The book jacket for Silicon Heartland and photo of the author Rebecca Fannin.
Tech journalist Rebecca Fannin returned to her Lancaster, Ohio, roots to write Silicon Heartland: Transforming the Midwest from Rust Belt to Tech Belt (Imagine!, March 2023). After penning three books about the tech boom in Asia, including 2019’s Tech Titans of China, Fannin hopped in her Honda Element and drove about 8,000 miles across six states — Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia — to report on the burgeoning tech ecosystems in locales large and small, some of which she refers to as the “rustiest places” of the Rust Belt. Fannin, who now splits her time between New York City and California’s Silicon Valley, will read Friday, Oct. 20, in the DeLuca Forum at the Discovery Building, 330 N. Orchard St., at 4 p.m.
Isthmus: Your previous books have been about entrepreneurialism in Asia; what made you want to write about the tech boom in America’s Midwest?
Rebecca Fannin: The Midwest is different from Silicon Valley or New York or Boston, where most of the venture capital money finds its way in the U.S. But it is a developing region in technology, innovation and venture capital. So as a trend spotter, I had been on this trend for a little while before COVID. But when COVID hit, I was not traveling overseas anymore. This evolved into a lengthy road trip throughout America’s Midwest doing interviews with thought leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, economic developers and talent champions in the Midwest, and that’s what led to this book.
I interviewed everybody in person, and we were wearing masks. First, I interviewed them over Zoom, and then I mapped out my itinerary for where I was going to go on the road.
The development of remote working was a contributor to this tech boom. People left Silicon Valley and New York, and they moved to other regions in the United States where the cost of living was less but there were still opportunities for jobs and a nice lifestyle.
Why do you think coastal elites continue to overlook and underestimate the Midwest’s tech success?
The coasts have dominated technology — Google, Facebook, Intel, all the pharmaceutical companies. Then, about a decade ago, venture capital started moving into the Midwest, where there wasn’t this whole startup, entrepreneurial culture that Silicon Valley is so known for. When the venture capitalists started moving in, they began to create this startup culture in the Midwest, which has always had big companies. But the economy was not really geared to tech innovation. Now, we’re seeing more and more companies, even from the coasts, moving into the Midwest and setting up offices. That creates a flywheel effect, and investors are more willing to take a risk.
One of the big catalysts for this was a Silicon Valley firm called Drive Capital that set up in Columbus, Ohio, about a decade ago. That was a big move. They’ve invested in more than 60 startups and created a tech cluster around Columbus. We’ve seen other venture firms start, based on that kind of entrepreneurial success. In Indianapolis, for example, there’s a firm called High Alpha, which has invested in dozens of startups.
So I think you have to have tech clusters — and this is where Madison comes in — where there usually are universities with knowledge workers, talent available and students graduating who are starting startups and creating an entrepreneurial culture.
As you alluded to, Madison is a robust biotech center; what do the evolving tech ecosystems in cities like Madison and those covered in your book say about the future of those communities?
Well, many of the cities I wrote about have their own specialty. I think that’s an important ingredient to success — not trying to be everything but specializing in what you can. Pittsburgh specializes in AI and robotics. Now, that’s partly because of Carnegie Mellon University being there and feeding a lot of computer science graduates into those fields. Another example is Youngstown, Ohio, which was a steel capital and is now into 3D printing (also known as advanced manufacturing). So that is a huge switch. Each city has its own story. But if you don’t change, you’re either going to be disrupted or you’re not going to move forward. You have to have the courage to change and be willing to look for new avenues of growth.
