Atlanta is Having a Moment
“I’ve been spending more time over the past year in Atlanta, and I get this feeling that I had back in 2008 when I came to the Bay Area where you knew something was about to pop off,” Walker explains. “I feel that way in Atlanta now across every industry.”
Atlanta is having a big, defining moment.
Unlike San Francisco and its heavily saturated industry, there’s room to grow — personally and professionally — in Atlanta. Newcomers won’t find everything they need, but that’s part of the trade-off.
The professional scene is not set. It is fluid. No one knows how it will look in five years.
For a certain type of person, that unknown is exciting. It is an opportunity to invest in and contribute to a community. Over time and through investment, it becomes their community.
This article says that, in Atlanta, “Black entrepreneurs have discovered the best tech scene in the country.”
If true, that’s really cool. And paramount. The people on the ground get to define what that means.
Atlanta isn’t trying to be San Francisco or Paris. It’s being Atlanta. It knows where it came from and will define where it is going. That’s powerful.
More communities need to start defining themselves; bland terms like “startup” are not enough. Narrative counts.
Cities that do this well send a clear, bright Bat-Signal to the world.
Talent, capital, and wins will follow.
