March 15th, 2018 1:04 PM by Eric Fang
RENO, Nev.—Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval had reason to beam and boast at a tech show here recently.
The city of 300,000 he affectionately calls “Silicon Bridge” for its proximity to San Francisco—about 218 miles—has emerged as a capital of big tech investments. From Tesla’s (ticker: TSLA) 5.8-million-square-foot Gigafactory and Apple’s (AAPL) sprawling new $4 million warehouse downtown, to Amazon.com’s(AMZN) 630,000-square-foot fulfillment center on the north end of town and Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Google expansion efforts, Reno is a case study of tech sprouting outside the two coasts.
“I’m extremely proud of our success story,” Sandoval told Barron’s, reveling in a region that has emerged from recession and is now revitalized. “Tesla and the state of Nevada continue to have a very successful relationship, one that I think is a model for how companies and states can work together for the public good.”
Gigafactory, a lithium-ion battery factory, has created thousands of jobs and brought billions of dollars of investment to Reno, says Ira Ehrenpreis, a longtime Tesla board member and managing partner at DBL Partners, a venture-capital firm known for shrewd investments and social consciousness.
The type of partnership that has bloomed in Nevada increasingly is in vogue in the heartland—a theme of the recent Blueprint conference, at which Sandoval spoke, and a cause that AOL co-founder Steve Case has tirelessly promoted through his Rise of the Rest fund, a nationwide effort to work closely with entrepreneurs in emerging start-up ecosystems.
So-called flyover states have become valuable go-to territory for tech’s royalty in search of tax incentives, inexpensive land, and enough talent to fill thousands of jobs. Most of all, they offer a respite from clogged roadways, skyrocketing housing costs, and round-the-clock work schedules that have dogged workers in Silicon Valley and portions of the East Coast.
Software company Breadware relocated from Santa Barbara, Calif., to Reno to get closer to Silicon Valley and a thriving early-stage investment community while achieving work-life balance for its employees, says Chief Executive Officer David Price, who also considered Boulder, Colo., and Seattle as possible destinations.