
Why the Midwest Is About to Become America's Next Silicon Valley - endswapper
http://www.forbes.com/sites/petertaylor/2016/11/07/why-the-midwest-is-about-to-become-americas-next-silicon-valley/
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knoepfle
I wish someone would invent a device that would allow me to roll my eyes even
harder at these X is the next Silicon Valley stories.

"The Midwest and Ohio in particular has always had three things going for it
in terms of business climate: a cheap, close supply of energy, access to
transportation, and a highly trained work force."

And yet the technologically inclined flee for the coasts, where life is
expensive. The next Silicon Valley isn't going to be in Nevada, Arizona, Ohio,
Kansas; it's probably not going to be in Illinois. It's going to be somewhere
with high amenity value to highly productive technical people; i.e., a big
international city.

~~~
bottlerocket
Cleveland, Ohioan here. Just about every tech company requires, and will
enforce to the fullest extent, non-competes. We're no where close to being the
next silicon valley.

EDIT: typo :(

~~~
endswapper
Let's assume, "Just about every tech company requires, and will enforce to the
fullest extent, non-competes," is true.

Why does that mean, the Midwest/Ohio is "no where close to being the next
silicone valley." The "e" in "silicone" is yours.

Non-competes are flimsy at best and it really comes down to your ability to
litigate.

~~~
bottlerocket
My admittedly anecdotal evidence is I know very talented people that have left
the region to avoid litigation from their former employers and start their own
ventures or advance their careers. Perhaps you have a lawyer that can compete
with a corporate legal team, most of us do not.

Also, we can't even type "silicon" properly :D

My non-anecdotal evidence: [https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/18/silicon-valley-
keeps-winni...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/18/silicon-valley-keeps-
winning-because-non-competes-limit-innovation/)

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-17/silicon-
va...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-17/silicon-valley-is-
the-world-s-innovation-capital-because-of-a-technicality)

~~~
endswapper
I understand and empathize if you or your associates have been run out of town
as a result of a non-compete. We are probably on the same side in a discussion
about non-competes. Thank you for the references, the TC piece in particular.
I wasn't aware of that part of CA law.

The Midwest in general, and Ohio in particular, has some great institutions
that attract great talent from around the world, i.e. The Cleveland Clinic.
The region/Ohio also educates some of the top talent.

While I'm not convinced they will be a viable competitor to Silicon Valley, it
is possible. The region's ability to retain talent is the most critical
component. Non-competes can make that more difficult. I don't think non-
competes alone preclude the region from competing with SV.

I'm from Ohio, I live in California, and I would put a higher priority on
weather than non-competes.

~~~
bottlerocket
I kind of fired off my initial comment and should have maybe thought it
through a little more, non competes are one of many reasons holding this
region back. Our very risk averse investment culture is probably the biggest
one actually (example:
[http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20160204/NEWS/1602099...](http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20160204/NEWS/160209904/sad-
truth-leaving-ohio-helped-phenom-get-into-500-startups)).

And of course as you said, our brutal, brutal winters.

I was more agreeing with knoepfle's comment in rolling my eyes every time one
of these articles pops up and gets shared all over my twitter, linkedin and
facebook feeds. There's many reasons a lot of our talent flees the west coast
or Chicago or NYC, and we'd rather read these fluff pieces instead of
acknowledging and trying to fix the issues that would keep them here.

------
aplomb
There won't be another SV just like there won't be another NYC for Finance in
the US - they become monuments and the skills gradually disperse till it just
becomes what everyone does (FL, NC, NJ have seen significant uptick in finance
from NYC).

The next X is going to be a field currently undervalued, it'll be small
companies because the initial opportunities are too small, they'll likely be
in an area that is balanced to low cost-proximity to market (if applicable)
(does anyone remember what a ghetto Palo Alto and Milpitas was a few decades
ago?), and it'll be largely unregulated (that comes after when the big boys
want to shut the door behind them).

I'm thinking this next wave could be a few things, but summed up by machine
intelligence - machine learning underpinned by IoT, alt energy, energy
storage, next gen comms, etc. Or it's local maxima and time for a WWIII board
clearing.

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trav4225
One California is more than enough. Please don't come and corrupt the midwest
as well. :)

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jrnichols
I would have expected it to be in Chattanooga, TN... not Ohio.

