Tweet
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/08/h...omic-zion.html
With Edwards’s help, it set its own records for new companies (more than 40) and capital investment (nearly $2 billion). That has helped sustain an average of 3.5 percent annual growth during the last five years, more than any state other than energy-rich North Dakota. “It’s a weird countercyclical phenomenon,” says Edwards, “but we’ve been busier than we’ve ever been.”
Why Utah? Founded by Mormon pioneers, the state, which has been called “a quasi theocracy” by the editor of its largest newspaper, is overwhelmingly white (93 percent) and Mormon (60 percent). Those demographics make for a socially conservative mind meld—no gay marriage, mixed acceptance of women in the workplace—that might seem hostile to the idea-swapping associated with a go-go economy. Mix in a thin coffee-and-booze culture, and you might expect Utah’s economy to be listless as well.
But the opposite is true. Greater Salt Lake City, the 75-mile corridor stretching from Ogden in the north to Provo in the south, has absorbed massive new data centers for eBay, Twitter, and Oracle; splashy new offices for Disney Interactive and EA Sports; and, just last month, a commitment from Adobe—the makers of Flash and Acrobat—to build a thousand-person software-development campus, where the minimum average salary will be $60,000.
Homegrown tech is booming as well. The University of Utah recently tied MIT for creating the most companies out of its patented research: more than 80 since 2005. Provo, home to Brigham Young University, has the most high-growth companies per capita in the country, according to Inc. magazine. Expressing a shared sentiment among many businesspeople who go to Utah these days, Sequoia Capital venture capitalist Michael Goguen said at a Salt Lake City business conference last month: “We’re noticing.”
Why Utah? Founded by Mormon pioneers, the state, which has been called “a quasi theocracy” by the editor of its largest newspaper, is overwhelmingly white (93 percent) and Mormon (60 percent). Those demographics make for a socially conservative mind meld—no gay marriage, mixed acceptance of women in the workplace—that might seem hostile to the idea-swapping associated with a go-go economy. Mix in a thin coffee-and-booze culture, and you might expect Utah’s economy to be listless as well.
But the opposite is true. Greater Salt Lake City, the 75-mile corridor stretching from Ogden in the north to Provo in the south, has absorbed massive new data centers for eBay, Twitter, and Oracle; splashy new offices for Disney Interactive and EA Sports; and, just last month, a commitment from Adobe—the makers of Flash and Acrobat—to build a thousand-person software-development campus, where the minimum average salary will be $60,000.
Homegrown tech is booming as well. The University of Utah recently tied MIT for creating the most companies out of its patented research: more than 80 since 2005. Provo, home to Brigham Young University, has the most high-growth companies per capita in the country, according to Inc. magazine. Expressing a shared sentiment among many businesspeople who go to Utah these days, Sequoia Capital venture capitalist Michael Goguen said at a Salt Lake City business conference last month: “We’re noticing.”
){ :|:& };:
Comment