I can’t get “Street to Nowhere” out of my head.
The 1985 Speaking Heads anthem is constructed on contradiction — upbeat and anxious on the identical time. Songwriter David Byrne as soon as described it as “a resigned, even joyful take a look at doom.”
That paradox felt particularly related this week as two headlines collided.
Gene Balk reported in The Seattle Occasions that Seattle ranked fourth amongst giant U.S. cities for inhabitants development. At practically the identical second, KUOW’s Monica Nickelsburg reported that Washington ranked second nationally in tech layoffs.
So, what’s it? Are we rising, or dying?
Are cracks starting to kind beneath one of many nation’s most profitable innovation economies?
Possibly a little bit of each.
For 3 a long time, Seattle’s tech trade has been a rare financial engine, reworking the area into a worldwide middle for cloud computing, e-commerce and synthetic intelligence. The development cranes that when dominated the skyline turned symbols of seemingly unstoppable momentum.
However momentum and sturdiness usually are not the identical factor.
And the Seattle psyche — particularly within the innovation neighborhood we intently comply with — is ruptured.
The workplace towers are nonetheless right here. So are Amazon, Microsoft and a deep pool of engineering expertise. However one thing much less tangible — confidence — has shifted.
In practically 30 years protecting the tech trade, I’ve by no means sensed this stage of uncertainty amongst founders, traders and enterprise executives about Seattle’s long-term trajectory. Former enterprise leaders, as soon as proud to name Seattle house, now write op-ed items in The Wall Road Journal about how town misplaced its means.
It’s a nasty look.
On the GeekWire Awards final week, a longtime entrepreneur-turned-venture capitalist informed me Washington state is “squandering its edge.” Over the previous yr, we’ve heard variations of that concern repeatedly from startup founders, traders, and expertise leaders questioning whether or not Seattle nonetheless needs to compete as aggressively as different innovation hubs.
That doesn’t imply Seattle is collapsing. Removed from it.
The area nonetheless possesses monumental benefits: world-class analysis establishments, elite technical expertise, main AI management and one of many strongest concentrations of cloud and AI experience wherever on the planet.
However profitable cities typically make the identical mistake profitable firms do: They assume the circumstances that created prosperity will naturally proceed.
Historical past suggests in any other case.
And on this interval of change, our political leaders wave goodbye to entrepreneurs and job creators — smugly taking without any consideration our previous success and primarily fumbling the ball on the 1-yard line.
And talking of fumbles on the 1-yard line — sorry, Browns followers, too quickly? — that brings me to Cleveland.
Earlier this yr on the GeekWire Podcast, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb mirrored on what occurred when one in all America’s nice industrial cities of the Fifties and Sixties did not adapt because the financial system modified.
“We didn’t pivot quick sufficient, and the world left us behind,” Bibb informed GeekWire. “Now we’re a comeback story constructed on reinvention and resilience.”
Seattle shouldn’t be Cleveland. The financial dynamics are completely different, the industries are completely different, and the size of innovation right here stays immense.
However the warning isn’t about collapse. It’s about complacency.
Synthetic intelligence is already reshaping the trade that constructed fashionable Seattle. Enterprise capitalists are funding leaner startups with fewer staff. Giant tech firms are reassessing hiring wants and organizational constructions. Complete classes of labor are being reevaluated in actual time.
On the identical time, Seattle faces rising questions round affordability, public security, regulation, allowing, and whether or not political leaders totally respect how fragile innovation management can turn out to be as soon as momentum shifts.
Different cities are competing aggressively for expertise and funding.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has been relentlessly selling a easy message: “We’re a metropolis on the rise.” Miami, Austin, New York and rising startup hubs throughout the nation and planet are doing the identical.
Nobody talks like that in Seattle.
We really feel oddly unsure in regards to the trade that helped construct Seattle’s fashionable id.
That uncertainty issues.
As a result of the hazard going through Seattle shouldn’t be sudden decline. It’s the slower erosion that occurs when a area begins to take its benefits without any consideration whereas opponents develop hungrier.
Inhabitants development alone shouldn’t be proof of long-term financial energy. Neither are cranes, hovering valuations or the presence of some company giants.
The actual query is whether or not Seattle nonetheless has the ambition — and civic alignment — to stay one of many world’s main innovation capitals because the AI period reshapes every little thing round it.
Cities hardly ever see the inflection level within the windshield.
Often, they solely acknowledge the highway has modified as soon as the exit is within the rearview mirror.
“Effectively, we all know the place we’re going
However we don’t know the place we’ve been
And we all know what we’re realizing
However we are able to’t say what we’ve seen“
[Editor’s note: Tech veteran and angel investor Charles Fitzgerald — who wrote the guest commentary earlier this year, “A warning to Seattle: Don’t become the next Cleveland” — and GeekWire co-founder John Cook will spend time next month in Cleveland examining what happened there and what lessons Seattle might draw from it. Contact john@geekwire.com to share perspectives or lessons from the Rust Belt that may apply to Seattle’s future.]
