Startup investor tour sees Ann Arbor

Panel: Detroit and Ann Arbor must end tensions to succeed

Attitude changing thanks to Amazon bid process

Successful investors from outside Michigan got a taste Wednesday of the disjointed attitude toward business development in Southeast Michigan.

Steve Case, CEO of Washington, D.C.-based investment firm Revolution and co-founder and former chairman of AOL, led a panel at the Michigan Theater on Ann Arbor and Detroit's increasingly important role in entrepreneurship and its missing cohesion. Case, who organized the panel as part of his Rise of the Rest tour that visits startup hubs in the Midwest, was joined on stage by Dan Gilbert, Quicken Loans Inc. chairman; J.D. Vance, venture capitalist and author of Hillbilly Elegy; and Mary Grove, director of global entrepreneur outreach at Google. Emily Heintz, associate director of the Michigan Venture Capital Association, moderated the panel.

"I did notice there is a tension in how you brand in the relationship between Ann Arbor and Detroit," Vance said after a daylong tour of several successful startups in Ann Arbor. "That needs to be fixed and the two areas need to be viewed together more on a national scale."

Case said distinct regionalism can really hinder industry expansion, noting Silicon Valley used to just include San Jose, Calif., and surrounding communities, now it ranges from south of San Jose to north of San Francisco nearly 60 miles away.

Gilbert agreed.

"There's nothing indigenous about technology," he said. "Geography is meaningless."

However, Gilbert said the competition, and contention, between local communities is changing — particularly with the region's coming bid to lure Amazon's second headquarters and $5 billion investment.

"When I moved Quicken to Detroit in 2005, I didn't know how disconnected the city was," Gilbert said. "But now we're building connections and creating networks linking the whole region."

Gilbert said the entire region is rallying around the Amazon bid in ways he's never seen before — the steering committee includes 59 business, political and foundation leaders from the area. Detroit's bid, which includes buy-in from the University of Michigan, is expected to focus heavily on growing a talent pipeline to fulfill Amazon's needs.

"Training for tech jobs is the most critical problem in our country," he said.