Utah Tech Week

Thank you all for an amazing tech week!

An 11pm to 5am (!) meeting with 30-40 VCs, entrepreneurs, CEOs & visionaries at my Pleasant Grove office discussing the cosmos, consciousness, business, life & spirituality… Scott Paul & Kirk Ouimet persuading me to stand up on top of a table to take off my suit & put on a Phi sweatshirt… Learning about the “Don’t Die” movement of centimillionaire Bryan Johnson (sold Venmo to PayPal) & his relentless quest to reverse aging… An all-star lineup of latest & greatest business operators in Utah including Adam Edmunds, Steve Lindsey & Dave Grow with the dynamic Sterling Snow discussing building a business in Utah… A ceremony celebrating the coolest minds in Utah, unveiling the AI 100, where the award was an astrolabe - an instrument used by early astronomers to measure the altitude of stars & planets & also as a navigational aid (thanks Kirk Ouimet!)… Networking events involving IV therapy, karaoke, loud music & the most eclectic & electric characters… ONLY at Utah Tech Week, brought to you by the dynamic Trent Mano, Scott Paul, Kat Kennedy, Convoi Ventures, Kickstart Fund, Mercato, Pelion Venture Partners, Phi, Seis, Signal Peak Ventures, Kiln, 47G & many others.

Please stop what you're doing and check out the trailer for Rooting in America. Hope everyone can join us this Friday to see the premiere of this episode. Bring your box of tissues, it hits at the core of what makes our this community of builders here in Utah soo great! Couldn't pick a better week to send it than Utah Tech Week! Thanks Trent for leading the charge and making this happen. It's soo nice to come together, break bread, get inspired before going back to the lab. It always feels like Zone Conference for Utah's Tech community ??

Thank you to everyone who came out to support the Founders N' Funders Happy Hour last night for Utah Tech Week! Special thanks to the teams from Mercury, Parsons Behle & Latimer, GoGlobal, Escalon Services, Inc. and Forecastr. And … Thank you again to The Turn-Tablers for the amazing performance! Looking forward to the Founders N' Funders Event tomorrow (Thursday) at Kiln in Lehi. See you there! #startups #founders #UtahTechWeek

Nate Walkingshaw hosted us at Torus this morning for a Utah Tech Week event. I’m really impressed by Nate and his vision for the industry - his team is laying the foundation for a world where energy independence will be possible for residents and enterprises all over.

Nate Walkingshaw hosted us at Torus this morning for a Utah Tech Week event. I’m really impressed by Nate and his vision for the industry - his team is laying the foundation for a world where energy independence will be possible for residents and enterprises all over.

Tomorrow is the day! Congrats to Utah’s wonderful AI Leaders that will be honored tomorrow as part of the AI Utah 100. For the past 5 months these wonderful organizations, along with AI Utah, have been creating this wonderful event to help honor these wonderful builders. This is a private event, focused on helping Utah’s AI leaders build even stronger relationships with one another.

Today, Utah Tech Week had three exceptional events I want to make sure I share about. One - Torus hosted a session on growing quickly and the stumbles along the way. Super excited for what Nate Walkingshaw Gilbert Lee and team are building! The facility they've built is a testament to rebuilding manufacturing here in our state and the hard work they're doing to make a great hardware product combined with firmware/software that's easily used by consumers. Two - Zane Busteed M. Chad Staheli put together a great panel about The Point - the most important real estate project going on in Utah over the next 20 years. I personally believe it’s one of the biggest tools we have to attract world class talent to Utah. Thanks to James Clarke and Clearlink for hosting. I can’t wait to see what Patrick Gilligan Alan Matheson Ryan Starks and team develop. I hope they consider how we attract 10,000 technologists to Utah. I, along with many others believe, getting this kind of talent to Utah is a key link to helping our local companies reach their full potential. Three - the operator session put on by Pelion Venture Partners was epic! You can’t ask for a better group of operators in Ryan Porter Adam Edmunds Dave Grow and Sterling Snow - too many takeaways to list but the key learning for me was create environments where people can do their best work. And keep people focused on doing their best work - not, when IPO, etc. Have I mentioned I’m bullish Utah!?! ??

Love what our partner Mercato is doing for #utahtechweek. More big things coming from them this week!

Day one of Utah Tech Week was a huge success! 17 events in the books, 166 remaining! Personal highlights: 1) seeing a couple of my favorite Utah founders in Jennie Moser from Stagetime and Luis Benavides from Neighborbrite win the $100k first prize and $25k second prize respectively. 2) seeing so many old and new friends at the opening party. I’m beginning to think we’re on to something here with #utahtechweek. 5 events today for me today. 1. VIP event w/Bryan Johnson 2. Don’t Die w/Bryan Johnson 3. Founders and Funders 4. Cross Creek 5. Seis Anyone want to be my driver today? Day number 2 let’s goooooo!