Seattle’s tech bubble is growing; Will we be ready when it bursts?

The Emerald City seems to sparkle a little brighter these days, especially within tech circles, as its economy booms.

“We are the cream of the crop in terms of innovation of our tech industry,” said KIRO Radio’s Tom Tangney. “There is no other place around that can compete with the boom at our doorstep.”

Tech companies are flocking to Seattle, bringing with them high-paying jobs. It’s a boost to the local market, but if the city isn’t careful, Seattle’s new-found prosperity will only go so far. Seattle could go the way of Rochester, New York.

“Now you have to understand something about Ra-cha-cha,” co-host John Curley said. “Ra-cha-cha in New York was the town of Kodak. It was like Detroit and General Motors. Rochester was all about Kodak.”

The comparison between emerging-Seattle and Rochester was recently made by the Puget Sound Business Journal. Rochester’s story serves as a warning for Seattle.

“Anybody that lived in Ra-cha-cha worked at Kodak. Either you were in sales, or you were high up in management, or you were in the factory. Everyone in Rochester owed everything to Kodak,” he said.

This, of course, was decades ago. The Eastman Kodak company was a photography and tech giant, competing across the globe. But Kodak made a big mistake.

“Ironically enough, the digital camera was invented by a Kodak engineer in 1975,” Curley said.

But Kodak opted to ditch digital, and keep with the status quo, continuing to make cameras and film as it always had.

“In 1995, Sony and Cannon and all these Japanese imports were cleaning the clocks of anybody trying to make a digital camera,” Curley said, noting that Kodak tried to catch up with the digital-tending market, selling cameras a near loss. But it failed to do so.

It was a blow that would follow the company for years. Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

“Finally, where do most people get their digital cameras? On their phones. That was the end of Kodak’s last gasp,” Curley said.

On the other hand, as the Journal reports, there’s Silicon Valley; the southern region of the San Francisco Bay area where early computer manufacturers settled. But when that industry spread out to more economical areas, other related industries moved in from programming to social media and more.

As Seattle’s tech industry booms, it will eventually settle out. Some predict that is at about the 10 year mark. When that happens, will Seattle be ready?

“One of the key lessons we can learn from Rochester … those companies have to stay innovative. By staying innovative, they will attract other business that want to keep pace,” Tom said.

“Kodak in Rochester did not keep pace technologically,” he said. “They didn’t have any of these sidebar companies; these innovators didn’t join them.”

Seattle currently has a range of tech companies from Microsoft to Amazon. They are leading what is hoped to become a diverse pack.

“Our Amazon and Vulcan and Microsoft, and all these high tech companies here need to be on the cutting edge,” Tom said. “Amazon is not just happy being who they are, they want to be first in drone delivery, they are continually growing.”

“There are a lot of other companies moving in here,” he said. “Now you got Best Buy and Sears opening engineering offices here in Seattle to be part of this high tech boom, and Seattle is now diversifying from software fields.”

Which is good. Just as with Silicon Valley, times and markets change. Though Seattle’s tech industry accounts for 15-20 percent of Seattle area jobs, the Puget Sound Journal reports, that sector supports a host of other jobs &#8212 reportedly, for every on tech job, four other jobs are created in the area. But that could change.

“Within 10 years, most of the jobs created that are brand new now will migrate to less expensive cities where it will be easier to do,” Tom said. “Have we diversified enough, and created a stimulated economy and population that will continue to proceed without falling by the wayside?

“There is a great growth of innovation. You hang around creative people and you create the industry, then you diversify that industry to protect yourself from the inevitable 10 year decline.”

Curley agrees, adding that the nature and pay of the current top-tier jobs will also change.

“Also, they find that within 10 years, programmers that are well-paid now, they will not be as well paid,” Curley said. “Incomes in that field will begin to drop because you will have a number of programmers available to them. And programming could be done anywhere. Once you offline those to other places, you won’t have programmers being able to demand as much money.”

“If you aren’t changing and evolving you are dying,” he said. “You have to have as many legs on the stool as possible. It could be a 10-legged stool &#8212 It would be odd to look at, but it would be sturdy.”