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For Utah startups, affordable engineering talent and fresh snow have long been two assets the local tech scene has had in abundance. But in recent years, \u201cSilicon Slopes\u201d startups have started to close the gap with Silicon Valley in other critical areas, according to a discussion at Fortune\u2019s Brainstorm Tech conference <\/a>on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rather than turning to the San Francisco Bay Area, Utah startups now have local options for funding and experienced managers, Entrata CEO Adam Edmunds said during the panel in Park City, Utah.\u00a0<\/p>\n Twenty years ago, some of the most well-known Utah companies\u2014like Qualtrics<\/a>, Omniture and Pluralsight\u2014started out as bootstrapped businesses. But this wasn\u2019t a choice. \u201cThey were bootstrapped because you couldn\u2019t really find [investors],\u201d said Edmunds.<\/p>\n Utah startups have also had a hard time finding the right type of executives.\u00a0 Ten years ago, if a Utah company needed a CFO with experience taking a company public they would have to look outside of the state, Edmunds said. \u201cYou had to import them from the Bay Area. That\u2019s changed quite a bit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The change is a testament to the success of startups based around Salt Lake City in recent years. \u201cWhat we\u2019ve always had is really good go-to-market talent. We\u2019ve always had really good engineering talent. It used to be like 50% to 60% of the cost of the Bay Area,\u201d Edmunds said.<\/p>\n That success has helped open techies\u2019 eyes to the area\u2019s potential, particularly its world famous ski slopes and vistas that appear to be straight out of a movie.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know of any other place where you can go and park and be in the mountains in seven minutes,\u201d said David Wright, co-founder and CEO of Lehi, Utah-based Pattern, who said he loves to go outside and hike, fish, bike and run.<\/p>\n Salt Lake City has emerged as one of the most vibrant tech hubs in the nation. Last year, Salt Lake had the country\u2019s hottest job market, according to the Wall Street Journal<\/a>. For over a decade, white-collar workers have left the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles to take jobs in Salt Lake\u2019s tech hub, which is known as \u201cSilicon Slopes,\u201d the story said. (Tech jobs in Utah remained flat in 2023 compared to 2022 but were expected to grow about 5% in 2024 , according to CompTIA \u201cState of the Tech Workforce 2024\u201d report<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Wright acknowledged that there was still a \u201cstigma to Utah\u201d for some people as a result of its deep ties to the Mormon church; some of the criticism, he said, was meritted. \u201cI think there\u2019s been a lot of history around that. And a lot of it\u2019s a fair assessment of Utah,\u201d Wright said.<\/p>\n At last year\u2019s Brainstorm conference<\/a>, Matthew Prince, the CEO of Cloudflare<\/a>, said that the state of Utah \u201chas the highest LGBT teen suicide rates in the country, has an incredible challenge around some still very misogynistic practices, and can be in a very exclusionary place.\u201d Prince argued last year that Utah\u2019s deep ties to the insular nature of Mormon culture poses a challenge to its ambitions to become the next Silicon Valley. To secure long-term growth and competitiveness, Prince said it was imperative to embrace a wider spectrum of perspectives, backgrounds, and skill sets.<\/p>\n During Monday\u2019s discussion, Wright said that he wasn\u2019t part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS),\u00a0 also known as the Mormon Church. \u201cI think some things need to be looked at. But from running a company, the talent is there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Read more coverage from Brainstorm Tech 2024:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Experts worry that a U.S.-China cold war could turn hot: \u2018Everyone\u2019s waiting for the shoe to drop in Asia\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n Wiz CEO says \u2018consolidation in the security market is truly a necessity\u2019 as reports swirl of $23 billion Google acquisition<\/a><\/p>\n Agility Robotics\u2019 humanoid Digit robot is working hard at its first real job\u2014at a Spanx factory<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n CEO Daily provides key context for the news leaders need to know from across the world of business. Every weekday morning, more than 125,000 readers trust CEO Daily for insights about\u2013and from inside\u2013the C-suite. Subscribe Now<\/a>.<\/div>\n\nRecommended Newsletter:<\/strong><\/p>\n