In this podcast episode we talked to Elizabeth Converse, the Director of Operations for Silicon Slopes Commons. Her job is to assist in the growth and development of Utah tech companies providing them assistance in building the jobs of the 21st century.
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Silicon Valley is investing heavily into Utah, so we discussed how and why Utah has become one of the top destinations in the country for both investment and headquarters for existing tech companies such as Ebay, Intel, Amazon, Microsoft and Adobe to name a few.
There are many successful companies also getting successfully incubated and funded in Utah such as Qualtrics, Podium, Ancestry.com and others.
But there is another aspect to big tech that doesn’t get much attention that we touched on: the dark-side of social media. Social media is not building strong relationships and strong communities especially in young people. Mark Zuckerburg spoke at the last Silicon Slopes conference, is anybody addressing how social media addiction and use is generally making young people less happy?
Elizabeth was a former campaign adviser for the Democratic party and we delved into the topic of Utah politics and the particular brand of conservative republicans we have here in Utah. Further, we got into how the lifestyle and culture in Utah is quickly changing in due to the growing tech sector and so many people coming to both Salt Lake City and Orem, with the main influx of new residents coming from California.
