Audio of Mayor McGinn’s speech can be heard below. He starts talking about startups at 8:40.
The latest numbers prove that Seattle is one of the hottest startup hubs in the world and a great place to find good jobs.
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn is well-aware of that. He wants to continue improving his city, which ideally would attract even more highly-skilled entrepreneurs to the Emerald City.
Speaking at the Seattle Tech Meetup Tuesday night, McGinn was asked about how the city is doing to improve Seattle as an ideal destination for entrepreneurs. Here’s what he had to say:
“We’re doing out best. It’s a combination of things — one is building housing. We’re actually building more housing than before. There’s hIgh demand here and it’s an exciting place to live.
We are ranked as one of the top places in the country to look for a tech job and our tech infrastructure is good, but it can get better. [We have] nightlife, historic places, historic renovation, transit, walkability, bike-ability — all of those things play into creating the type of environment where we can track really cool people and keep them.”
Then, McGinn talked about how much the startup landscape has changed in the past couple decades.
“And you know, I’ll make a comment,” he continued. “20 years ago, if you wanted to build a new company, you do it out in the suburbs, the greenfield, the surface parking lots. Now, look at all the tech companies here and in South Lake Union. That’s a real sign that the power of place to attract people is huge. We’re doing our best to create a great place.”
He also talked about the city’s new mobile app and some of the more geeky things happening at City Hall, like snowplow locators and electrical utility system status maps. McGinn also mentioned the Seattle’s new Gigabit Squared super-fast Internet pilot as an example of how the city is trying to offer lighting-quick internet accessibly to its people.
McGinn’s five-minute talk was part of the second-ever Seattle Tech Meetup, a new tech-focused event started by Brett Greene of Fresh Consulting and Red Russak of Apptentive. The event is held at the HUB Seattle on the third Tuesday of every month.
Four companies presented their startups during the event:
1. WhichBus
2. FiLMiC Pro
3. WhitePages
4. Rover.com
Previously on GeekWire: A night of stunts and startups at the inaugural Seattle Tech Meetup (VIDEO)
