The New York Times for Ibotta

March 31, 2016

With a history of boom-and-bust commodity cycles, Colorado hit bottom in the mid-’80s, when energy prices collapsed. Nearly a third of the office space in downtown Denver, the state’s oil-and-gas headquarters, sat empty. Many of the city’s cultural institutions teetered, and a cloud of brown smog smeared the horizon. Now the brilliant blue skyline is punctuated with red cranes, and Denver’s soundtrack includes the steady thrum of power drills operated by hard-hatted construction workers who are putting up office buildings and housing at a feverish pace. Technology start-ups, including Ibotta, Craftsy, Home Advisor and Gnip(bought by Twitter in 2014), found a footing in Colorado. Financial services firms like Charles Schwab, TIAA and Fidelity Investments expanded their operations. A raft of smaller aerospace and commercial satellite companies like Sierra Nevada, which just won a NASA contract to build the mini-space shuttleDream Chaser, have elbowed in beside giants like Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Colorado led the country last year in new health care jobs.