An article in the July 27th edition of the Wall Street Journal entitled - " Wall Street's New Frontier" by Asjylyn Loder caught my attention. The sub-heading of this short article was "Denver and other inland locations draw financial firms and jobs fleeing costly coastal cities". Although the article focused on Denver as the prime example of an inland city welcoming a tide of financial professionals from coastal areas afflicted with skyrocketing home costs, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, and Dallas received "honorable mention". A major factor not considered in the article is the world wide recruiting  war now underway between the financial industry and the tech industry. Salt Lake City/Provo is now the home of many firms competing for tech talent, but the day-to-day recruiting battles are taking place in the coastal areas mentioned in Asjylyn Loder's article. I believe that if you consider the competition between Tech and Finance for fresh tech talent, it makes sense to move the Salt Lake/Provo area (increasingly being identified as "Silicon Slopes") up to #1 and include Denver in the runner-up column. If the financial industry thinks the companies with the most ping-pong tables, foosball, free food, and casual clothes will win the recruiting battle, they should look closely at what is happening in Utah. Both cultures rely on speed, all-in attitudes, and hard work and recruiting material focusing on the attractions that succeed in luring tourists and portraying work days in gleaming high tech offices won't work. Millennials, who want work-life balance, and Gen Z, who are looking for work-life integration, are not about to sacrifice work success by settling for work-at-home or small outpost location solutions. They would prefer to be in an office close to the people who matter and say hello to those people every day. Goldman Sachs opened an office in Salt Lake City in 2000 which has become its second largest office in the America's and forth largest globally. A quote from their recruiting material reads: "Considered one of the best places to live in the United States, the Salt Lake City area offers great outdoor recreation, all the amenities of a large metropolitan city, affordable living and a growing economy". This statement is then further supported by a number of bullet points relating to why Utah/Salt Lake City/Goldman Sachs have been recognized as exceptional by everyone from Forbes, Working Mother Magazine to Skiing Magazine. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein has said "we are a tech company" on a number of occasions and his firm has gone from 600 equity traders in 2000 when the Salt Lake office opened to 2 equity traders today. Currently 9,000 of Goldman Sachs 33,000 employees are engineers.

It is unclear whether the financial industry's tech transition will come from building its tech capability one recruit at a time or buying it through acquisitions, but in either case, successful recruiting is the key to a bright future. Financial firms are realizing that just paying more money doesn't do it anymore and Utah tech firms are realizing that University of Utah, BYU and other local ties along with funky local culture have their limits. Why should the best and brightest join any of the companies locked in this rapidly expanding recruiting war? There is a low tech solution to this high tech recruiting problem. As the WSJ article correctly points out, talent is fleeing high cost areas for low cost alternatives. Housing costs and availability are by far the dominant contributor to the cost problem that gives an opportunity to recruiters from low cost locations to convince individuals to make the painful decision to relocate. A growing share of recruiting targets are making those decisions based on family happiness, not on office perks or even commutes. The answer is simple - help them buy a house, or better still, buy a house they like and that fits their family needs, and rent it to them at an attractive price. Many financial firms have discovered that buying single family homes and renting them to desirable tenants makes sense. Tech and Fintech companies offering a solution to people faced with this affordable housing problem on both coasts could attract and retain the loyalty of the all-in, willing to work hard talent they require while building a portfolio of assets with a bright future.