Phoenix is emerging as the city of the future

[greg zegan]

 may I ...https://www.amazon.com/Smart-Cities-Dummies-Computer-Tech/dp/111967994X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=smart+cities+for+dummies&sr=8-1

    On Thursday, June 22, 2023 at 04:00:44 PM MST, Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss <plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:  
 
 >> I've only lived in AZ except for a stint in the military.  I've only had 
>> a couple good managers.  Most others where in over their head.....
Most often my experience too, particularly in AZ.  Entrenched/clueless leadership often enough, then combine entrenched vendors (think cisco, microsoft, oracle), fight club between internal silos of organizations, lack of strong technical leadership, lack of strong technical anyone, people run too thin, people that simple hate their lives and thus everything suffers, everything in between, but there's any number of reasons I find when doing these gigs.  

Start overlapping them like a weird 3d venn diagram, and the problems stack like mad.
Observing enough different industries from IT and management perspectives, one can apply dysfunctions like stereotypes if you've sampled enough of them, and after 24 or so years in over 120 unique organizations/agencies tinkering with their networks that run everything, it's not hard to do with some accuracy.
>> If AZ is so bad then why is all this tech choosing AZ?
Supposedly cheap resources in 2001-ish, but that certainly isn't the case anymore.  Access to "cheap" labor never really works out either unless just for call centers or manufacturing, otherwise AZ pay isn't that significantly worse than Cali anymore.
There have been a lot of subsidies with local muni's over the years, such as the Price area, but the pull isn't as strong as was expected, and still really hasn't.  I've worked in or know of much of the larger IT-based things like the data centers and semiconductor vendors down there, but nothing exciting, and usually just corporate people, call centers, or manufacturing of various levels that wanted cheap labor for lesser jobs.
You go to AMEX's corporate up on 101, it's like walking into an office in Bangalore.  That's their solution to dealing with Arizonans, but hey, they'll still take those tax subsidies from here!

>> Yes water is an issue.  And when I think of data centers in Phoenix 
>> during the summer... 

Most major businesses (and government) tend to build small data centers in their own buildings too, often not as complicated as the mega data centers we have a plenty here, but still often have the same water, cooling, power, etc issues here.  That's already gotten nasty now with this totally fictitious climate change occurring.

AZ's major selling point is again environments due to no natural disasters, and access to Palo Verde nuke power (and technically SRP, but that's drying up...), but with extreme heat now occurring everywhere, power grids are already struggling.  Texas power grids are on a verge of collapse right now with power through the roof, so I wouldn't want to be in Austin either...

>> I personally would never want to work W2 with a boss and coworkers.. 
>> Being self employed comes with it's challenges as well.
Me neither unless I found something extremely technical and compelling, and that just isn't really here in AZ, nor do I feel ever.

Just last week, a friend more or less offered me a walk-in W2 job with a local hospital company, and could only think of the horror of ever actually working for a hospital company.  Supposedly cake work at nominal salary and low stress, but I have consulted and implemented changes in a LOT of hospitals and medical orgs over the years to know better, and always the most absolutely horribly run places ANYWHERE in the US across at least half a dozen different states including here.  Plus if you're not directly medical staff, you aren't sh!t, and what they do have for IT is always the lowest paid and/or worst technical people, and I never want to be that guy just riding it out for a check.
Newp, not that desperate for work, yet, but suppose I've been in worse places too.

-mb


On Thu, Jun 22, 2023 at 1:52 PM <techlists at phpcoderusa.com> wrote:

I've only lived in AZ except for a stint in the military.  I've only had 
a couple good managers.  Most others where in over their head.....

If AZ is so bad then why is all this tech choosing AZ?

Yes water is an issue.  And when I think of data centers in Phoenix 
during the summer... machines pumping out heat and A/C units needed to 
cool them down... all that electricity.

I understand there is some movement to solar A/C units, which on it's 
face seems like a solution...

In Chandler there is the Price Road Corridor which is set aside for tech 
companies.  I'd estimate half the area is vacant.  The tax payers votes 
to give tax dollars to companies willing to relocate workers here.  The 
vote took place may 15 years ago so maybe the money is all used up.

I'm a freelance PHP developer so I called the City and asked about the 
little guy.  Was not on their radar.

With all this chip activity in Phoenix, it makes me wonder about what 
cottage industries are going to sprout out of all of this.  Especially 
since there is resistance to returning to the office. AND I have read 
there is a trend towards using 1099's because they can be rented for 
just the period they are needed.

I personally would never want to work W2 with a boss and coworkers.. 
Being self employed comes with it's challenges as well.

Could be an interesting decade ahead of us. Exciting!!





On 2023-06-22 13:04, Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss wrote:
> 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 at 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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