Education, innovation and collaboration: How West Virginia is transforming into a Startup State
By Sarah Biller, Executive Director of Vantage Ventures
Valued at $6.3bn, and with offices all over the world, AI cloud leader DataRobot set up a hub in Vantage Venture’s offices in Morgantown, West Virginia, in 2021. During last month’s Bridging Innovation Week, I chaired a fireside chat with DataRobot CEO Dan Wright and West Virginia University President, E. Gordon Gee. Here, I’m sharing the key takeaways from our discussion.
- A small state developing scalable solutions
“West Virginia is a state that is big enough to have every problem in this country but we’re one of the most unique entrepreneurial and creative environments in the country because we’re small and can experiment. We have solved problems, wicked and otherwise, that no one else can—our size and scale gives us opportunities that do not exist anywhere else.”
President Gee
- Building companies, building a startup state
“When you decide where you want to build your company, a lot of it depends on the people – you can only build a great company with great people. In West Virginia, people want to get stuff done, and they want to work together to make a difference. Everybody is really aligned around the idea of creating a startup state, building great jobs and great companies here. The vision is not only about retaining the state’s talent – it’s also about bringing talent back into the state. That’s something that we can really get behind.”
Dan Wright
- Culture and purpose: the WVU difference
“You can have all the talent in the world, but if you have a toxic culture it’s for naught. In the pursuit of success, many folks forget about the importance of kindness, purpose, and quality of life. And so our differentiator as a university is culture and purpose.”
President Gee
- A state of innovation
“Our company is almost a decade old; if I was starting a company today, I would start it in West Virginia. There’s honestly no better place in the world to come and innovate. The community here shares a real vision and desire to collaborate, to be creative and innovative in solving hard, meaningful problems. It’s a community that wants to take action and invest in themselves and continue to build skills. All this means you can move fast here, and the solutions that you develop can be exported throughout the rest of the country and the world.”
Dan Wright
- Working together for the common good
“Collaboration and cooperation is very systemic in this state. In a very divided country, it’s a place where people actually get along — we actually like each other in West Virginia. Although people may have different politics, they have one thing in common: the common good.”
President Gee
- World class and world-firsts
“DataRobot is a mission-driven company, empowering the world through a combination of human and machine intelligence to solve intractable problems. We’re doing things in West Virginia that aren’t being done anywhere else in the world — I know that because I’ve been all over and I’ve seen the different approaches that people are trying to take.”
Dan Wright
- A pipeline of talent
“The talent here has really blown me away. Since we started our partnership with WVU, we’ve been able to tap into a pipeline of existing talent; I’m excited to see that continue to build, as we continue to engage with the university’s students and graduates.”
Dan Wright
- Quality of life, and a community that cares
“People want to have safe homes and safe communities, good living conditions and good education. They want to be able to feel the spirit of having a community that cares about them. For all that, there’s no better place on the face of the earth than the state of West Virginia.”
President Gee
- In it for the long-term
“People in West Virginia really value deep relationships; it’s not transactional. That really resonates with me because at DataRobot, we’re trying to build for the long-term and nurture long-term relationships with long-term people. It’s a big part of why we’re continuing to grow here. We started to hire here in earnest in the fall of 2021, and now we’re already up to 28 people. We started in Morgantown, but now we’re hiring all over the state and are hoping to hire many more. In three years I would love to see DataRobot’s largest, most impactful hub being here in West Virginia.”
Dan Wright