Startups corporations and aspiring entrepreneurs are fleeing the Bay Area for the socalled black mecca. Here’s why the tech world’s center is shifting— and what it means for Atlanta.
“Look at this, man,” Tristan Walker says as he leans into a wooden lawn chair in his backyard. He forms his thumbs and index fingers into a rectangle and squints through it at the seven-bedroom literal house on a hill before us. It’s a warm April afternoon, too early yet for Georgia’s notorious swelter. Blues singer Tyrone Davis’s “Baby, Can I Change My Mind?” plays from a glowing Bluetooth speaker that doubles as a sleek outdoor light. “When I was 20 years old, and I was like, ‘What does the vision of [my] world look like?’ ” he recalls. “This frame is it.”
Walker and his family have been in this house, in Atlanta’s northern Buckhead neighborhood, for all of two weeks. It’s the first time the Queens, New York, native has had a backyard, and he’s been stringing lights, planting hydrangeas, and kicking around a soccer ball with his 4-year-old son, Avery James. In the fall, Avery James will attend a nearby private school with a black headmaster who, Walker informs me, is a patron of Bevel, the shaving system geared toward men of color that Walker launched in 2013. Walker’s wife, Amoy, steps out of the kitchen to greet me and announce that she’s making salmon burgers. In a month—on Mother’s Day—she’ll give birth to their second son, August Julian. “I’ll have a kid born in Palo Alto, and a kid born in Atlanta,” Walker tells me. “It’s a reset moment!”
This story is from the September 2019 edition of Fast Company.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the September 2019 edition of Fast Company.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Orange Crush
Y Combinator was designed to be a supercondensed version of Silicon Valley. Now that it's at full potency, can it maintain its outsider pose while being the ultimate insiders' network?
10 TREND
FROM THE MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES | PLUS 606 HONOREES FROM ADVERTISING TO VIDEO
THE WORLD'S 50 MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES
THE 1920S, WATER WENT INTO A GENERATOR, AND DC POWER CAME OUT. NOW ELECTRONS GO INTO A GENERATOR, AND INTELLIGENCE COMES OUT.\"
Reimagining the ways we work and meet
AS BUSINESS LEADERS RETHINK THEIR REAL ESTATE FOOTPRINT, THEY'RE EMBRACING SMALLER, HIGH-QUALITY, AMENITY-RICH SPACES THAT ARE MORE FOCUSED ON HUMAN CONNECTION.” IN OTHER WORDS, CONVENE.
Hollywood
AI is going to transform Hollywood But it won't be the horror story everyone's afraid of.
Chick-Fil-A's New Testament
Boycotted for years by liberals - and now by conservatives, too - a christian-driven brand is trying to walk the narrow path toward growth. What happens next could be enlightening for businesses everywhere.
The Office You Want
Business leaders want workers back. Workers are loath to resume their commutes. We asked five leading design firms to create plans that might make leaving home seem worthwhile.
Fan With a Plan
Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin parlayed a ski shop in suburban Philly into a $31 billion sports apparel juggernaut. Now, he's adding trading cards, gambling, live events, and more.
The Helpful Hardware Man
Marques Brownlee has rewired the way people shop for gadgets-and how companies sell them. Inside the humble factory with the power to shape the $1 trillion consumer electronics industry.
PIZZA, ROBOTS, and MONEY
THE ZESTY TALE OF ONE OF THE BIGGEST FLOPS IN SILICON VALLEY HISTORY