Funny you should say that. I agree with some aspects of your complaint. But I place the blame on trendy tech companies and wonder why we don't see more investme

Funny you should say that. I agree with some aspects of your complaint. But I place the blame on trendy tech companies and wonder why we don't see more investment/activity from tech firms here. Oil has been what makes money in AK for the last 35 years, We're not going to change overnight. There are attractive things for tech startups here. In Anchorage I have a gigabit home internet connection. I'm Sr. Programmer, I've been in the industry for 10 years, have a CS degree and I only make $70k per year. In other words we have a supply glut for programmers in Anchorage. I could make more in Cali, I'd have to leave my california illegal guns with my family first. I could also forget about hunting and fishing with my dad every weekend. I bet the the best backcountry snowboarding in california is a far cry from what I have an hour from my house. The real issue is I derive value from what I can do in my time off here that I can't do anywhere else in the world. There is talent up here that can be tapped for pennies on the dollar when compared to NY or SF. I'm sure there is even more talent who would like to move here because it's friggen awesome[1]. I wonder why we don't see more startup activity here, where you can actually operate a business and hire good people for less than six figures. Meanwhile the employees can rent apartments or even buy houses and have a mortgate with a 10 min bike commute to the office for around 1k per month. Sure seems silly seeing all those people pay out the ass for an apartment to commute two hours to an office the startup can barely afford with no parking. You would think a bunch of software engineers would be able to solve a simple network optimization problem by pushing resources to the edge of the graph but it seems like an office in a trendy location and insane taxes and rent is more important than a sustainable operating budget with work life balance. But of course us Alaskan's are the dumb ones. [1] http://imgur.com/a/llGid http://imgur.com/a/llGid