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The Buckeye Boom: Ohio’s Growth in Tech · Leaders in Lending

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You are listening to Leaders in Lending from Upstart, a podcast dedicated to helping
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consumer lenders grow their programs and improve their product offerings. Each week, here
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decision makers in the finance industry offer insights into the future of the lending industry,
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best practices around digital transformation, and more. Let's get into the show.
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Hi. This is Lynd Soderbill of Upstart, and welcome to Leaders in
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Lending. I will be joined today by Chris Berry. Chris serves as a
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president and CEO of ohio X, a statewide nonprofit working to build Ohio into
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a tech hub. Ohio x is a member based organization with representation from Fortune
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five hundred companies, universities, research organization, startups, and tech focus businesses.
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The work of ohio X centers around connecting, promoting, and advocating for
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tech and innovation in Ohio. Let's get started, all right, Hi,
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Chris, thanks for joining me today on Leaders in Lending. So we are
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We're going in a slightly different direction with today's podcast, a bit more tech
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and industry focused and a little bit less focused on lending. So I'm excited
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for our chat today. Yeah. Well, thanks for having me. Lynn,
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big fan of you and the Upstart team and yeah, just don't ask
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me any overly technical questions and we should be in good shape. Absolutely.
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So, you know, I think Chris, like you have a really interesting
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background and like honestly many of the people I've had on the podcast is guests.
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You spent some time in politics, both in DC and Ohio prior to
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your current role. You know, can you talk me through kind of your
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your career path and and what led you to leading Ohio X. Yeah.
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Absolutely, well, so my background, as you mentioned, isn't really technology,
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but I worked in government. So I started my career in DC and
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then left and if we're talking finances at the State Treasury in Ohio for eight
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years. And I grew up always with a kind of a passion for government
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and policy, and you know, I love shows like The West Wing and
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you know, kind of history books and all of that, and so that's
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what I thought I wanted to do, and that was kind of my goal
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when I was growing up. In college, we moved to Washington and work
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in that space. Kind of quickly realized I didn't love living on the East
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Coast. I didn't really love, you know, the big city of Washington,
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d C. Not quite like New York, but still a pretty big
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metro area, and so I wanted to come home, and that's when moved
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back closer to family and started working at the State Treasury. And I think
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kind of government service is a very fascinating vantage point, especially for what I'm
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doing now, is because when I was at the State Treasury, we started
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doing more and more technology focused projects. Most people don't think of innovation and
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government just like they don't necessarily think of technology in Ohio, and so it's
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kind of a, you know, an interesting parallel between the two. But
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one of which was we made Ohio the first state to accept bitcoin tax payments,
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and this was a number of years ago. At this point was I
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think the third government in the world that did this, and so that was
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an interesting space. But we were working with a fintech in Atlanta to make
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it possible, had a couple other interesting tech projects that were really fascinating to
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me, and we could see the impact where we'd work with, for instance,
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Silicon Valley based startups, and then through that process, we were asking
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ourselves, well, you know, why are we working with FinTechs in Atlanta
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and Silicon valley based startups and what does the tech landscape look like in Ohio.
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And when you work in government, you end up working across sectors,
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across industries, largely working with the statewide industry group. So it could be
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like the Ohio Bankers League or the Ohio Farm Bureau groups like that, but
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tech historically in Ohio hasn't had that same type of statewide industry coalition that could
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work to connect and promote and advocate. And so long story short. After
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leaving government spending time in the private sector, a group of entrepreneurs and myself
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saw this need and kept seeing just an opportunity to make an impact, and
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we slowly but surely put this Ohio x idea together and just a band of
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volunteers came together to make it happen, and here we are today. Yeah,
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that that's super interesting. I did not realize that Ohio was the first
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state to accept bitcoin for tax payments. I've never attempted to pay my taxes
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via bitcoin, but I was also surprised. This week I saw an article
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that the first write up by Satoshi on crypto was actually fourteen years ago,
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which surprised me. It feels like it's more current than that, but fourteen
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years is not brand new. So I think a lot of a lot of
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our listeners are going to be surprised by the fact that Ohio led the charge
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there. So really, like you know, Ohio actually were saying, you
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know, it came about just kind of a group of both people in the
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public sector, entrepreneurs. Different folks got the idea when was that, how
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long's Ohios been around in the state, and you know, what do you
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really see as the primary goals and what the organization wants to accomplish. Yeah,
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so we launched in December of twenty nineteen, and as I mentioned,
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as a group of volunteers entrepreneurs, I was the only person actually that had
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a government and policy background, and so as we were thinking of you know,
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hey, there are some challenges that we repeatedly hear, and that was
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largely you know, we have to do better at promoting the tech industry in
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Ohio. Pre COVID especially, people didn't think of this as a destination for
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technology and that's just not the case. Is you know, there's incredible companies
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and people and ideas. The second kind of challenge or frustration that a lot
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of people were mentioning was we have a really big state, and Ohio is
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just geographic makeup is quite unique in that we're more like California and Texas and
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Florida, and that we have three really big metro areas Cleveland, Columbus,
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and Cincinnati that are spread out. Whereas you look at like a Chicago,
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Illinois, and Atlanta, Georgia, and New York, New York, a
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Boston, Massachusetts, those states typically have one really big metro area where all
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the tech is concentrated, and then the rest of the state is you know,
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kind of has different industries and sectors, and so in our state we're
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spread out, which makes it really difficult. But if you think of the
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Bay Area we're Upstart is headquartered. It's not a single city. It's not
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like every It's not like Manhattan where all the financial companies are largely in Manhattan.
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It's it's from Berkeley to Palauto and everywhere in between. And if you
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were to drive through that, that wouldn't be a lot of fun to go
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from you know, the north end of the Bay to the south end and
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make a big loop. But that's really no different than Ohio, and that
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you look at our state and if you look at financial services, there is
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incredible companies in all of our major metro regions and we're connected by an easy
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highway system, and so in a lot of ways, it's just kind of
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taking something that is so simple, of thinking of this as a statewide tech
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opportunity. Again, financial service is a perfect example, and making it easier
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to connect, promote, and advocate. And so that's that's what we do
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today. As I mentioned as quickly we launched in December of twenty nineteen all
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volunteers. COVID hit like two or three months later. And so if there's
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ever a good time to start a nonprofit trade association that's about bringing people together,
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doing it at the beginning of a global pandemic that we've never lived through
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is a really awful time to do it. And so we kind of paused
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for a little bit. And so technically we're about four and a half years
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old, but really we're probably about two or three because we kind of had
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to, you know, just figure out what the world was going to be
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in the middle of COVID, like everyone, but we pivoted really quickly into
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the digital the virtual kind of the online community, which makes sense for technology
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and remote companies get that, and it really opened up a world of opportunity
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where it helped people see and it helped accelerate our work and that hey,
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if I'm in Cleveland, I can just as easily connect with someone virtually in
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Columbus and Cincinnati and Dayton and Toledo and Acorn and Canton and Youngstown as I
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can someone in my own backyard now. And so COVID very much accelerated our
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work. And our pillars are connect, promote, and advocate. So connect
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the people, the companies, the ideas, celebrate, promote it, make
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sure that we're telling this story of Ohio successes and upstarts story is one of
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those leading ones, and then advocate for it. There's so much space,
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especially in a regulated industry. You all know of the relation between industry and
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government, and that's something that we're kind of filling this void for the first
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time in our state. Sure, And I definitely think the you talked about
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the size of Ohio and that you know we're connected by the highway system.
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I think that's a common kind of maybe joke about the Midwest that you know,
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we just get in the car and drive wherever we need to go fourteen
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hours. It's fine, seven hours, it's around the corner. But it
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is true that, you know, Ohio is a very large state. I
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think it's a larger state that many people realize. But it is drivable and
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you drive between you know, the three c's as we often call them,
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and there's a lot of different interesting industry happening in each of the major cities.
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I think some of the listeners probably have not heard how how we've been
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describing Ohio over the past several years and much the Midwest, but the Silicon
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Heartland phrase. It's kind of a fun play on Silicon Valley and farmland and
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the you know, the heartland of the country. What do you think makes
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really the Silicon heartland and and Ohio, but really the Midwest what, you
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know, have really so much promise as we grow that's becoming such a kind
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of additional center of tech and innovation. Yeah, and for those that haven't
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heard that Silicon heartland phrase before, that was really born out of Intel coming
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to Ohio, where a couple of years ago at this point, Intel made
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an announcement that for our state is transformational because we have never had a semiconductor
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industry in Ohio. And so when that came to be, Intel's CEO and
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some others started playing with that phrase Silicon Heartland like Silicon Valley, and it's
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really caught caught hold, and I I think it shows the promise, the
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potential, but also just the passion of the the technologists across Ohio at companies
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from Fortune five hundreds to startups and everything in between that have kind of used
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that phrase as like a bit of a rallying cry. And I like that
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it's not about one city, it's it's you know, it's it's where does
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the heartland start? And ind so there's a lot of people that can take
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pride in that. And so, you know, in terms of what is
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the kind of the Midwest the Ohio specific opportunity, I think in a lot
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of ways, Well, one, it's quite big in its areas and our
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state of excellence that we have a long, rich tradition and so financial services,
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insurance, agriculture, manufacturing industry four point zero, advanced manufacturing, healthcare.
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Those are all areas that our state especially really excels at. And whether
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you're in northeastern Ohio, Central Ohio, southwestern Ohio for as diverse as are
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our state and region. Is the sectors and industries are all really really similar.
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I think they also happen to be areas that really frankly matter. I
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jokingly, you know, like to say that I don't know if the next
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TikTok is going to be built and born in Ohio. But banks and financial
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services that allow people to transact and get money for lending and grow companies,
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you know, that takes place here. Insurance that is something that we have
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a fantastic pillar in. Again, healthcare, We're better place in the world
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to come for healthcare than Ohio. You have the Cleveland Clinic on one end
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of the state, with University hospitals and Metro Health. You have Ohio State,
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Wexner Medical Center in Columbus and Cincinnati. Cincinnati Children's has been ranked the
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number one children's hospital in the US. And so people literally fly to the
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or fly to Ohio from across the world for healthcare. And so we have
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these, you know, really pillars of excellence that are incredible sectors, industries
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that matter and are important. And that's the Ohio tech opportunity. And then
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if you think about kind of beyond that, I think in a lot of
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ways. You know, we have to seize this for for America in some
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ways because we've seen what reshoring or what taking companies abroad has done. I
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grew up in northeastern Ohio and Akron, which is the rubber capital of the
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world historically goodyear in fire snowver there. My family is there because of that
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industry and what that has done to places like Ohio and other states when those
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jobs go overseas well. We all kind of know that the geopolitical trends of
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of what's just happening in the world and how complicated that is. So COVID
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kind of created these opportunities, and Intel and others are deciding to make things
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that really matter and that are you know, so strategically important right here,
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and so we're kind of capturing these opportunities for the first time in a long
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time. And our friends at Jobs Ohio like to call it a generational opportunity
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where we haven't seen this type of momentum and opportunity capture before and so hopefully
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we can take advantage of it, which I think we are, But you
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know that work isn't done by any means. Yeah, I think the Intel
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piece has been super interesting and then kind of what's fall it on beyond that.
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I think lately we've been talking about the you know, the megaloads as
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they're bringing supplies and to build that intel plant, and the amount of planning
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that goes on and just transporting the raw materials that they need to start building
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that facility is really significant. Uh. And it's a good point you made
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about the kind of the rubber industry and the various industries and and really across
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the Ohio and much the Midwest of what became the rest Belt. And you
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know, I grew up an hour north of Columbus and a small town and
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had a number of industries Mansfield tire, Ohio brass ak steel, so a
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lot of that kind of core industry that that used to exist in the Midwest.
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And certainly watch that move away and watch you know, my my parents'
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friends lose their jobs and and have to retrain to do to do new things,
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whether they were you know, working at a factory or in a management
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level. And and uh and my parents both actually had the opportunity to train
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people overseas as part of that being on the more on the management side of
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it. So uh, it is really exciting, I think to see this
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this amount of development and growth. And I've lived in Ohio my entire life
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and have not seen this this amount of positive change until until recently. So
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you know, we've definitely seen the data centers come in, like the Meta
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Google and and a w S has some some cloud centers here. What do
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you think makes makes really Ohio or just even the central Ohio region, Uh,
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the right opportunity for them? Like, what do you think is is
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do you think there's just some you know a little bit of fomo Now that
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everyone's there, it makes sense, But but kind of what's bringing them here?
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And what do you see that as creating opportunities for employees, especially kind
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of new younger people entering the employment market, Like what will that mean for
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them as there as they try to define and develop careers. Yeah, so
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I think that the data centers a couple all of the things that you know,
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we've heard, and those companies you mentioned are great partners and members of
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ours as well. You know a lot of it's land where central Ohio you
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know, we don't have It's a great place to live, but we don't
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have the mountains, we don't have the beaches, those types of things.
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So and so there's and also Columbus is just historically like a younger town.
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It's people like you and me moving here from you know, north of north
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of Columbus by an hour. I'm north northeast of Columbus by two hours.
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And so Columbus has really had this population growth from other parts of the state
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over the years. And so we don't have the mountains, we don't have
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the rivers like as Cincinnati does, or the lake like Cleveland, and as
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a younger city, we just have had a lot of land and so land
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energy. There's incredible energy kind of energy environment here, AEP and others that
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just you know, the data centers they needed the energy of course, and
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so there's some of those pieces. I think there's also a lot of business
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leadership that helped pave the way for this. There's groups like Jobs Ohio again
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that are out there aggressively recruiting and kind of going after some of these really
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big opportunities for our state. There's also groups like the Columbus Partnership, which
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is a coalition of the largest businesses in central Ohio that have been laying the
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groundwork for like this, For many many years. It's not something that just
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you know, happened. I think that's one of the stories that you know,
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certainly you all know and and and the upstart story has been part of
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that. But I think sometimes people just think these opportunities come, but largely
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it's leadership that you know, they're taking things again like the land and the
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energy. Well, people could kind of just stop there, but you know
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that they set the stage of you know, placing you know, strategic bets
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that that helped attract these and so it's been fantastic to see over the really
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the past just five years or so where these companies are really coming in and
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droves. And this hasn't as you know, also being from Ohio like that,
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these opportunities haven't always occurred to our state. And when you can have
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a map of the state with logo like Intel and Google and Meta and Aws
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and Microsoft and Honda and LG and their four billion dollar electric vehicle plant and
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Ford and their ev plant in northeastern Ohio, I mean these are literally multi
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billion dollar investments that are adding up and talk about a powerful signal where I
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remember when Intel broke ground on the state, I had the opportunity to go
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then President flew In and CNBC and Swalk on the Street they were broadcasting live
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from from the from the announcement and the site, and so you know,
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we're in these headlines with global names and people have to notice and pay attention.
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And I think there's a real opportunity here that is happening and being seized
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because of because of a lot of great leaders that have been laying this work,
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Again, that's upstart dot com. Slash AI certification. Thanks and now back
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to the show. Yeah, I think Ohio surprises a lot of people.
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I know you mentioned upstart when we opened our offices here as the leadership of
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the company, and the headquarters was in San Mateo, so in the Bay
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area was looking for Actually it was in San Carlos at that point and not
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moved to Salmonteo. But we're looking for that second headquarters location. Ohio hit
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all of the boxes and I think once that decision was made, it was
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about ninety days until they're were, you know, people on the ground,
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uh in an office and Columbus and and we've only really grown since then.
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And while we are primarily remote and we maintain our offices here and and spend
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a lot of time in them. So it's been a great location for us.
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And I think the it's you know, been super interesting as we have
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people come in from around the country who may not have traveled here, it
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may not have been in Ohio. They are always surprised how much they like
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Columbus, Like, wow, this is really walkable. There's all these great
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restaurants, I can walk to the hotel. There's so many interesting things to
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do. It's a variety of people, and uh, and so it's it's
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for those of us who are big champions of the middle Aston, champions of
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Ohio. It's it's definitely validating to uh to show it off and and to
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to to have everyone see what you know, what we see here. Uh.
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But you know, I think, of course, everything's not always perfect,
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not not always roses. What are some of the obstacles that that maybe
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you hear or you see as you or jobs Ohio where the various organizations are
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working to encourage new companies to come to the states, What sort of things
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are you hearing that are maybe obstacles to them choosing the Midwest versus a wanting
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to be in a on the coast or in a larger metropolitan area. Yeah,
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definitely. I would say there's kind of two big ones, capital and
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talent, which which very much makes sense, but to kind of dig into
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both of those on the capital side, Ohio and really anywhere outside of San
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Francisco, Boston, New York, that's where the vast majority of venture capital
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dollars just flow. And Ohio I think last year got like one percent of
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national funding, which for a state that is the eighth largest I believe in
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terms of population with all these big industries, I think we have fifty four
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fortune one thousand companies, so you know, very clearly they're a very large
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base of potential sales opportunities for startups. We are still not a tracting and
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kind of earning the venture capital investment dollars and kind of a larger share of
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the pie than we should. So that's an area that's not anything necessarily new.
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And I think now, as you mentioned, you know, a lot
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of startups, especially younger tech companies, are are typically you know remote first,
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or maybe they have like a couple people at their quote unquote headquarters,
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but then you know, then they have seventy five percent of their team in
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other places. And so I think covid is in some ways helped the opportunity
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for not being in San Francisco or not being in Boston if you're a life
21:33
science as or biotech company. But that is still a really, really big
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struggle, and so that is an area that we just have to do better.
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And there's a lot of smart people, you know, working on that
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and trying to you know, change that for the better. And we're hopefully
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playing a small role in that too. On the other side, talent where
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Ohio just as a state, you know, our population isn't isn't growing like
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a lot of southern and western states. Columbus, we're upstart is hq' in
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our state and where we both live. As you're mentioning, you know,
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there's a really vibrancy and growth to it. But it's because of people like
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me that grew up in northeastern Ohio and move here. And so the typical
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kind of you know Ohio story is is you go to you know, whatever
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Ohio university, whether it's literally Ohio University or Ohio State or Miami or some
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others, and then a lot of students will go off to Chicago or they'll
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go off to New York. I went to the East Coast myself, and
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I came back a couple of years later. But we have a ton of
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universities, a ton of community colleges, but we also export a lot of
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talent, and so I think there's some population, you know, challenges and
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just in terms of keeping that talent. And that is one where if you
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ask a college grad that's maybe a computer science major or something else in that
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space, you know they want to go where the jobs are, and they
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want to go to companies like Upstart in others and so you know the volume
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there of companies like Upstart when it was a you know, a non iPod
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company, as a series A, Series B, series C. Those are
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the exciting opportunities that especially younger college grads that are in this tech space want
23:07
to want to go after. And so a lot of them, again because
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of that venture capital kind of chicken or the egg, what what what?
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Which is the real key, will leave and again go to a much bigger
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city, leave the state. What we find is that oftentimes a good chunk
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of them want to come back Ohio boomerangs. But we have to make it
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easier by hopefully building up more companies that make it a really simple decision where
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hey, it's not just one or two companies they could potentially work at that
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are really exciting and tech focused and really leaders in innovation. But you know,
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how do you multiply that? And there's there's all sorts of good groups
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like the Ohio Angel Collective and a few others out there that are doing work
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in this space to hopefully help with that funding side. But I think it's
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talent and capital is largely some of the big challenges. Yeah, that's a
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that's a great point because I think as you're you know, if you're going
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to growing up in Ohio, and particularly if you're in one of the more
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rural areas as which much of the state is, outside of the three major
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cities, you may just not know what is out there. And so you
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think about tech and all you hear about is is Silicon Valley. You think
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about banking, and you know, you hear about New York, and you
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don't really know what is available locally. I think that that Ohio ex you
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guys do a great kind of tech education uh Tech Day in the fall that
24:23
is aimed at at really exposing that to to high schoolers. Can you talk
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a little bit about that and and how I think your organization is really helping
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expand that and build that desire to to stay local and to think about staying
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in the state and keeping your talents here versus moving. Yeah. Absolutely so.
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Our group, as we've been discussing, we're an industry organization, but
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one of the inter stream things that's come out of our work that we didn't
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necessarily expect was a couple of things. One is well the known knowns of
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We knew that the talent side was something that our companies and just the tech
25:00
sector was really passionate about, and so as we've gotten deeper into that work,
25:06
I kind of think that there's, well, there's kind of two pieces
25:08
of the talent. There's like the university is a higher education there's a lot
25:11
of great work happening there. There's also a lot of movement around the reskilling
25:15
and upskilling, and I think that's a fantastic thing, whether it's like tech
25:19
apprenticeships or you know, helping companies maybe at some of the larger you know,
25:23
think of a grocery store chain of how do they take someone that maybe
25:26
has been a cashier or a bagger or a stock shelfer that knows the industry
25:33
because they're actually there, they're interacting with customers, but how do you move
25:37
them perhaps into career trajectory opportunities And so they'll kind of be a lot of
25:41
reskilling or upskilling initiatives, which are fantastic. Where I think there's been a
25:45
bit of a void and really more of an opportunity is in the K through
25:48
twelve because largely if we just wait for students to self select that they're going
25:55
to go to Ohio State or Case Western or Miami or the University of Cincinnati,
25:59
and then self select that they're going to go into computer science and then
26:03
self select that they want to go into a tech career. Like we've already
26:07
lost out on ninety five or ninety nine point nine percent of potential tech workers
26:11
because you just don't know it's an option, or a lot of students,
26:15
you know, don't have the opportunities that other students have that they can get
26:18
into tech careers. And so that K through twelve space has been really interesting
26:23
because the earlier we can help expose that there are these opportunities, that there
26:27
are tech companies here, that there are tech opportunities here is a really really
26:33
powerful thing. And so with our members, we about three years ago started
26:37
this initiative called Ohio Tech Day. As simple as it is, it's about
26:40
inspiring students to consider and explore innovation careers. And where it's kind of been
26:45
morphing is really connecting schools at the local level, connecting the schools and tech
26:49
companies where they can build relationships, you know, actively, and that can
26:53
be through you know, career days that can be school visas into the companies,
26:57
companies going to visit schools. There's a big push around high school tech
27:02
interns in the state and so building those relationships because what we found is largely
27:07
the tech companies we work with didn't necessarily have relationships with their local school districts
27:12
or education centers. And then at the school level, you know, we
27:15
all know how difficult it is for things like school funding and others, but
27:21
oftentimes there was just a lot of entrepreneurial teachers that saw the need to help
27:26
provide their students with tech and innovation kind of inspiration or opportunities. But they
27:30
didn't necessarily, you know, have a background as a computer science teacher.
27:34
They certainly weren't a technologist by training. They were maybe a science teacher or
27:38
even just a social studies teacher, and so they kind of took it upon
27:41
themselves to just create some of these opportunities. And so it's held annually on
27:47
the final Friday in September, and it's about again inspiring students to consider innovation
27:51
careers, but really about connecting schools and tech companies at the local level so
27:56
they can build relationships that hopefully, you know, create opportunities for things like
28:00
internships, career exploration, and just inspiration. Because again, if we wait
28:04
till someone's a computer science graduate at a four year university, there are a
28:08
whole host of potential, you know, amazing tech professionals out there that we
28:12
just will never get to meet because it's just you know, it's not like
28:17
going to a restaurant you know you want to be a chef, or going
28:19
to a dentist or a doctor know you wanted to be a dentist or doctor.
28:22
A lot of tech people just sit find a computer and do a lot
28:26
of work, and so there's not necessarily that kind of welcome sign to make
28:30
it easy to figure out how you might want to be someone who works in
28:33
a technology career field. Yeah, and definitely I think if you if you
28:37
don't have somebody in your family or your immediate circle, who who does,
28:41
I think it's hard it's hard to to maybe understand what those careers are.
28:45
So like, as you said, it's very easy. Everyone knows what a
28:48
dentist does, everyone knows what a doctor does. There's a lot of jobs
28:51
where there's a single word that can describe them, and I think in the
28:55
tech industry particularly, there's so many roles that are not as easily described.
29:00
I know personally, if I talk about my job, and you know,
29:03
we joke that we should have a podcast where we have all of our parents
29:06
come on and explain what we do for a living, and our kids come
29:10
on for that matter, and explain what we do for a living and see
29:11
how that episode goes. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, tell us what
29:19
tell us what lynd does for a living and uh and we can all be
29:22
be entertained by that. But you know, I think, I think,
29:26
particularly in Columbus, but even in the you know, Cleveland and since study
29:30
both have some some regional banks headquartered there, we've got really some large,
29:36
big bank banking centers here in Columbus. JP Morgan as over twenty thousand employees.
29:41
Wells Fargo recently opened up a technology center and is making Columbus part of
29:47
their geographic footprint. Do you see that as really helping build talent and and
29:52
kind of expanding those those types of tech roles that people could have in the
29:57
state. Yeah, absolutely, Because again we're spread out, as we've discussed,
30:03
and we have all these metro areas, and so I think that's sometimes
30:04
the kind of you know, piecing that together, and Columbus is a perfect
30:08
example. JP Morgan an upstart, and Wells Fargo and Huntington. I mean,
30:12
there is a large, large financial services presence. I think I should
30:17
know the stat but I think Ohio has the third or the fourth largest financial
30:22
services sector in the United States. And so even for our kind of population
30:26
being about the eighth largest state, you know, we very much outpaced when
30:29
it comes to financial services just the base that we have here, and of
30:33
course that means employees, and so I think that that is a huge opportunity,
30:38
especially if we think of you know, younger companies, whether they're startups
30:41
that are you know, zero to one built in Ohio or you know,
30:45
hey, how do how do we perhaps recruit more those startups from the Bay
30:49
Area and others in New York that maybe want to replicate the upstart story where
30:53
they where they open up a second office and come to a place like Columbus
30:57
because everything from access to customers to a talent base that has worked at large
31:03
financial institutions, we have those, and I think again your company is that
31:08
perfect example of that that we really probably need to do a better job of
31:12
you know, telling that and shouting that and trying to be active and recruiting
31:15
more because again, you all have literally lived in so there's no better story.
31:21
And I love when I get to hear team members of yours or you
31:23
know, read stories about upstart, because that is exactly what I think the
31:29
Ohio opportunity is. It's in a space where we have a deep expertise,
31:33
a deep knowledge, a deep talent base, and we should be you know,
31:37
trying to do more of that. And so I love the financial services
31:41
space and I think it is an opportunity, especially when you think about tech
31:45
that is very much untapped, and there's a lot of activity in some of
31:48
those other pillars of excellence like manufacturing and Intel being the biggest example. Again
31:53
some of the Honda and Lgs and they're manufacturing, so there's a lot in
31:57
that. You know, healthcare has these giant innovation districts that our state is
32:01
making, you know, large investments and you know anchored around again groups like
32:07
the Cleveland Clinic and University hospitals and Cincinnati Children and the universities. But I
32:12
think kind of financial services is still that one untapped one, and so you
32:15
know, there's probably some work to do there that that we could all collaborate
32:19
on, because I think it is a massive opportunity for the state for sure.
32:23
Well I'm I'm personally now even more pumped than I was before we talked
32:28
about about it. I you know, I think that the upstart story in
32:30
Ohio has been fantastic. We've had a really great experience here as a company.
32:35
H And I think I think one thing that I've found that is very
32:37
unique among technology companies, maybe in the Midwest compared to on the coast,
32:45
is just how collaborative the companies are. Things like recommending talent that maybe maybe
32:51
we know somebody who's looking for a role and isn't exactly the right fit for
32:54
us, or we don't have the right opportunity. I know, our recruiters
32:59
weren't closed. See with recruiters at other companies, we may refer them in
33:01
say hey, this is a really great candidate, but it's not the right
33:05
spot for us. You know, company, why do you want to interview
33:09
this person? You know, we we'd really recommend them. And I think
33:13
that has been a real benefit as we've grown since twenty nineteen uh here locally,
33:19
that that we can find top talent and and and hopefully both you know,
33:22
elevate the talent in the industry, but also partner really closely with with
33:28
so many other great, great firms locally. So, uh I think any
33:34
you know, we we've certainly talked about a variety of things as it relates
33:36
to Ohio and the Midwest, but any kind of uh hot takes from you
33:42
on kind of the state of tech and what you're what you see coming in
33:45
the Midwest. To close things out again, I think it's the areas that
33:50
that as simple as it is, it's it's it's almost a mindset around thinking
33:52
of it as a regional opportunity, just like the Bay Area and you know,
33:58
again to drive around you know, the the Bay and go from downtown
34:01
San Francisco to Coopertino and Mountain View and Palo Alto and Berkeley, you know
34:06
that that's a region and I think, as simple as it is, that
34:08
is something that our state can can do a better job and that we're you
34:12
know, trying to work on in terms of the Ohio opportunity kind of moving
34:15
forward. It's it's also I think somewhat simple. It's the areas that we
34:20
happen to already excel in financial services being a perfect case. As I mentioned
34:25
earlier, it's also areas that matter. And so you know, we have
34:30
to be able to transact, and we have to be able to bank,
34:31
and we have to be able to lend. You know, we take care
34:34
of people when they're sick with our healthcare institutions. We build things. We're
34:38
building semiconductors now, which is really really exciting. And so the more we
34:44
can keep making investments and strategic you know, bets and those areas, I
34:49
think we're just going to become even more and more important, especially as the
34:52
world seems to get more and more complicated. And then another thing we didn't
34:54
talk about, but just Ohio's geographic kind of place. We're in the Eastern
35:00
time zone. If you draw kind of a circle around us, you can
35:04
drive essentially to sixty percent of the US population within about you know, a
35:07
day. And you're joking that anyone in the Midwest as you hop in the
35:10
car for ten hours and you know you're at the beach, and that's what
35:14
we do. But there's that, And then I also think though you know,
35:16
is the world, you know, climate change in others you know,
35:20
we are positioned right on the Great Lakes, and I think that is something
35:22
that you know, access to fresh water, just our geographic placement as a
35:29
state, which you know has nothing to do with us, and and but
35:32
you can't replicate Great Lakes with fresh water. And so some of those things
35:37
that are only going to become more and more and more important. You mentioned
35:39
the data centers. They're also here partially because of our weather. And we
35:44
don't have hurricanes, we don't have earthquakes, we don't have forest fires,
35:47
we do have tornadoes, but you know, in the grand scheme, that's
35:51
something that you know, is probably something a little more easily defensible than others,
35:54
and so kind of you know, our weather, access to things like
35:59
fresh water are real opportunities I think for our state. That again there's some
36:04
really good people working on some thesises around those and kind of making bets.
36:07
But that's something that you know, it's kind of literally if you go up
36:10
to Cleveland, it stares you in the face, this massive great leg But
36:15
that's something that the world gets more complicated, it's only going to become more
36:20
important. Yeah, absolutely, it's definitely interesting that natural resources are a driver
36:25
of tech coming here, so kind of two very different things but depend on
36:32
each other. So well, well great, I mean I really appreciate the
36:36
conversation. Chris. Thanks thanks for joining us here on the podcast today.
36:39
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