FUTURE FORWARD: WHAT WILL SILICON SLOPES LOOK LIKE IN 10 YEARS?

AuthorMcClary, Blake
PositionSILICON SLOPES

Today, it can almost be taken for granted that Utah is successful and countless business opportunities abound. With a handful of unicorns and dozens of highly successful ventures, it can feel like this is how it's always been--at least for those of us who haven't been around too long. But that's not the case. I'd like to look at where we've been and what I think the future holds for Silicon Slopes.

WHERE WE'VE BEEN

WordPerfect has absolutely laid the foundation for where we are today. The word processing giant helped build the talent pool our state needed and put Utah tech on the map. The sale of WordPerfect to Novell created wealth and opportunities for entrepreneurs to continue building great companies. That sale also allowed the Ashton family to build Thanksgiving Point, where many of the state's tech companies reside today.

One of the next great chapters in Utah tech is that of Omniture. Josh James was able to build on the foundation that Alan Ashton laid and bring more acclaim and capital to the state than ever before. Not only did he successfully take Omniture public, he then sold to Adobe for $1.8 billion, and with that wealth and notoriety became one of the biggest evangelists this state has ever had. Without his work, Silicon Slopes would not be what it is today--the very namesake is his doing.

WHERE WE'RE GOING--FOURTH GENERATION

Each tech wave has built on the previous and then strengthened. What do you think will happen when product managers at Instructure, engineers at Pluralsight and sales people at Domo get together? There is an incredible pool of talented people who know how to build and scale companies and find productmarket fit. As they come together to work on ideas of their own, they carry with them a wealth of experience, having already scaled billion-dollar companies. And because of the easy access to capital in our state, the starting of new companies is going to be exponential. Welcome to the fourth generation of Utah tech.

Think of some of the up-and-comers, companies like Podium, Canopy, Lucid, MX, BambooHR and Homie. These are the next round of potential unicorns in the state. They will continue to propel us forward by employing thousands and raising hundreds of millions of dollars. Hopefully in the next 10 years a few of these will have gone public, again creating even more wealth and opportunity.

Companies from the Bay Area and elsewhere will choose to set up shop in Utah. Adobe, Snap, Mavenlink, Salesforce...

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