The unofficial online home for fans of the University of Cincinnati Bearcats. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

I rarely talk about it here, but this is kind of what I do for a living up in Chicago, and the writing has been on the wall here for over a decade. I know people like to cling to the old cliches that Columbus is a cowtown and Cincinnati is Paris on The Ohio, but complacency and living in the past are rarely the path forward.

This isn't some local booster rag but a SV based publication that's pretty widely read and respected:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/01/columb...lustwitter

UC and Cincinnati really need to step up their game in terms of the type of Silicon Valley town-gown collaborations in the tech sector. Cleveland does that with the Cleveland Clinic and Case, though their tech sector is overwhelmingly dominated by a small number of large bio investments rather than the Silicon Valley type of ecosystem that Columbus has built. People in my line, really don't see the same level of excitement coming out of Cincinnati right now.

I find this to be very off base. First of all, Dayton is considered a much better tech hotbed than Columbus because of Wright Patterson AFB and the research that is done through that base. I see this as some sort of recruiting article to try to get more people to move there. Also, as a person who works in healthcare IT, I have never been told that Columbus is some sort of hotbed either. IT in general is becoming a national deal with everyone working from home anyway, so needing to recruit people locally is going to be come less important while pulling people in nationally (or potentially internationally) will become much more important.

(06-02-2022 08:56 AM)Bearcat 1985 Wrote:  I rarely talk about it here, but this is kind of what I do for a living up in Chicago, and the writing has been on the wall here for over a decade. I know people like to cling to the old cliches that Columbus is a cowtown and Cincinnati is Paris on The Ohio, but complacency and living in the past are rarely the path forward.

This isn't some local booster rag but a SV based publication that's pretty widely read and respected:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/01/columb...lustwitter

UC and Cincinnati really need to step up their game in terms of the type of Silicon Valley town-gown collaborations in the tech sector. Cleveland does that with the Cleveland Clinic and Case, though their tech sector is overwhelmingly dominated by a small number of large bio investments rather than the Silicon Valley type of ecosystem that Columbus has built. People in my line, really don't see the same level of excitement coming out of Cincinnati right now.

Well...unfortunately about 70 cents out of every state dollar of business development and incubation funding or tax abatements goes to the Columbus area at this point it seems.

(06-02-2022 09:41 AM)BearcatMan Wrote:  

(06-02-2022 08:56 AM)Bearcat 1985 Wrote:  I rarely talk about it here, but this is kind of what I do for a living up in Chicago, and the writing has been on the wall here for over a decade. I know people like to cling to the old cliches that Columbus is a cowtown and Cincinnati is Paris on The Ohio, but complacency and living in the past are rarely the path forward.

This isn't some local booster rag but a SV based publication that's pretty widely read and respected:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/01/columb...lustwitter

UC and Cincinnati really need to step up their game in terms of the type of Silicon Valley town-gown collaborations in the tech sector. Cleveland does that with the Cleveland Clinic and Case, though their tech sector is overwhelmingly dominated by a small number of large bio investments rather than the Silicon Valley type of ecosystem that Columbus has built. People in my line, really don't see the same level of excitement coming out of Cincinnati right now.

Well...unfortunately about 70 cents out of every state dollar of business development and incubation funding or tax abatements goes to the Columbus area at this point it seems.

The new Intel chip fab plant will only reinforce that thinking and attract additional talent to that area. That was a huge get for Columbus.

Without assessing the accuracy of the article, one thing Columbus has been very good at for a number of years is hyping itself.

(06-02-2022 08:56 AM)Bearcat 1985 Wrote:  I rarely talk about it here, but this is kind of what I do for a living up in Chicago, and the writing has been on the wall here for over a decade. I know people like to cling to the old cliches that Columbus is a cowtown and Cincinnati is Paris on The Ohio, but complacency and living in the past are rarely the path forward.

This isn't some local booster rag but a SV based publication that's pretty widely read and respected:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/01/columb...lustwitter

UC and Cincinnati really need to step up their game in terms of the type of Silicon Valley town-gown collaborations in the tech sector. Cleveland does that with the Cleveland Clinic and Case, though their tech sector is overwhelmingly dominated by a small number of large bio investments rather than the Silicon Valley type of ecosystem that Columbus has built. People in my line, really don't see the same level of excitement coming out of Cincinnati right now.

I'll start off by stating that I might be misunderstanding what you mean.

When I hear Tech, I hear engineers. I always jokingly call Cincinnati the Engineering capital of the world. The engineers get gobbled up pretty quick between GE, P&G, Milacron, Siemens, and whomever else. It's extra difficult to find engineers right now. I deal with it daily. I'm not sure Cincinnati has the high level workforce available to even begin to take on another big Tech company.

Is Cincinnati behind the times? Maybe, but I don't even know what that really means. I've designed custom Wine Cellars for the Rich and Sometimes famous. I've designed Paper Towel and Bath Tissue Machines for P&G, soap machines for the St. Bernard Soap company, parts for any aircraft engine you've ever seen, super secret water filter machines for Dow, bubble envelope machines for Amazon, and I could keep going. It's not like I'm super amazing either. That's just some of the opportunities available for any engineers poking around.

It's an amazing place to be an engineer. I don't agree that we're behind on tech. I'd actually say the opposite. Unless by Tech you are specifically talking microchips and the like.

The only statistic that article mentions is venture capital investment.

Mr. 1985 talks about "tech," but tech is different from VC investment.

Industries like Fintech, Biotech, Aerospace, and social media are all "tech" industries, but one segment may be booming in a city while others are nonexistent.
Even within a specific tech sector, there are concentrations of people who never talk to each other. For example, someone working in cryptocurrencies has no knowledge of insurance tech, and vice-versa.

By the numbers, Cincinnati is ahead of Columbus in every measure of "tech" or "startups" that I could find:


Cincinnati beats Columbus in VC investment (this map is a couple years old, but Cincinnati also has 34% higher VC funding in 2022 so far through June according to https://www.fundz.net/vc-funding-by-city):




Cincinnati outpaces Columbus in terms of funding for Tech startups:

Tech Startup Funding by Zip Code

(Note: the big circle by Columbus is actually Dublin and the big circle by Cleveland is actually Oakwood Village. It's hard to see, but Cincinnati has about 3x the startup funding of the Cleveland or Columbus MSAs)

The Cincinnati MSA has a LOT more patent activity than Columbus:


Also, in recent years Cincinnati's tech sector has been growing faster than Columbus's:



Columbus's tech sector has actually been one of the worst performing in the country in the past decade:

(06-02-2022 09:26 AM)mlb Wrote:  I find this to be very off base. First of all, Dayton is considered a much better tech hotbed than Columbus because of Wright Patterson AFB and the research that is done through that base. I see this as some sort of recruiting article to try to get more people to move there. Also, as a person who works in healthcare IT, I have never been told that Columbus is some sort of hotbed either. IT in general is becoming a national deal with everyone working from home anyway, so needing to recruit people locally is going to be come less important while pulling people in nationally (or potentially internationally) will become much more important.

As for the article, they have no interest in promoting Columbus and luring people there. They're a SF Bay Area/SV based organization that reports on tech globally. They don't have a dog in the Cincinnati-Cleveland-Columbus fight.

I work in tech VC in Chicago. Dayton is an extremely minor player on a regional level. What's being done at WPAFB is mostly basic research or very specific to the needs of the DoD. It doesn't really act as any kind of incubator for a local start up economy. Also, healthcare IT is just one sliver of the overall tech industry. If Columbus isn't a major player in it, that doesn't mean that they aren't strong elsewhere.

Columbus is the real deal. If you ask 100 VC firm partners and associates familiar with the region what is the hottest start up city in the Great Lakes, 95 of them are going to come back with Columbus or Minneapolis. I posted this because it's a neutral perspective and highlights that Cincinnati (and UC) have some work to do.

I can tell you I have a relative who helps oversee work on construction projects, including many in the Columbus area. He says anything related to Ohio State always comes in at or under budget. That's because they come in with a concept, calculate how much it will cost, then set the budget to a level at or above the expected cost. Says they have no trouble rounding up all the money they need for any project.

(06-02-2022 01:52 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  The only statistic that article mentions is venture capital investment.

Mr. 1985 talks about "tech," but tech is different from VC investment.

Industries like Fintech, Biotech, Aerospace, and social media are all "tech" industries, but one segment may be booming in a city while others are nonexistent.
Even within a specific tech sector, there are concentrations of people who never talk to each other. For example, someone working in cryptocurrencies has no knowledge of insurance tech, and vice-versa.

By the numbers, Cincinnati is ahead of Columbus in every measure of "tech" or "startups" that I could find:


Cincinnati beats Columbus in VC investment (this map is a couple years old, but Cincinnati also has 34% higher VC funding in 2022 so far through June according to https://www.fundz.net/vc-funding-by-city):




Cincinnati outpaces Columbus in terms of funding for Tech startups:

Tech Startup Funding by Zip Code

(Note: the big circle by Columbus is actually Dublin and the big circle by Cleveland is actually Oakwood Village. It's hard to see, but Cincinnati has about 3x the startup funding of the Cleveland or Columbus MSAs)

The Cincinnati MSA has a LOT more patent activity than Columbus:


Also, in recent years Cincinnati's tech sector has been growing faster than Columbus's:



Columbus's tech sector has actually been one of the worst performing in the country in the past decade:

That's interesting, but it doesn't jibe with what I'm seeing on the ground, and that's a huge advantage in round 1, 2 and 3 financing headed to Columbus than to Cincinnati and Cleveland. As I noted, the Cleveland figure is somewhat misleading because it's centered around a small number of very large biotech investments. And sooner or later, where the outside money flows is where you'll find the young, hot start up companies. As noted above, having a legacy company like Intel make that investment there will only further legitimize that market in the eyes of those outside Ohio.

Cincinnati's problem has long been one of insularity and complacency. That goes all the way back to doubling down on steamship and barge transportation when Chicago and St. Louis were building massive rail hubs. To when it doubled down on small scale decentralized meatpacking while Chicago was building the stockyards. Cincinnati got to keep a treasured local legacy company like Kahns; Chicago built up the massive wealth that came with fostering companies like Oscar Meyer, Hormel, Swift and Armour.

I think Cincinnati could actually benefit from the growth in technology companies in Columbus, and to a lesser extent, Cleveland. The more tech that is attracted to Ohio, the better it is for all of us.

Admittedly, most of the data I posted is at least 5 years old (except the 2022 VC funding to date, but that is only 6 months of data).

The "buzz" could primarily be surrounding the Intel plant.

However, it remains to be seen if the Intel plant will really change things. Is it going to change the culture by working with new tech startups and drawing in new innovative talent? Or is it "merely" going to bring a lot of manufacturing jobs similar to when Honda went into Greensburg?

Isn't the whole Uptown innovation district/UC1819 project designed to do exactly what was suggested in the original post?

Just my opinion, but the world seems to have gotten a lot flatter in the last two years.

It used to be that talent would travel to find money. VCs used to frequently encourage entrepreneurs to move to the Bay Area or Boston to find money and collaborators.

But since the pandemic, money travels to find talent. NYC, Chicago, LA, and the SF Bay hemorrhaged population these past two years, each losing over 2% of the entire population of their metropolitan areas (SF lost 3.2%!). And it's not coming back.

My most successful graduating students these past two years almost all work remotely. Only one told me that she picked where she will be living because that's where the firm was located (oddly enough she is moving to Columbus). All the rest said they are picking the city first and then doing a nationwide search for the perfect remote job, and it's a bonus if they have an office in their city. Very different attitude than even 5 years ago.

Pretty much squares with my most recent job search but there's still (in my field) a large amount of Biotech, Biopharma jobs in Boston and California (mostly Bay Area). It's a really odd situation now too where I know some people who have negotiated higher salaries based of cost of living factors and ended up working remote and living in Ohio anyways.

That life isn't for me, though. I like going into the office/lab/hospital/wherever.

(06-02-2022 02:26 PM)Bearcat 1985 Wrote:  

(06-02-2022 01:52 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  The only statistic that article mentions is venture capital investment.

Mr. 1985 talks about "tech," but tech is different from VC investment.

Industries like Fintech, Biotech, Aerospace, and social media are all "tech" industries, but one segment may be booming in a city while others are nonexistent.
Even within a specific tech sector, there are concentrations of people who never talk to each other. For example, someone working in cryptocurrencies has no knowledge of insurance tech, and vice-versa.

By the numbers, Cincinnati is ahead of Columbus in every measure of "tech" or "startups" that I could find:


Cincinnati beats Columbus in VC investment (this map is a couple years old, but Cincinnati also has 34% higher VC funding in 2022 so far through June according to https://www.fundz.net/vc-funding-by-city):




Cincinnati outpaces Columbus in terms of funding for Tech startups:

Tech Startup Funding by Zip Code

(Note: the big circle by Columbus is actually Dublin and the big circle by Cleveland is actually Oakwood Village. It's hard to see, but Cincinnati has about 3x the startup funding of the Cleveland or Columbus MSAs)

The Cincinnati MSA has a LOT more patent activity than Columbus:


Also, in recent years Cincinnati's tech sector has been growing faster than Columbus's:



Columbus's tech sector has actually been one of the worst performing in the country in the past decade:

That's interesting, but it doesn't jibe with what I'm seeing on the ground, and that's a huge advantage in round 1, 2 and 3 financing headed to Columbus than to Cincinnati and Cleveland. As I noted, the Cleveland figure is somewhat misleading because it's centered around a small number of very large biotech investments. And sooner or later, where the outside money flows is where you'll find the young, hot start up companies. As noted above, having a legacy company like Intel make that investment there will only further legitimize that market in the eyes of those outside Ohio.

Cincinnati's problem has long been one of insularity and complacency. That goes all the way back to doubling down on steamship and barge transportation when Chicago and St. Louis were building massive rail hubs. To when it doubled down on small scale decentralized meatpacking while Chicago was building the stockyards. Cincinnati got to keep a treasured local legacy company like Kahns; Chicago built up the massive wealth that came with fostering companies like Oscar Meyer, Hormel, Swift and Armour.

Bolded, I think there is truth in this statement. Decades ago, someone who had a long history in the recording industry told me that Cincinnati was in a prime spot to be "Music City USA" as there was a nascent recording industry here where country and R&B intersected (think King Records) and the local music scene got airplay across the nation on WLW radio and later WLWT-TV. According to him, local bankers and financial executives couldn't see beyond soap, machine tools, and meat packing and were unwilling to invest in entertainment--especially in "hillbilly music". Nashville adopted the brand, attracted the talent, and years and billions of dollars later it's now one of the fastest growing metros in the country.

Columbus has shown impressive growth but Cincinnati remains the largest metro in Ohio. I can't really estimate the impact of UC's MLK innovation corridor, but with a national top three children's hospital and a Research I university blocks away, I'd like to believe new invention and discovery are on the next horizon along with start-ups that could prosper and build in our metro.

Does Cincinnati in this context include northern Kentucky? I haven't lived in Bearcat Country for decades, but as someone from the hinterlands who checks in once in a while, it seems that the powers-that-be in the metro area north of the river dither a lot when presented with opportunities, whereas folks south of the river are quicker to make decisions and act on them. In addition, just about everyone I knew from high school and college days in the Queen City fled across the river years ago.

(06-02-2022 02:49 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Admittedly, most of the data I posted is at least 5 years old (except the 2022 VC funding to date, but that is only 6 months of data).

The "buzz" could primarily be surrounding the Intel plant.

However, it remains to be seen if the Intel plant will really change things. Is it going to change the culture by working with new tech startups and drawing in new innovative talent? Or is it "merely" going to bring a lot of manufacturing jobs similar to when Honda went into Greensburg?

When I left the gubmint for the private sector, my mentor in this business told me, "In ten years, if you want to have been in on the development of 10 internationally known tech companies, you need to fund a hundred start-ups a year for 10 years. That translates on a city basis too. If, in ten years, you want to HQ 10 internationally known tech companies, you need to create the ecosystem that funds a hundred start ups a year for ten years. Right now, Minneapolis and Columbus are doing that better than anyone else in the Great Lakes.

As that relates to Intel, I think it primarily means that Columbus is creating that kind of eco-system that when some hotshot Intel engineer or coder wants to break away and take his swing for the fences, he won't have to leave Columbus. Sure, some will leave, but a significant number won't. I see Cleveland and Cincinnati's challenge as creating those eco-systems where they can attract some of that talent.

(06-02-2022 04:01 PM)OKIcat Wrote:  

(06-02-2022 02:26 PM)Bearcat 1985 Wrote:  That's interesting, but it doesn't jibe with what I'm seeing on the ground, and that's a huge advantage in round 1, 2 and 3 financing headed to Columbus than to Cincinnati and Cleveland. As I noted, the Cleveland figure is somewhat misleading because it's centered around a small number of very large biotech investments. And sooner or later, where the outside money flows is where you'll find the young, hot start up companies. As noted above, having a legacy company like Intel make that investment there will only further legitimize that market in the eyes of those outside Ohio.

Cincinnati's problem has long been one of insularity and complacency. That goes all the way back to doubling down on steamship and barge transportation when Chicago and St. Louis were building massive rail hubs. To when it doubled down on small scale decentralized meatpacking while Chicago was building the stockyards. Cincinnati got to keep a treasured local legacy company like Kahns; Chicago built up the massive wealth that came with fostering companies like Oscar Meyer, Hormel, Swift and Armour.

Bolded, I think there is truth in this statement. Decades ago, someone who had a long history in the recording industry told me that Cincinnati was in a prime spot to be "Music City USA" as there was a nascent recording industry here where country and R&B intersected (think King Records) and the local music scene got airplay across the nation on WLW radio and later WLWT-TV. According to him, local bankers and financial executives couldn't see beyond soap, machine tools, and meat packing and were unwilling to invest in entertainment--especially in "hillbilly music". Nashville adopted the brand, attracted the talent, and years and billions of dollars later it's now one of the fastest growing metros in the country.

Columbus has shown impressive growth but Cincinnati remains the largest metro in Ohio. I can't really estimate the impact of UC's MLK innovation corridor, but with a national top three children's hospital and a Research I university blocks away, I'd like to believe new invention and discovery are on the next horizon along with start-ups that could prosper and build in our metro.

I think those were accurate characterizations of Cincinnati a few decades ago, when both of you lived in Cincinnati.

I don't live in Cincy anymore, but I've spent 6 of the last 50 months living there (including 2 months when I was between houses and 3 months during COVID when my state was shut down). My impression is that the city's outlook on those things has changed for the better.

A professor of mine at UC said that UC was like Brazil: "It has a ton of unfulfilled potential, and it always will." But my impression is that UC has made great strides in the last two decades toward meeting that potential.


The city has transformed from "potential" to "realized" in so many ways:


OTR is no longer a criminal cesspool with tons of untapped potential.

The Banks is no longer a dream on paper.

Downtown's new open-container laws have pulled the nightlife back from NKY (Newport is a shell of its former self).

The airport is no longer a decaying former hub. It's now a top-6 freight airport that drives the regional economy.

The Port of Cincinnati started a huge effort to consolidate & centralize the regions ports under 1 organization, and it is now the largest inland port in the country (13th largest port total).


As a result, Cincinnati is now considered the "Silicon Valley" of logistics startups.

Cincinnati has a strong and growing customer analytics industry, driven by firms like Dunhumby, 84.51, P&G, Kroger, Fifth Third, and large branches of national firms like Nielson. In my opinion, this industry is the "wave of the future" much more than chip manufacturing or social media firms.

And the city has done this without sacrificing its core strengths. Children's Hospital, the Zoo, GE Aircraft, and P&G are still best-in-class institutions worldwide. The financial and insurance industries are still strong. The light zoning laws have kept the cost of living low.


Also as much as it pains me to admit this, the city is also being richly rewarded for avoiding the temptation to make large investments in outdated modes of passenger rail transportation. Its focus on improving the I-75 corridor, the MLK exit, the river port, and the cargo portion of the airport have paid rich dividends (as did the Ft Washington Way project 20 years ago). Ironically it's Cincinnati (and not newer cities like Salt Lake, Charlotte, Denver, and Seattle) that has avoided the "stuck in the past" mentality around transportation.

(06-02-2022 04:18 PM)colohank Wrote:  Does Cincinnati in this context include northern Kentucky? I haven't lived in Bearcat Country for decades, but as someone from the hinterlands who checks in once in a while, it seems that the powers-that-be in the metro area north of the river dither a lot when presented with opportunities, whereas folks south of the river are quicker to make decisions and act on them. In addition, just about everyone I knew from high school and college days in the Queen City fled across the river years ago.

When I graduated from UC Engineering in 1989, I did not know one person from northern Kentucky, nor did my daughters when they graduated in recent years. I can't think of the last time I went to Northern Kentucky when visiting Cincinnati (the Aquarium 15 years ago?). Just never seemed to me, not does it now, that Northern Kentucky was connected to Cincinnati more than as the area you drive through to get to the airport.

Is that just me?