I grew up in Michigan and live in Wisconsin, working for a F100. We're not going to get the people who want to strike it rich in California. That's not necessarily an attraction for everybody. We hire who we can, and still manage to get some great people.

Some of our recent hires have come from the west coast. We're pretty blunt, so we've asked people: Why the hell did you come here?

Some have family in the region. Some anticipate a more laid back work culture, better lifestyle, more outdoorsy, easier to get around, 15 minute commutes, available housing. Some have a spouse or partner who isn't a techie, and they may have their own career reasons to be in the area. Sometimes we hire older people.

The world that isn't the advertising business still needs to exist, and has less of a reason to locate around the tech hubs, especially if they anticipate making physical things. I develop measurement equipment. I opted out of a programming career sometime around 1983, because I thought it would be boring. Oops. ;-) There's technology in agriculture.

Many of the startups in my locale are health, biology, or agriculture related.

But in general, we get the people we get, and we do OK.

That goes both ways, thought. I grew up in Michigan. Most of my family, and my partner's family are still there. I travel there regularly and stay in contact with a number of friends who are there, and each passing year I my resolution to never go back is stronger and stronger. The entire state is deeply broken politically, and I would never want to raise a child in that environment. Even as a white man, it's remarkable to go back, sit around in a bar or just in public, and to see the blatant racism, homophobia, and hatred around. Let's not even get into the dysfunctional state government - and the gerrymandered voters who enable it.

All of my smartest and most competent friends from high school - in every field - moved out of state. So did all of my friends of any kind of minority group who could afford it. I don't see any reason that's going to change.

I'm curious, where in Michigan are you going where you see all this racism, homophobia, and hatred?

Any small-medium mostly white suburb or rural town - which is to say the entire state.

There are small pockets of comparative tolerance, usually centered around universities.

Take any smaller town, even outside the larger cities like Lansing and Grand Rapids: Charlotte, Eaton Rapids, DeWitt, Wyoming, and more. It gets worse as you go further north. I've been to potlucks in Traverse City (of friends of friends, not relatives, thankfully) with racial slurs being thrown around left and right. Let's not even talk about the Upper Peninsula.

Isn't this an issue with most states though? Big metropolitan areas tend to lean liberal, rural areas tend to lean conservative, and every state has a similar distribution?

I've always contemplated moving out of MI to the west coast, but I've heard it's just the same sort of dynamic. So I just stick to metro Detroit, Flint, Ann Arbor, etc

The Midwest is far more proud of it. Yes, it you go to Eastern Washington/Oregon or Northern California, voters are more conservative, but I've done road trips in the last couple years through all that territory and I can sit in a brewery or go to a hotel without having it all thrown in my face. In suburban Michigan the locals are proud of their bigotry in a manner I just don't encounter in blue states.

No one in Washington was overtly plotting to kidnap the governor. The Eastern counties hate Inside but they're not as maniacal.

Indeed, that culture was an undercurrent in Michigan even when I was growing up.

I have family in Wisconsin and live in Michigan. You guys have sunnier weather but a bit colder winter. I love both states. CA is low on my list but I might be down for Texas.

I got a call from that Fruit company a few years back, which seemed really compelling, but the economic quality of life change to move to CA was alarming.

> Sometimes we hire older people.

As an "older person", ugh thanks for the charity?

My apologies, I was trying to be sarcastic, but it fell flat. I'm an older person too, and I like the possibility of having a career of reasonable duration. This is as opposed to the impression I've formed of work in the tech hubs being a young man's game. Which could also be mistaken.

Thanks for calling me out.

Lol no problem, its probably what I expected. :)

It's pretty weird to me someone would found a company in Michigan. In general, unless you plan to entirely bootstrap and pursue a slow-growth strategy, recruiting and selling are going to be your biggest bottlenecks. Recruiting is unnecessarily hard in places other than first and second tier tech areas - so the bay, then NY, LA, Seattle, Austin, RTP, and to a very limited extent, NoVA. Companies founded elsewhere inevitably find themselves either paying more for talent (because that talent can work remotely for 50% more than the local prevailing comp, with added stability) or starving and unable to hire. Basically, it's a question of priorities.

Also, non-competes are enforceable (§ 445.774a) for, among other things, goodwill. A not good situation for an area interested in creating a thriving tech scene.

>It's pretty weird to me someone would found a company in Michigan.

That just demonstrated your ignorance. I advise companies in Australia, Asia and Europe. Also, I am establishing new facilities in Maryland to help international companies establish in America.

Costs matter...Baltimore is about 1/2 the price of Boston with a similar employment pool. Almost all B2B is easier if you are physically closer to your customers. in Life Science, FinTech or GovTech is a necessary.

Location matters but so does employee lifestyles. Affordable housing and family support is more important.

Commenter OP said company so your statements are fair. But if They said startup then you’d be wrong - for startups costs don’t matter initially, growth does. You get vc funds to cover costs no matter how much they are. In that regard Michigan (till Covid) wasn’t probably a great place to start a startup.

I don't think this is 100% accurate but often spoken about, particularly in tech circles. I think it's more accurate to think of it in terms of if you're not profitable, you can buy time with growth until you can find a way to become profitable. But ultimately profits (and by extension, costs) will always matter.

If you’re okay with hiring people right out of university, there’s a new crop of thousands each year. Not everyone wants to leave Michigan right away.

If a Michigan company wanted to pay anywhere near what a CA one does, they'd have talent lined up with minimal effort. Its here, but everyone is already employed and doing alright.

The cost of living in Michigan is so much lower they shouldn't need to match west coast salaries. How many first year first year engineers are able to buy a house for example on the West coast?

The ceiling is so much higher in coastal cities though. I moved right after college because I wanted to become rich. There’s not a strong path in Michigan to become rich (or even nationally upper-middle-class)

>There’s not a strong path in Michigan to become rich (or even nationally upper-middle-class)

How are you defining "nationally upper-middle class"?

They provide the same value though, right? So there should be headroom to pay close to that. If Michigan companies came even close to matching 1st tier city salaries they'd have the cream of the crop lining up around the block to join.

Ann Arbor and surrounding area is approaching Portland prices, not to mention higher taxes.

I live in Ann Arbor and love it here. There are tech companies that operate out of this town but none of them besides Duo I would work for. Even then I don’t think I would apply. Working remote has enabled me to live here and still have a great job.

When I did work for a startup in town a couple of years ago we were constantly talking about how to entice UoM grads to stay after college.

The biggest industry here seems to be the hospital system. Throw a rock at a crown and you’ll probably hit a few physicians.

A2 has a ton to offer for being such a small town. Personally, I love the small town feel but still manages to have all the amenities of a larger city.

As long as you can handle the Michigan winters the summers are very temperate. There’s a lot to do here especially if you aren’t afraid to travel up north and enjoy the outdoors.

I loved Ann Arbor when I visited when I was hired at Duo and it has raised my interest in moving to Michigan (once a job allows it, my current remote gig has limited locations due to logistics) but I doubt it will be A2 just because of the cost of living. One of my interests is to drop in cost of living from Austin but Ann Arbor is not far behind.

All the surrounding areas of Ann Arbor are reasonably priced. I live in Dexter (working remote) and love it here. Close enough to go to Ann Arbor whenever I want but far enough away to get a big house and lots of land.

When I graduated in 2005, I was so happy to be moving somewhere (Seattle) with essentially my entire graduating class. That social network was comforting and fun, and it was great knowing people working at Amazon, at Microsoft, and other firms to compare and contrast experiences.

In hindsight... only a few ever moved back to Michigan, and wow, yeah, what a recruiting pipeline, and what brain drain.

I imagine that only accelerated the last decade as midwest total compensation likely trailed significantly.

For a while, it felt like the tech firms were strip-mining all the talented midwest engineers who were willing to relocate. I hope the more remote-friendly future helps people keep their local roots.

Do you have tips on how to keep an eye on the Michigan startup ecosystem? I live in CA now, but would love to be better aware of what's going on in my home state.

One of the things that always struck me here is the number of midwesterners I'd come across. It has long been my suspicion that Midwestern culture is better suited to creating companies that are highly collaborative and focused on value delivery. A great example to me is Atomic Object, mentioned in the article. They've been doing well for decades, and the couple times I've visited it seemed like such a sane place to work.

Check out both the Detroit New Tech and Ann Arbor New Tech. Both groups broadcast their monthly meetings.

On Facebook subscribe to Hackers and Hustlers which has Michigan entrepreneurs all over the world but primarily in state. If you're looking for jobs open check HnH Freelance and Jobs.

You can also subscribe to Crain's in Detroit which is a business paper for SE Michigan and has a lot of stories on startups.

It's a great place to work, thanks for the shout-out (ex-pat Brit who was tired of the 4 hour commute to London and moved to Michigan) Sorry, no tips for you to follow MI startups

What is Midwestern culture?

Not op, but on the business/sales side ‘midwesterners’ tend to put people at ease and are decent communicators. In my experience they’re also the clearest American speakers, so non-native english speakers have an easy time understanding them. Coming from an area (at face value) that is not widely desirable or well-known gives a decent perspective on the ability to perceive value for others and speak plainly to sell it.

Part of the above in my opinion is due to there being a far smaller gap between the wealthy people in the area and the poorest both financially and physically. A plumber, doctor and retail worker can live on the same street as homeowners. Not to knock the coastal cities too much, but contrast this culture to homeless people sleeping right outside a $3200/month flat, or primary teachers living out of their van, and you can see how it can have a different effect on those who are raised in those areas.

> In my experience they’re also the clearest American speakers, so non-native english speakers have an easy time understanding them.

Supposedly there is some history behind this and people who want to be in the media business will actually learn to speak Midwest-style English. Can’t find the article though.

My cousin has a theory that the (sometimes brutally cold) winters and generally blue-collar background breed a bit of "suck-it-the-fuck-up-and-get-it-done" mentality.

I think that depends a lot on what your basis for comparison is. It's sort of like asking what California or New York culture is: what people notice is the differences to what they're used to.

One of my coworkers who moved to Michigan after being all around the U.S. described the culture as people who were genuinely nice and caring. YMMV

"Beyond that, for senior level talent, you quickly run into ceilings where working remotely for a California company nets you a 50% compensation bump vs a comparable Michigan company. Founders can have a tough time finding quality local talent in early stages."

That's just the price for senior talent. Isn't it a non-functional business model to just expect senior tech talent to just take a 50% haircut when they don't have to?

100% agree. However, because of the way that tech scales essentially for free, companies that already have large markets over which to apply an engineer's work can essentially just buy up all the talent at whatever cost and prevent smaller competition from ever forming.

Obviously small companies aren't somehow entitled to cheap labor, but that doesn't mean that the market dynamics don't make it very hard for a small company to break through the initial 'activation energy' of scaling to the point where they have the cashflow (or guaranteed growth to get reasonable investment terms) where paying competitive salaries becomes viable. What kills me is when the companies don't offer decent amounts of equity, which is essentially free, to these early employees as a compensation for the lower salary.

The main problem is Seattle/California engineers can make way more than Ann Arbor, although pay seems to be trending up.

And Ann Arbor is probably 20% higher median compensation than Grand Rapids.

How is founding a tech company working out? I work for an established firm in the Greater Detroit area and it’s difficult for us to find great talent. I imagine it’s more difficult for startups in the area? I’ve also heard it’s much more challenging to get VC investment?

I'm glad to hear you like it there. I just moved out of Michigan this summer as I couldn't tolerate the winters anymore, and the local job market isn't that good for my field. You're right about brain drain, although I'm curious to see what'll happen if remote work becomes the norm rather than the exception.

It sounds like you're being hamstrung by a limited view. I'd encourage you to look at any number of states to the south, both for headquarters and for hiring. Michigan is a dead end, or a the most a limited end.