Whenever I’m in the Bay and tell other tech industry peeps that Jive Software is located in Portland, I get “that” look. It’s clear from their cocked heads, they had assumed that we were part of the Bay-area locker room. No matter what reaction I get, I always smile. Having lived and worked in both San Francisco and Portland, and I can tell you that building a company outside the silicon Petri dish has been one of the best experiences of my career.

A huge problem with the talent pool in the Bay area is that they suffer from “Lizard Eye.” I’m not sure it’s their fault. There’s just too many opportunities. Tons of tech companies seem to spring up every day. Employees jump from lily pad to lily pad every time a new shiny object surfaces. Just go to any event, restaurant, party or coffee shop in the Bay and you’ll see Lizard Eye. Absolutely everyone has one eye on the person they’re with and their other eye on you–just in case you’re “the next thing.”

This constant schizophrenia is unbelievably distracting and unproductive. When I worked in SF, a mass email would go out once a week about someone’s going-away party, even though that person was just going down the street and had most likely been there shorter than thirteen months.

There’s a lot to be said for building something great in a city like Portland. Not only is it a fantastic city with a ton of talented people but the people I meet and work with are unbelievably focused. I never run into Lizard Eye, here. Folks are super focused and as a combined team, we accomplish way more than the packs of Lizard-Eyed people I’ve worked with in the past. In fact, we haven’t had one person leave Jive for another tech opportunity. Even if Portland ends up having ten times the amount of kick-butt tech companies, I can’t imagine we’ll be anywhere close to the chameleons of the Bay.