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@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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