Sunday, September 19, 2010

Border Guard Bob Takes a Seat

So many topics, so little time.

From Tim McNulty's PG report on "Smith Micro Software," a small CA software company that plans to relocate to Pittsburgh and hire as many as 230 people:

"I want the top two students at each university," [the founder, a Western PA native] joked, before adding, "We want to keep the kids coming out of these schools within Western Pennsylvania."

It is a sign of distinct progress in this region that the founder was joking, that Tim McNulty knew that he was joking, and that Tim and his editors though enough of the moment to include the face that he was joking in the story itself.

At least, I hope that all of those things are really true.

But seriously folks:  I really hope that Smith Micro Software sets out to hire the top students from universities across the country, and that it makes students within Western Pennsylvania compete for jobs.

2 comments:

Dean Jackson said...

It's gotta be tough to grab the top ten, or so, from any CS program in the city; we have Google, Apple, and Intel offices scattered around, with maybe 500 employees between them.

From first-hand experience, the best thing you can do to keep the best college talent in Pittsburgh is to get them to leave Oakland regularly while they're here... so that they can see that Pittsburgh *is* a damn fine city.

A large number of the folks who go to school up in Oakland, but never make it to the Strip, to the Southside, to Kennywood, or anywhere else... leave the 412 area forever, and complain about how dull it was when they were here.

Their loss, I know... but in the case of top notch academic talent, our loss, too.

MH said...

A large number of the folks who go to school up in Oakland, but never make it to the Strip, to the Southside, to Kennywood, or anywhere else...

That seems hard to believe, though I'll admit I don't actually know any current CS students. It wouldn't hurt to clean-up South Oakland more than once every two years. Largish parts of it smelled bad all summer, even when it wasn't garbage day.