From Silicon to Seattle: A quest for a healthier kind of innovation

Why did Jordan Ritter, Napster co-founder and Silicon Valley resident since 1999, make the move to Seattle last fall? “There is room for growth that I don’t think exists in Silicon Valley right now,” Ritter told Geekwire's John Cook in a candid interview. “[San Francisco] is a crammed city, a crammed area…I sense the experience of pressure building up.”Crosscut likes Seattle's “spaciousness” Seattle too. So much so that we’ve launched our first Community Idea Lab — a new kind of community problem-solving journalism, focused on how we can use the Seattle area’s tech boom as an asset to create an equitable and integrated city. In fact, our idea contest ends TODAY, so be sure — while contemplating what makes Seattle so spacious for innovative solutions — to send us yours.Ritter's new company, Ivy Softworks, is also worth checking out, mostly for its approach to changing start-up culture. Tired of models that lose innovators after about three years, Ritter is experimenting with creating teams of entrepreneurs that stick together for the long-term: "A good idea with a bad team fails 100 percent of the time," says Ritter. "A great team with a terrible idea has a chance of a succeeding." — K.H.