Blake Dowling
I enjoy writing about Florida, living and working here for 25 years has been outstanding.
Nothing against my earlier homes: Houston, Dothan, Atlanta, or a summer in Los Angeles, but I prefer my time in Gainesville and Tallahassee.
In 2006, when I started at Aegis as an account executive, you did not hear chatter often about Florida being at the forefront of technology. Times have certainly changed. Now, you hear Florida referenced regularly in the national conversation on innovation, jobs and all things tech.
The Sunshine State does not just have cool tech-themed events like Launch Tally and Miami Tech Week. Our state is leading the nation in new tech companies opening, knocking Texas and California aside.
In 2021, Florida added 2,715 tech businesses.
While people are leaving New York and California (tech hot spots), our population continues to grow, supplying the workforce and entrepreneurs needed to keep this growth sustainable. Almost 400,000 California residents left that state last year and here in Florida; we added over 200,000 new residents
California has Big Sur and cooler overall temperatures, but we have everything else to make our state a better choice for living and running a business.
Why Florida? Lower property taxes, business-friendly state government and lower cost of living.
I recall attending an event here last year; celebrity chef New Yorker Geoffrey Zakarian was the host.
Zakarian included in his speech that he had just left New York and would not be going back. He said he decided to move his family to Tampa as schools had closed in New York (and so did his restaurant), so Florida it was for his kids and him — where restrictions like that were not a thing. He also prepared a fantastic meal for the event.
You can read more about him and his wife here.
Pumping the brakes a little bit, Florida is not the new Silicon Valley just yet. California is still king and top of the list of tech jobs in our nation (with 1.4 million jobs in the tech sector); Texas is in second place.
But we are catching up and part of the conversation.
Tallahassee was even named a Top 20 tech towns in America, by the Computing Technology Industry Association.
Speaking of our capital city, I checked in with my friend James Taylor, CEO of the Florida Technology Council to get his input on Florida’s recent successes in the tech sector:
“Our South Florida tech explosion happened for many reasons. COVID was absolutely one of these factors, and not only because tech was the answer for remote work, or because of new technologies for treating and tracking the virus.
“A massive part of our growth came as a result of migration. Gov. (Ron) DeSantis was determined to keep Florida open for business while other states and countries were shutting down. Businesses flooded into Florida as a result.
“Mayor (Francis) Suarez was and is a marketing machine. I don’t believe the guy took a single day off from talking about and promoting Miami as the place to be. More importantly he bumped up the invitation narrative by asking ‘How can I help?’ Businesses responded.
“At the same time, The Florida Technology Council and Enterprise Florida stepped up their call to action, delivering interactive Zoom events reaching thousands of national and international entrepreneurs and business owners.
“With the foundation being laid by tech leaders like South Florida Tech Hub and eMerge Americas in South Florida, and promotion coming from the highest levels of the state… it was the perfect formula for growth.”
Innovation is in the news also here the northern part of our state. Tech firm Applied Fiber is making headlines with their synthetic fiber tension systems. NASA and Northrup Grumman sought them out as a partner 13 years ago to help with the construction of the James Webb Telescope which is about a month away from sharing it’s first images from deep space.
I spoke on a panel with Applied Fiber CEO Richard Campbell at a conference; he was very gracious to make our company sound innovative along with their massive global enterprise (our footprint is solid and all, but not so massive/global).
The bottom line — Florida is ripe for continued growth, and innovation.
All we need is a few hundred thousand new tech jobs and a franchisee of Nepenthe Restaurant from Big Sur, and we will have California beat on all fronts.
Long live the Sunshine State and cheers to Nepenthe.
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Blake Dowling is CEO of Aegis Business Technologies, the host of the Biz & Tech podcast and author of “Professionally Distanced.” He can be reached at [email protected].
