Emerging talent shortage is hot topic at Austin tech CEO summit
Austin remains a cool place for starting a tech company, but business leaders worry that it could start to run short of talented workers with critical skills.
That was one of the top themes at Thursday's CEO Summit 2011, a daylong gathering of 100 tech company leaders at the Four Seasons Hotel downtown.
The goal of the conference, sponsored by the Austin Technology Council, was to tackle issues tied to Austin's aspirations to grow as a high-tech hub, including workforce development, the availability of capital for startup companies and education.
Coming up with ways to ease Austin's increasingly tight market for some tech talent emerged as one of the most pressing needs. CEOs said skilled engineers and experienced product marketers are hardest to find.
"We may be just about tapped out; that's what I'm hearing today," said Mark McClain, CEO of Austin software maker SailPoint Technologies.
Rod Favaron, CEO of startup Spredfast, said the shortage is being exacerbated by companies hiring employees from each other, rather than bringing in talent from elsewhere.
"That only gets you so far," Favaron said. "We need to import top people, not hire them away from each other. In the past, we've had companies like Tivoli and Trilogy that brought in hundreds and hundreds of highly talented people. Nobody's doing that right now. Instead, we're recycling people."
Several ideas emerged for how to expand Austin's tech pool and support startups. One involves organizing a recruiting trip to Silicon Valley in the fall during which Austin CEOs would meet with engineers and marketers one-on-one.
"Instead of waiting for the Chamber of Commerce or others to do that bidding and bring back companies, we could go directly and focus on individuals," said Larry Warnock , CEO of Austin startup Gazzang Inc. and emcee of the summit.
Sarah Smith , who leads the Austin operations of Facebook Inc., suggested that rather than traveling west, companies should bring recruits to Austin to see for themselves what the city has to offer.
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I happen to think it's time for us to stake our own claim, and the Austin area makes sense for a new high-tech hub." Several panelists stressed that Austin doesn't want to replicate other technology centers. "We don't really want to be Silicon Valley;
And, in what could be a sign of the importance of Silicon Valley to Skype's future, Bates expects to be based in the company's Palo Alto building after the merger is completed. "We'll continue to be very heavily focused around talent,
SAN FRANCISCO -- On the surface, the Tuesday night gathering hardly seemed Silicon Valley: suits, ties, spiffy San Francisco hotel, cool jazz and cocktails. But there are times when even the valley needs a night for boldfaced names
Also hosting was Michael Splinter, chief executive of Applied Materials; co-hosts included TechNet CEO Rey Ramsey, Silicon Valley Leadership Group CEO Carl Guardino and Applied Chief Financial Officer George Davis. Guardino said about 100 people
Not surprisingly, some residents along Sierra Road are pleased that a worldwide audience will see a different side of Silicon Valley. "A world-class cycling event going past where you live is pretty incredible," said Mike Hilberman, whose house fronts
Liveblogging the Google Search Event: Gutenberg, Goggles and ...
Right now, BoomTown is sitting right behind the very affable Jason Hirschhorn, chief product officer of MySpace, who is here to make one of the many partner announcements with Google at its “search event” in Silicon Valley today.
I also ran right into Twitter’s Biz Stone at the coffee stand. He is also here to talk about the new features Google (GOOG) is adding to its search repertoire, although he is remaining mum until the program starts in five minutes.
It’s about real-time search, of course, given that the partners visiting today are all real-time search folks.
The confab– being held at the Computer History Museum near the Googleplex HQ–is essentially Google’s rejoinder to last week’s event by Microsoft (MSFT), which announced a bunch of new features for its Bing search service, including mapping updates.
Of course, because it is Google, the sound system rocks, the food is better and it is more overproduced than “Dancing With the Stars.”
10:13 am PT: The event is opened by Marissa Mayer, who runs search products and user experience for Google.
And it takes exactly 13 seconds for there to be a classic Silicon Valley buzzword. Modes! Translation: It is how we use the Web.
Mayer is outlining Google’s key components in the future of search. Along with modes, they are media, language and personalization.
“We are a company that likes to launch early and often,” she said, adding that Google has launched 33 search innovations in 67 days.
In other words, take that, Bing. Oh, dear, giant Google just boasted about its innovation cred and is apparently a little worried about weensie Bing.
10:18 am: Mayer welcomes Vic Gundotra, VP of engineering, who will talk about mobile search.
He begins by noting that no one knows where all the new innovations in computing will lead, much as no one got the Gutenberg press way back in the olden days.
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