Salt Lake City becomes new tech paradise

In early 2019, Tony Lewis sought to relocate the tech start-up, Aumni, that he co-founded in the Bay Area of California. Despite its concentration of venture capitalists, the Bay Area had terrible traffic and a “huge cost premium” for engineering talent and office space.

After scouring a map of the US, the Greater Salt Lake City area of Utah was the most competitive place due to its depth of talent at a relatively low cost. But that was not what shifted the needle.

Instead, it was a “magical” company ski retreat to nearby Eden, home to the Powder Mountain ski resort, that convinced Mr Lewis and his colleagues to move the company and their lives to Utah.

“We were thinking, wow, this is just such an incredible location. It was a culmination of business, life and family choice of wanting to move and raise our kids in a great geography,” says Mr Lewis, who is CEO of Aumni, an analytics platform used by venture capitalist (VC) firms, which in March 2023 was acquired by JPMorgan (See full article here).