What Are Pittsburgh’s Advantages Over Silicon Valley? Andrew Moore Has Answers

For technologists who have questioned why they are in Pittsburgh instead of Silicon Valley, the career of researcher and entrepreneur Andrew Moore could be the inspiration and the reasoning needed to feel confident in their choice.

In his keynote Friday at Beyond Big Data, Pittsburgh Technology Council’s annual day-long AI/Machine Learning Summit, Moore shared the prompts that made him relocate to Pittsburgh, opportunities that kept him in the region and a sense of what Pittsburgh offers that isn’t found as easily in Silicon Valley.

He also shared why he and his co-founders chose Pittsburgh in 2023 to start his company Lovelace AI.

Moore’s journey took him from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a professor, to Carnegie Mellon University to Google, where he was tasked with growing a fledgling Pittsburgh office. Then, it was back to CMU as a dean and a subsequent return to Google as a general manager and vice president before founding Lovelace.

“If there’s something serious involving mathematics,” Moore said, “put a team together in Pittsburgh to do it.”

Moore says Google decided to put an office in Pittsburgh partially because of Pittsburgh’s reputation for getting things done. In its early days with just five employees, the local office embraced the concept of “earning the right” to build the most advanced technology, which eventually allowed them to participate “at a major level” at Google.

During his keynote, which was presented to an audience of over 250 attendees as an interview conducted by Pittsburgh Technology Council’s CEO Audrey Russo, Moore shared his views about the differences between his current hometown and Silicon Valley – and much of it revolved around the ability to get things done.

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