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San Jose, Boston, Raleigh-Durham...Raleigh only claims Durham when it is beneficial for pushing some type of chamber of commerce agenda. Charlotte has already passed “Raleigh-Durham.”
Charlotte, another new high-flier, also takes advantage of lower costs, a revived downtown area and ties to the financial service industries. The real estate firm CBRE named the city its top "momentum market" in 2016 based on its tech-talent growth rate from 2010 to 2015 (74.7%). It was followed by Nashville, with a 67.9% rate; both outpaced the Bay Area, at 61.5%.
Look for the US Government to break up or highly regulate "big tech" like Amazon far before that becomes a reality. Which is probably a good thing. Legislation usually takes a little while to catch up to technology, Amazon/Google/Facebook/etc. days are numbered as far as operating as they do today. I doubt the government would allow companies like Amazon to run the financial industry in addition to the dominance they already have currently. So I'd wager that they won't get the chance to be very disruptive in that industry at all. Unless you own significant shares in Amazon you probably shouldn't hope for them dominating the financial sector either. Morally they're no different than the banking corporations.
No body thinks that Amazon or any other tech company will dominate the financial industry. As far as being disruptive, they already are! I have read many financial articles which discuss this topic, and the existing banking system is ripe for disruption. This DOES NOT mean that traditional banks will disappear, far from it. But it will inject much-needed competition which will have the result of lowering prices. Banking is a commodity business.
The government (in The USA and Europe) are trying to contain "Big Tech" because of past and ongoing abuses of collection and dissemination of confidential user data; Facebook is the poster boy in this regard. In addition, Europe is attempting to levy a 3% "internet commerce tax" which the US is rightly so pushing back on.
Amazon already dominates the e-commerce space; owns a logistics network which includes its own airline fleet, trucking fleet and delivery trucks; is in the grocery business; and is also in the credit card and commercial & consumer lending space. Already a disrupter !
San Jose, Boston, Raleigh-Durham...Raleigh only claims Durham when it is beneficial for pushing some type of chamber of commerce agenda. Charlotte has already passed “Raleigh-Durham.”
Charlotte, another new high-flier, also takes advantage of lower costs, a revived downtown area and ties to the financial service industries. The real estate firm CBRE named the city its top "momentum market" in 2016 based on its tech-talent growth rate from 2010 to 2015 (74.7%). It was followed by Nashville, with a 67.9% rate; both outpaced the Bay Area, at 61.5%.
Everyone makes their own "lists" and Forbes always seems to have the odd ones; they recently claimed that Chattanooga TN was the top job producer in the country.
Nobody is claiming that Charlotte is not a fin tech hub, because it is ! And it's growing !
Charlotte, NC is not a traditional tech hub by any standard definition. It doesn't have a real legitimate research university.
Everyone makes their own "lists" and Forbes always seems to have the odd ones; they recently claimed that Chattanooga TN was the top job producer in the country.
No. It. Didn't. How many times are people going to get that wrong????
Charlotte is not a tech hub. A true tech hub like San Jose, Boston, Raleigh-Durham etc. is much more broadly based, as I mentioned in my previous post, and is generally anchored by one (or more) nationally recognized R-1 level research universities (UNC Charlotte is a fine school, but it is not an R-1 level research institution). Research and development is the primary focus of a true tech hub, and the development of a robust startup-to-maturation cycle of innovative tech spinoffs is the secondary focus. All major tech hubs are investing enormous energy and funding into things like Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, advanced manufacturing , higher speed transmission, IoT (internet of things) etc.
It is very true that Charlotte has become a large, and growing, “fin tech worker” hub, primarily fueled by the large banking presence there. No doubt that banks there employ thousands of “tech” employees, and those numbers will increase over time. Lowe’s is an example of non-bank related tech jobs, but that is largely a one-off event, as the data center will be for the support of the home improvement retailer chain. Frankly, no large company can exist today without a large tech infrastructure to provide support for the company’s operations. No offense, but a city having a large presence of tech workers is not the same thing as a city being a tech hub.
AvidXchange is a payroll processing software company, and Red Ventures is a marketing company. Nothing wrong with either one of them, and both are highly successful, but not exactly cutting-edge science.
Most banks largely still use legacy mainframe systems, and only some are gradually shifting more IT operations to the cloud. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but this equipment comes from large outside vendors (IBM as one example). Banks don’t create this structure, they purchase it. Banks don’t create cloud computing infrastructure; they purchase it from outside vendors (Amazon and IBM-Red Hat are two examples).
GUESS WHAT: According to many reports, the banking industry is highly concerned about Amazon expanding into banking. For example, a recent report by Deloitte states: “Banks and major cloud service providers are on a collision course. For example, Amazon offers cash services, credit cards and other basic financial products including Amazon Pay. Another example is Alibaba with its spin-off Ali Pay, which has over 900 million customers, farmore than the largest US bank. Both Alibaba and Amazon have improved their ability to offer business banking services on their platforms. More broadly, there are predictions that devices such as Alexa, Siri or Google Home will be the future of banking, since these smart AI bots will act as a financial assistant in everyday life. To get financial guidance, imagine asking Siri: “Can I afford this car now or should I wait until next year?”
Big tech absolutely intends to expand into commodity banking, and it will be enormously disruptive. How quickly this happens, and the degree of disruption to existing legacy banking, remains to be seen.
Wow, good information here. So far, most of the replies would suggest a fin-tech city. Are there any tech opportunities in Charlotte like San Jose or Boston though?
Wow, good information here. So far, most of the replies would suggest a fin-tech city. Are there any tech opportunities in Charlotte like San Jose or Boston though?
If you are looking for an in-house IT job for a bank, Charlotte is one of the best places in the country that you could look, IMO, because of the large banking presence there. Also Lowes Home Improvement Warehouse is located in Mooresville, and they plan to build a tech center to support their operations. Of course, other cities with a large banking / financial services presence would be good options as well, but the cost of living may be much higher than living in the Southeast.
San Jose and Boston are completely different worlds.
Everyone makes their own "lists" and Forbes always seems to have the odd ones; they recently claimed that Chattanooga TN was the top job producer in the country.
Nobody is claiming that Charlotte is not a fin tech hub, because it is ! And it's growing !
Charlotte, NC is not a traditional tech hub by any standard definition. It doesn't have a real legitimate research university.
It does have lots of banksters
So Forbes and ZDNet are wrong but the random guy on a website is right? Also nowhere on any definition of tech hub does a research university get mentioned.
Forbes and DZNet have their opinions for sure. Charlotte is a fin tech hub yes. Charlotte is not a traditional tech hub like San Jose or Boston, or any other true tech hub in the USA. "Hickoryfan" specifically asked if Charlotte had tech opportunities like San Jose or Boston, and the general consensus was "no". Maybe one day that will change.
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Also nowhere on any definition of tech hub does a research university get mentioned.
