Seattle: The Silicon Forest

While Silicon Valley may be known as the most popular place for technology companies, there is a new leader on the map about 800 miles north, and the city is Seattle. This city already has bragging rights for nurturing tech giants such as Microsoft and Amazon. Now the best talent is moving to this growing city and helping fuel a technology expansion in the area like no one has ever seen. 

There is now a quarter of a million people working in the technology sector in the state of Washington and 90 percent of them are working in the area. This bodes well for the city. With Amazon being headquartered there, it is not surprising that this top talent has relocated to join the number one online retailer in the country. 

Just last year there was over $583 million dollars raised for start-ups in the city. This means that in addition to the two giants of Microsoft and Amazon, that there is great potential for other companies to come in and take market share from businesses that are located elsewhere. Even Facebook employs 1,000 people located in the area. 

The city has become a hub for technology graduates from all over the world, as there are more jobs in the technology sector than can be filled by the people who live there currently. There were 4,000 jobs last year in Washington waiting for people with computer science degrees, but there were only 500 people that were qualified to fill them. 

One of the reasons tech talent is moving to Washington is because of lower housing costs. Houses are, on average, about half as expensive in Washington as opposed to the San Francisco Bay Area with a median price of around $410,000 versus over $800,000 per house in Silicon Valley. This helps to draw young people in droves, which not only means that the downtown area rentals are being snatched up but there is greater upward mobility among this demographic as they know their chances of owning a home are much greater in the city. 

Another huge draw is that Washington does not have a state income tax. This has been huge in nurturing the development of Microsoft and Amazon and has been a big draw for people starting businesses in Washington state. Dollars stretch further there compared to Silicon Valley for this very reason. Even if someone earned less in salary they are getting more for their money because less of it is being eaten up in taxes. Also, the cost of living is lower which helps everyone there afford their day to day expenses. It’s no secret that San Francisco is one of the most expensive places in the country to live, and this helps the appeal of Seattle even more. 

There is also something to be said about mindset. Perhaps it is the fact that it is easier to purchase a house in Washington, but people there have a more long-term mindset when it comes to building companies and their careers. People in the city tend to settle in for the long haul and stick with a company for many years to come. This provides stability to the residential areas as the same people are contributing to the growth and betterment of their communities without any big changes in demographics. The housing market is booming and the mindset of people to stick to a company for the long term is helping people get into more established neighborhoods. This is also helping newer neighborhoods to become established themselves. 

With all of these advantages, it is no wonder that the city is becoming known as the silicon forest. There is no better place to start a new tech company than in Washington and there is no better city to do it in than Seattle.