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Why I Love Pittsburgh!
At the turn of the twentieth century, Pittsburgh really was held in the same regard that Silicon Valley is today. Entrepreneurs like Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Mellon, George Westinghouse, and John Baptiste Ford & John Pitcairn, Jr were creating companies around entirely new industries. While the companies they started remain today, those industries are certainly not as high-growth as they were more than a hundred years ago. However, the entrepreneurs have left a number of great assets behind in Pittsburgh that the city continues to capitalize on to this day. This includes amazing architecture, captivating museums and a number of venues for great plays and musical performances.
However, the most relevant legacy of these entrepreneurs turned philanthropists is an amazing set of colleges and universities that are creating technology and talent, which is helping develop another generation of entrepreneurs again inventing new industries and markets. The largest of these are obviously Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh. However, the region also has a number of smaller colleges and universities.
The entrepreneurs are also starting to attract venture funding. In fact, in 2008 Pittsburgh was the fastest growing region for VC investment. We certainly had a lot smaller base to start from relative to places like Boston, New York and Silicon Valley – but the growth was dramatic (513% year over year). Beyond venture capitalists visiting Pittsburgh to identify exciting deals, a number of firms are based here including Adams Capital, Draper Triangle, Meakem Becker, and Pittsburgh Equity Partners. Plus a few state-focused venture firms helping commercialize earlier stage start-ups including Innovation Works and the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse.
One of the most interesting programs was led by Innovation Works – AlphaLab. Similar to a lot of programs across the country, AlphaLab provides startups with space, advice and a small amount of funding ($25k / company) to launch a business in six-months. The program has been going for a few years and has already launched some very interesting and successful web start-ups including Bueda, The Resumator, and BitBlinder. They also have a great group of six new companies that are in the process of launching.
Beyond the very early-stage activity Pittsburgh has a number of slightly more mature technology companies both in the web and life sciences industries. I personally am the Co-Founder & CEO of mSpoke one of these slightly more mature web start-ups. Beyond the start-up scene, we also have a number of larger technology companies here. This includes some major life sciences companies headquartered here (Medrad & Respironics) and Bayer America’s Headquarters. Finally, we have very significant presences here from the major technology firms of Google, Apple, IBM and Microsoft. Regardless of what stage company you’re looking for, opportunities exist.
This is fairly unique, especially in the Midwestern US. In fact a The New York Times article at the beginning of this year, challenged other industrial cities (specifically Detriot & Cleveland) to learn from Pittsburgh’s renaissance after the steel industry collapsed. Talking about Pittsburgh, the piece opens:
Unemployment is 5.5 percent, far below the national average. While housing prices sank nearly everywhere in the last year, they rose here. Wages are also up. Foreclosures are comparatively uncommon…
Deindustrialization in Pittsburgh was a protracted and painful experience. Yet it set the stage for an economy that is the envy of many recession-plagued communities, particularly those where the automobile industry is struggling for its life…
A development plan begun in the 1980s successfully used the local universities to pour state funds into technology research. Entrepreneurship bloomed in computer software and biotechnology. Two of the biggest sectors are education and health care, among the most resistant to downturns. Prominent companies are doing well. Westinghouse Electric, a builder of nuclear reactors, expects to hire 350 new employees a year for the foreseeable future…
Outside of work, Pittsburgh is also just great place to live. Just this year it was ranked as the “Most Livable American City” by The Economist. It has won similar awards from other publications in the past including Forbes, Financial Times, Wired and the Places Rated Almanac. This is certainly partially due to the relatively low cost of living and great school systems. (By the way, this isn’t just colleges and universities, check out Pittsburgh Promise for a model for effective public education support)
Beyond those things, the quality of life certainly also has to do with access to great rivers, mountains and parks. In fact, there are four major parks in Pittsburgh and 
for those more adventurous a number of opportunities for Mountain Biking and Kayaking in the numerous rivers through organizations like Pittsburgh’s Venture Outdoors.
If this sounds interesting to you, like most of Allen’s authors in this series I’d be happy to show you around town. If you come soon, you could just arrive before most of the world’s leaders as Pittsburgh is hosting the next G-20 Summit. Anyway, always happy to show someone around so ping me on Twitter.
[Creative Commons: Reflections of Pittsburgh by by michaelrighi]
Sean Ammirati is the CEO & Co-Founder of mSpoke, a Pittsburgh based software company focused on making media more relevant.
[...] CEO of mSpoke (an Innovation Works portfolio company) and an AlphaLab advisor, does a great job of describing why we love Pittsburgh in a post today on Center Networks. And he was able to make the case without even once referring to [...]
It’s too cold in the winter.
Thanks for the AlphaLab nod, Sean! Also, for anyone interested in participating in AlphaLab, we will be accepting applications for the Winter/Spring 2010 cycle starting in early September. Stay tuned to http://www.alphalab.org to apply!
There’s also an “intangible” here about the people. I’ve lived in L.A., D.C. and other huge
metro-plexes where everyone is “on their own” it seems. Here, people are authentic, helpful,
and dialed in to what it means to be a “Community”. Thanks, Sean.
[...] and tell the world why our specific city is a great place for technology. So far, the cities of Pittsburgh, Portland, Los Angeles (and again), Auckland, St. Louis, Boulder, and Omaha have been represented. [...]
Sean hits it right on point here! My wife and I came to Pittsburgh two years ago and have found the city to be so much more than we expected and everything we are looking for. Also, my company, Skill-Life, Inc., participated in the AlphaLab program that Sean references. Since AlphaLab, we have raised $160K in funding from angel investors. We launched the Beta version of our first product — http://www.centscity.com — earlier this month and have thus far gained $30,000 in revenue from selling that product. On September 29, we’ll be launching an expanded version of our CentsCity beta at Finovate 2009, which features 32 of “the best new financial and banking technology innovations from leading established companies and the hottest young startups.”
Finding a job in Pittsburgh is tough. I moved here from NYC with an education and can’t
find work. I can see why it’s educated people move away. It’s population has been shrinking for the past 40 years. No jobs. It’s population is also aging. The surrounding counties are in general, poor. It’s propaganda machine is turning out nonsense for the G20 summit. The only thing special that this region once had was steel and a great airport
hub. Both gone. Now Pitt is the same as every other city in decline.
I will say for sure, Pittsburgh has some of the nicest people I have ever met in any
part of the country.
I agree with Joe Wilson finding a job in Pittsburgh is tough … I’ll add that running a business out of Pittsburgh is tough, too.
But, I cannot agree with the rest of his statements. He cites facts: 1) Pittsburgh’s population has been shrinking for 40 years. 2) The surrounding counties are, in general, poor (yet — I guess he fails to see that Cranberry Township which is in Butler County is the fastest growing area in the state and exceeds growth in all areas of West Virginia, Ohio, and yes, Western New York.) Westmoreland, and Greene Counties have pockets of extreme innovation, and growth has actually not been that bad in portions of Washington, Beaver, or parts of Slippery Rock and Lawrence.)
I especially disagree with HIS nonsense citing Pittsburgh’s only greatness in steel and the “great” airport — and now THAT is gone. His evident gloom is probably from his nonsuccess in job hunting, in my opinion.
Pittsburgh’s greatest failures is that it attempts to maintain a top-down regional management approach right out of the 1940’s. Perhaps David Lawrence’s and Andrew Mellon’s impacts on this region still haunt its chances at progress … I don’t know.
What I do know, is that the Pittsburgh region always thrived because of its rich natural resources of water, mineral wealth, lumber wealth, energy systems, and power. The Virginia Colony, the Penn Colony, the Maryland Colony, and the French all recognized that as early as the 1680’s.
Today, Pittsburgh still has more experts living here (many semi-retired) in material science, than anywhere else on the planet. Pittsburgh has more experts living here (many semi-retired) in nuclear energy and nuclear power than anywhere else on the planet. (Nuclear energy is the only energy source outside of carbon-heavy fossil fuels that can lead us to a greener and sustainabel future in the near term of the 21st Century).
As for the natural resources, Pittsburgh is the eighth largest region of oil production in the U.S., one of the largest regions for clean Martensic coal production, a leader in biofuels, in wind power, and the absolutely largest finds of Marcellus shale natural gas, it has ample clean water and streams, and is connected to both the St. Lawrence Seaway through the port of Erie to the North Atlantic Ocean, and to the Ohio-Mississippi Basin and access to the Gulf of Mexico and the Panama Canal. It is also near the source waters of the Potomac and the Chesapeake Bay Basin. All of these resources are currently being tapped — and have been tapped now for the last 10 years. The Pittsburgh region should grow handsomely as a result of the people and the resources, if the political ideologues of the region begin to again recognize the value of these.
When you add those, to the education, healthcare, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and information technology and robotics advances that are being promoted for the sake of the G20 audiences — and add the strength of the regional banking and finance networks — this region strategically should blossom as the nation pulls out of the recession — I predict by between 2014 and 2018. At that time, I predict this will again be a boom region.