity, you'd get about the same in Utah, maybe a little less. But you can buy a really nice house in Utah for $500K.

That rings true to me - mostly just due to the companies present. I was near $400k in CA, and now around $200k here in Utah. But frankly, the lifestyle you can afford here on two >$100k salaries is ridiculous.

> head out of the office at 5:00 sharp

If only we could figure out a way to work out a technology/innovation culture that lets people work with laser-like focus on a productive 40 hour work week, have lots of time with their friends/familiar/hobbies, but without the religious part. And without a huge percentage of community social activities revolving around one particular religious ideology.

I'm not in your (or anyone's) church but I agree, looking from the outside, that there's a lot about LDS culture that would seem to promote sound business practices and de-emphasize risk.

But I'd also say that "be present for your family" and "don't amass personal debt" should be universally seen as good, and at least in theory they are, certainly by most religions or other broad groupings of humans.

I wonder instead: why not take more risk if you have a massive community to back you up in case it doesn't work out?

I mean, maybe you don't want to take that risk on "selling personal data to advertisers" because the community might not want to back you up, but if you're doing something basically moral, wouldn't a strong community be able to subsidize positive risk and thus yield better results on average?

> There are too dang many of you coming [...] and filling up my mountains

I'm from rural Northern California and I say the same thing a lot. Especially in the last 20 years. :-)

As a former member, I still choose to live here over anywhere else (my employer has given us the option - and I can't imagine a place I'd rather live) I'll agree that the church's focus on hard work, clean living, family atmosphere, abstinence from drugs and alcohol provide quite a net-positive for industrious people. I feel completely energized by the tech scene here, but I do get concerned that if we keep trying to rush toward being SF, we'll end up with million dollar 3 bedroom homes and folks living on the streets.

Quite a few people are already living in the streets in SLC. Not sure about other parts of the state.

While I did sincerely consider putting a "(more)" in my statement, our level of homelessness comes nowhere near SF or LA. Not that I don't consider it an issue.

We have a huge advantage over SF in that we actually let developers build more housing (and also have plenty of space to build more) Im always so confused when I go to the Bay area and realize the density is much less than Utah.

While I see people pushing more and more down into American Fork, Lindon, etc I find it strange that they rarely push North. Pluralsight was in Station Park in Farmington, but I believe they've also moved to Provo.

It's because setting up between Salt Lake and Utah counties lets you draw talent from both locations.

I think the question is more, "why not set up in the northern part of Salt Lake valley to be able to pull in people from Davis/Weber county?"

There is certainly plenty of people that live up there, seemingly just as many as live in Utah County. Is it that there is a dearth of them that have the skills tech companies are looking for? Are there governmental/policy reasons keeping companies away? Is it because BYU is in Utah County and WSU/USU are that much worse at providing potential hires than BYU/UVU are?

I don't know the reason but it does seem weird to me that there is so much push into Utah County and seemingly nothing to the north.

3 million dollar homes and pervasive homeless are caused by policy. Restrain the NIMBY in SLC and it wont be nearly as bad.

"...why Utah has been..."

I think you're missing a "not" there.

> There are too dang many of you coming to Utah

Would you or your congregation welcome more Mormons to town?

Would you or your congregation welcome more non-Mormons to town?

The Mormons have been engaging in white flight from Salt Lake City proper and heading further and further south. The current tech bubble area near Lehi is a perfect example, just ten years prior they were all moving 10 miles north to Draper and Riverton towns but now those are too diverse too.

I live in Utah and I'd gladly welcome more technical types regardless. I think it is a net win.

Non-Mormon in Utah. I grew up here. In high school, I felt excluded. I felt like all the social activities centered on the Mormon Church, and I was left out. I resented it, deeply and for a long time.

Eventually I realized: Maybe it was just because I was a nerd. Maybe it wasn't the fault of the Mormon Church at all.

As a non-Mormon, I haven't been unwelcome anywhere, ever. There still is a bit of a feeling of being an outsider, but it's not like "no promotions for you" or anything. I've been treated fairly everywhere I've been. (Disclaimer: I'm male, white, straight, and cis. I don't know enough to speak for the experience of those who are not.)

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