Meh, I've heard this since the dot.bomb implosion of 2000, when I
happened to move back from silicon valley at the beginning of 2001
with everything going under there. Seemed like half of Cali moved
here with me after, and tons of like speculation at the time of a
Silicon Desert. While I think AZ has grown tons since, there's never
been a mad rush to redefine itself as a technological behemoth in
anything other than Data Centers here, that's only because of the lack
of natural disasters (at least until we run the groundwater dry now).
Not to make this incendiary, but FWIW spending 2 years in Silicon
Valley and the next 21 years to now here, Arizona is a damn weird
place to work in IT, and a lot of folks that have moved here say the
same. The lack of modern internet or technology orgs means it's
mostly a lot of clueless legacy orgs dragged kicking and screaming
into the 21st century, meaning they're mostly technologically inept at
the core, and treat it as an afterthought to their business as it
literally was. Any "mega tech" orgs we do have like Motorola, Intel,
Honeywell, Cox/Lumen, etc, even Godaddy now are so dated they operate
just as dysfunctionally.
Old businesses, particularly across industries like hospitality
(hotels, etc), hospitals, education, manufacturing, foods, even
government all started off with paper, moved up to telephones, then
fax, and were eventually dragged into computers to the point now they
can't live without them, woefully and painfully. Almost every
organization in AZ I've worked for is particularly OLD like that with
TONS of legacy debt, typically have the old help desk guy (or worse,
owner's kid) that hung around 20 years and finally got promoted to
network manager, even though still barely know basic servers, they've
no idea of linux, networks, clouds, security, and even more so, no
PASSION for technology. Eventually org's realize they're floundering,
and start hiring new CxO's and managers, but with the blind leading
the blind, they hire terrible people that run the business terribly,
and still never get out of the rut. I see this more often than not in
Arizona, even in modern technology born here or when non-Arizona
businesses operate out of here, they end up afflicted and seem dragged
down to such a level like something in the water.
My guts say now if an org ANYWHERE wasn't borne of technology, ie. the
Googles, Fakebooks, Linkedin (before M$, grr), etc that are BUILT
around technology for technology's sake, they're just always going to
be on the upside down for any real technological workplace in any
capacity and probably pretty miserable to work at ultimately. I've
also worked for highly dysfunctional silicon valley and other hotspot
orgs since too, it's a disease without boundaries - you just never
know.
After a now ~24 year career in IT where all but one I was as a senior
engineer/architect/consultant capacity for over 120 different
businesses in AZ and all over the US, I can usually tell you how bad a
business is by what they sell or do, or at very least a well-weighted
guess. My friends always ask me about places they're considering as
they know I'm more right than wrong. A few months back a friend of
mine working here on H1B from India with a similar temperament to me
asked me what *good* places there were in Arizona as we both hated our
last gigs here, and I simply told him "nowhere, run away". He just
bought a house in RTP, after the past 5 years of gigs here in AZ
coming from Austin, he believed me.
I know, I probably sound pretty jaded at this point with the industry
and particularly with AZ for technology gigs, and certainly am. If
not for AZ being what I've mostly always called home, I'd bail on it
too for lack of hope. I just simply consider now by default Arizona
orgs are very likely backward-operated and barely worth my personal
investment, regardless of hyperbole like this article as I've heard it
all before and again. Thus I just deal with most gigs in short
contracts on an in and out basis before I get too punchy with the
silly politics and drama.
-mb
On Thu, Jun 22, 2023 at 9:01 AM Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss
<plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
Hi,
Came upon this article that sounds interesting.
https://www.axios.com/2023/06/21/phoenix-chips-cars
I posted an article a while ago about a class that was being offered
to
teach chip making skills (if I recall correctly).
Any thoughts on how this will help/effect Linux folks... Open Source
people... etc?
Are we going to become Austin, TX where I hear the city is over
populated... freeways are over crowed... etc?
Is there a shift from Silicon Valley?
How is this going to effect us? What are the opportunities?
Keith
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