Article 5 of a 5-part series on UT San Antonio’s hidden talent pipeline

When I was CEO of Geekdom, San Antonio’s largest co-working space at the time, our mission was simple: help build the city’s tech scene one company at a time.

I remember one meeting that taught me more about recruiting than any other. It was the day Google Fiber decided to lease space in our building.

They flew in a representative from Mountain View, a kind and sharp woman who wanted to understand what was happening in downtown San Antonio. We met on the sixth floor of the Rand Building. I had given this presentation dozens of times, but I was nervous. This was a big deal.

I started walking her through my slides. I had several about San Antonio’s momentum, but there were two that mattered most.

The first was a mock-up of our building, floor by floor. Next to each level were the logos of every tech company inside: WP Engine, Jungle Disk, Techstars, a cybersecurity incubator, Geekdom itself. I wanted her to see, at a glance, that this building was full of technology companies.

The next slide was a map of downtown with the same idea, logos placed across the district showing how many startups had graduated from Geekdom or moved nearby. It was a visual story of density, momentum, and belief.

When I finished, I told her, “We’re not perfect, but we have momentum. If you’re going to lease anywhere in San Antonio, this is the building, and this is the corridor. This is where the tech scene is happening.”

She asked a few short questions, smiled, and left. Within hours, she contacted Weston Urban to begin a lease for Google Fiber to take two floors of the Rand Building.

That day taught me a lesson I’ve never forgotten: the logos matter.

This story takes place before the pandemic, and I know the office environment has changed significantly since then. Remote and hybrid work are now real and permanent parts of the modern economy. But the principle remains the same. Presence signals momentum, and momentum shapes ecosystems.

The logos represent more than tenants or leases. They are proof of belief. When people see recognizable names on the wall, they start to see what’s possible.

The Challenge Ahead

As I close this series on UT San Antonio’s hidden talent pipeline, I want to issue a challenge to our city.

I do not know if it should come from the mayor’s office, the city’s Economic Development Department, Greater SATX, Tech Bloc, or the Chamber of Commerce. Maybe it takes all of us. But UT San Antonio has shown us two things we can no longer ignore.

First, they have built one of the strongest talent pipelines in the country. They are graduating the kind of students who will form the foundation of our tech economy for decades.

Second, that talent is already attracting the biggest names in technology. Meta. Netflix. Yahoo. Disney. And more will come.

Now it is our turn to respond.

Someone needs to go to these companies and say, “If you are serious about hiring from this community, you need to plant roots here.”

Because here is the truth. Many of these first-generation, Hispanic, San Antonio-born students are the primary breadwinners in their families. They cannot uproot and move to California, New York, or Seattle. If companies want to keep accessing this talent, they need to come here.

Start small. Maybe it is a few desks at Geekdom or a shared floor downtown. But we need those logos on the wall.

Once people can point to a Netflix remote office or a Disney satellite team in downtown San Antonio, the entire narrative shifts. It changes how students see themselves, how investors look at the city, and how we talk about what is possible.

That is the next step. Formal partnerships. Remote offices. Visible presence.

In three, five, or ten years, I want to walk through downtown and see those logos side by side. Meta. Yahoo. Netflix. Disney. Not just recruiting here, but working here.

UT San Antonio has already done the hardest part. They built the talent.

Now it is up to us to build the ecosystem around it.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________