• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, October 14, 2015

When you travel to major metropolitan hubs, you tend to know right away what the primary business is in those cities.  If you’re in Washington D.C, of course the focus is politics.  In New York, it’s media and finance.  In Los Angeles, it’s entertainment.  In Cincinnati, it’s consumer-packaged goods.  

San Francisco and the Bay Area have been the birthplace of technology, but in recent years that ownership of technology has expanded for two primary reasons: cost and volume.

Technology success has had an adverse effect on the Bay Area, creating a very high cost of living and thus eroding technology innovation, because you have to  be successful already in order to live here.  That, coupled with the pace of industry growth, has made it necessary for other areas of the U.S. to bet big on technology infrastructure. Other tech centers include  Austin and Atlanta, Chicago and Raleigh-Durham.  Even cities like Albany, N.Y. and Omaha, Neb. are getting into the mix.   

The proximity of technology-focused universities and colleges in these cities provide easy access to. young, eager, intelligent talent.  It also helps that the physical space for housing is not as fixed as it is in the Bay Area, so the cost of living is lower and can sustain these younger workers.  

Technology businesses are like the flu -- they’re viral.  When one company in a specific sector starts to see some success, you find an influx of investment in that category to try to replicate success and deliver value.   A few years ago it was advertising.  Next the focus was social media.  More recently it was mobile, and now the attention is paid squarely on data and data infrastructure.  The question is, as some famous hockey player once stated, it’s about skating to where the puck will be rather than where it is.  What will be the focus of technology growth in these regions over the next few years?

My guess is very high on two areas: data and the Internet of things.  Investment is headed toward creating the inter-connected home/work/car/body landscape, and the undercurrent of data that can support this web of interaction. I wonder if the tech centers in each region will expand to integrate these ideas to support the local economy as it stands today.  For example, are the tech centers in Los Angeles focused on data and the IoT in entertainment?  Are those in DC focused on supporting politics and political process?  

At a high level, I think this will be the case. So when you’re fresh out of school and looking to establish a career path, you should be examining two dimensions when deciding where you want to live.   Are you looking at a career in technology — and if so, what category of business feels like a fit for you?  If you can establish a path for your career and a desired trajectory, then it’s about finding the city that offers you the best fit.  

As for the Bay Area, it will likely always be the place where the technology first gets developed, but we're facing the challenge of how to attract talented young people while giving them a means to live a life that is fulfilling and fun, outside of simply being successful at work.  After all, all work and no play makes tech a dull career.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the Bay Area.  I just hope others will be able to come here and find things they love, too -- rather than finding things to gripe about, which is all I seem to read these days.