[killaviews]

I understand the marketing argument. Messaging could definitely be improved.

We can say we have the talent and environment that Google or Amazon want and need, but as a city, I don’t think we are showing it and proving it. Here’s the trend I see – behemoths follow behemoths. Where is Chicago’s tech behemoth?

There seems to be a successful trend for the city in the consumer packaged goods industry (Kraft, Hillshire, Conagra, Beam, MillerCoors, Constellation Brands, Ferrero, Pillsbury, Mead Johnson). There are tech and tech adjacent companies, but there is not an office with 5,000 or 10,000 or 25,000 that screams “we are a top tech talent company”. I’m not saying the trend is rationale. I guess a company could view it as X city has proved they have enough tech talent because Y company exist.

It takes more than boosterism from elected officials. If we want to be in the conversation, the companies we have here need to be the voice. Every company is somewhat of a “tech” company these days. I think it’s huge that Walgreens is moving all of its tech employees downtown. Now Walgreens need to tell tech success story. Hopefully it will. For us to win in the competition of superstar cities, we need some superstar companies. And it seems like we’re going to have to work with what we got for now.