Nick and Angie Hilem think it might be Philly that’s holding them back.
“There’s more to what we want in life than can be achieved here,” Angie Hilem wrote in a Medium post entitled “The Hilems are Leaving Philadelphia.” They’re headed west.
Angie Hilem started her own marketing agency after leaving makerspace NextFab around this time last year. She said it’s been hard to find local customers, despite her network. Engineer Nick Hilem worked at Artisan Mobile and most recently at Mike Krupit’s IntroNet, as CTO. He just got a job at Google.
When it comes down to it, they’re leaving Philadelphia because the odds of success are just better in the tech hub that is the Bay Area.
“Yes, it’s a numbers game,” she wrote. “Why shouldn’t we go where the numbers are in our favor?”
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The Hilems’ departure underscores the point that Philly can’t compete if someone wants to work at a tech giant like Google or Facebook. We’ve seen that from technologists who have left for the West Coast for precisely that reason. What would it take for Comcast to position itself as an alternative?
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