Software entrepreneur Jeremy Bloom has raised the prospect of partnering with Bond University on a possible Gold Coast headquarters for his company Integrate.
Mr Bloom was among six Silicon Valley figures who visited campus today (May 15) for Gold Coast Way Ahead 2018, part of Gold Coast Business Week, in partnership with Myriad - Australia’s leading innovation festival.
The six arrived via four helicopters that landed on the university’s AFL field and the aerial tour of the Gold Coast had Mr Bloom considering the city as the Asia-Pacific base for Integrate.
“You have everything you could ever want here,” Mr Bloom said in a report published on goldcoastbulletin.com.au.
“Just being here for 45 minutes and flying over I can see compelling reasons for people to come here and enjoy their life.”
Mr Bloom said Integrate was shortlisting cities for its planned Asia-Pacific base.
“Originally I was thinking Tokyo’s a bigger market. Australia’s English speaking. Sydney is the natural first place (in Australia) that you would think of, then Brisbane maybe No.2 and Gold Coast possibly No.3. But now…”
Asked by Gold Coast City councillor Glenn Tozer what it would take to get Integrate to open on the Coast, Mr Bloom said:
“It would take some information - a deeper dive into what the cost of living is, where we could get talent from, what type of partnerships we could create with Bond University to get a pipeline of young talent.
Until today it (the Gold Coast) wasn’t even on my radar.”
Mr Bloom said lifestyle was the No.1 recruiting tool for companies trying to lure young talent.
“There’s been all these HR studies that show millennials and Gen Zs care much more about quality of life than how much they get paid,” he said in the Bulletin report.
“So how do you get that message to Silicon Valley and beyond that the Gold Coast is viable place to be? Because every Silicon Valley company needs a jumping off place for the Asia-Pacific.”
Mr Bloom is a sports star who played NFL for the Philadelphia Eagles and was a three-time skiing world champion.
He is an adviser to the Chinese government for the 2022 Winter Olympics and serves on the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics board.
His company Integrate produces marketing automation software.
While at Bond the entrepreneurs split into groups with students and brainstormed ideas to solve Gold Coast problems.
One group hit upon the idea of a hipster festival after US global relocation company MoveHub decreed the Gold Coast was Australia’s No.1 hipster city last month.
The festival would feature beard and barista competitions and vintage fashion markets.
Another group saw the Gold Coast as a 'solar city' with autonomous vehicles and a space port offering 30-minute flights to San Francisco.
M1 congestion would be conquered by turning the motorway into a vacuum chamber allowing rapid commutes to Brisbane.