What Christman is selling is--in large part--the entrepreneurial activity around CMU. It's an area where space is cheap and part-time programmers can make it to class on time. Many of Kranich's former tenants are now members of Pittsburgh's nascent techno-elite.
Robert Frasca is one example. As a naval officer flying S-3B Vikings over the Iraqi desert in 1992, Frasca learned how to cope with the two scariest components of starting an Internet company: high speed and high risk. After the Gulf War, he landed a job as a naval ROTC instructor at CMU, where he started experimenting with the Internet.
Frasca and his partner, Joel Maske, had the idea of tracking mutual funds and stocks in real time for large fund companies. So in 1993, with the help of Donald Jones, founder of Nets Inc., they launched Galt Technologies Inc. "We had a place on Craig Street. Our Conference Room B was actually a coffee shop," recalls Frasca.
By 1995 Galt was making $1.5 million a year and had more than 40 employees. Then Intuit, a large financial-software developer in Silicon Valley, offered to buy the company for $9 million. The offer was quickly accepted, and Frasca was given the chance to become Intuit's director of business development. At first he saw it as the opportunity of a lifetime. But as a new father, making a home in a quiet suburb, "I was pulling my heart out," he says. "I didn't know if I should stay in Pittsburgh or leave."
Pittsburgh eventually decided for him by coming up with a better offer. Frasca passed on Silicon Valley and went to work as vice-president of marketing for WiseWire, an Internet start-up working with intelligent agents. "Intuit would have been great to learn and grow, but WiseWire could make me rich," he says.
The man who once flew over the desert at speeds above 500 mph is now content to whiz around Pittsburgh in his white Porsche Carrera. As Frasca darts around the city's tight corners, people on the street stop and stare. Long accustomed to the quiet wealth of the Carnegies, Mellons, and Fricks, they seem uncomfortable with this brash new breed of millionaire. Frasca, in turn, criticizes the city for not doing enough to recruit high-profile entrepreneurs from other areas. "They are elephant hunting," says Frasca. "They boast that Sony Manufacturing is coming to Pittsburgh, but what good does that do me? I need people I can connect with so that I can expand my company."
Frasca is not alone in those sentiments. Joshua Knauer, 25 -year-old executive director of the EnviroLink Network, a nonprofit on-line environmental information network, describes being wined and dined by cities eager for him to relocate there. So far his hometown isn't making any deals. "I'm firmly rooted in Pittsburgh because it's a great place to live," says Knauer, "but the older generation does not quite understand the needs of the younger entrepreneurs. And you still have people who wouldn't mind seeing this be a one-industry town again."
There's other evidence that the city has not done enough to address the needs of new-media start-ups. In the past five years, Pittsburgh has lost a number of high-profile companies--among them Lycos, Nets Inc., and Galt--to cities like Boston and San Francisco.
Christman disputes the depiction of Pittsburgh as a city after "big game," arguing that its efforts have been disproportionately aimed at small companies. He also says that Pittsburgh hasn't lost nearly as many technology start-ups as some claim. And the council and other organizations are making efforts to keep future start-ups in the city, he says, including a promotional and educational campaign aimed at CMU students who are likely to start companies. In addition the technology-transfer group at CMU, which helps spin out companies from CMU research, has been known to require spin-offs to sign a contract saying that they will always keep a portion of their operations in the region.
Not that everyone needs an arm twisting to stay in Pittsburgh. Mark Juliano started out in Silicon Valley and then moved here to become vice-president of marketing for FORE Systems. After helping FORE become one of the largest asynchronous transfer mode equipment vendors in the nation, Juliano created ISLIP Media Inc., a developer of software for cataloging, indexing, searching, and archiving video content. "My costs are good here, and my access to top software engineering talent is excellent," says Juliano. He is less satisfied with the available managerial talent but acknowledges that in Silicon Valley, high-tech managers are plentiful but not particularly loyal: "I can get engineers with MBAs in Silicon Valley, but can I keep them?"
"If you imagine that a place like Silicon Valley is in its 10th or 11th generation of companies spiraling from the birth of Hewlett-Packard, Pittsburgh is only on its 3rd or 4th," says Juliano. To those who complain that the region isn't moving quickly enough into the new-technology arena, he points out that the steel mills weren't torn down that long ago. "People sometimes forget that Silicon Valley didn't happen overnight," he says. "It took three or four decades, and so will Pittsburgh."
Boulder: A Reluctant Eden
Some cities don't have to wait 40 years for a new-media boom. And some civic leaders don't have to play an active role in promoting that boom. Boulder, Colo., has witnessed an explosion of new-media and Internet companies despite the fact that it has actually tried to limit their growth. "Boulder isn't a slow-growth town," says one local high-tech entrepreneur. "It's a no-growth town."
What makes Boulder distinct is that everyone wants to live here. The Rocky Mountains are visible from just about any street corner. Mountain biking, skiing, and hiking are all within a 10-minute drive. Everywhere you go in this town, people say the same thing: "I came here for a summer, and I stayed for a lifetime."
