Another happy Pittsburgh institution is Carnegie Mellon University. At first, when Uber scooped up dozens of faculty members to work on the self-driving car project, the school had to scramble. But the benefits soon outweighed the loss.

“That fact that Uber is out here investing megabucks makes the region very attractive,” says Carnegie Mellon electrical and computer engineering professor Raj Rajkumar. “It retains our graduates — a brain drain from Pittsburgh to Pittsburgh.”