Non-compete clauses are enforceable in Texas. They aren’t in California. Labor mobility from established firms to startups has been critical to Silicon Valley’s success.
I work in tech as a fairly top 1% individual contributor in terms of pay, but ymmv with my perspective. I have lived in New York, Toronto, the SF Bay Area, Tokyo, etc. I would certainly consider Austin Texas if I didn’t have family obligations and the opportunity was the right one (I have interviewed before with Texas companies but never found a fit).
Austin has a lot going for it and has a good startup scene.
Two main problems:
A) utterly batshit insane toxic state level politics far beyond anything California local nuttiness could ever muster. Seriously, I can’t think of anyone that would want to live in a place where Paxton could be governor. The COVID response has been a joke. The revisionist history in the schools mean that no one with sense will want their kids to be educated there. It will take a lot of people to jump ship together for a REALLY good opportunity to get past this.
B) startups are the main attractive thing. For tech workers, there is Big Tech (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, Microsoft), there are startups, and there is Everyone Else. Tesla or SpaceX as they grow in Texas is a good start but I don’t see them focused on attracting talent to move there yet.
IBM, HP, Oracle, and Dell are dinosaurs, they don’t really attract talent. Startups do but don’t bring the state revenue. Big Tech needs to make more moves into Texas (and attract people to move there) for tech workers to want to move there.
Many professionals would prefer to live where they are more comfortable being themselves, whether that's gay, trans, jewish, muslim, or any other identity that's not respected by the right. Hopefully for Texas it may not be controlled by the right for much longer.
I enjoyed a visit to Austin a few years ago. And having San Antonio nearby gives one more choices where to live.
Houston's future might not be so bright with worsening climate, more storms, and sea level rise.
1. Why not include the university system in your list of things the needed for a start-up city? I gotta imagine the University of Washington, Stanford, and UC Berkley have all played a major role in making Seattle and San Francisco the tech-hubs they are today.
The Dallas area has arguably done the best job with tech startups / headquarters, thanks to the long presence of Texas Instruments, E-Systems (now part of Raytheon), etc. Dallas also has a growing light-rail system with new lines under construction, including a line to connect the N. Dallas suburbs from Plano (where Toyota is now headquartered) all the way to DFW airport.
The higher ed scene in Dallas is more dispersed, but there are more research universities here than in Austin: UT Dallas (with strengths in electrical/software engineering and computer science), SMU, U. of N. Texas (in Denton), U of Arlington, and a couple of small liberal arts colleges.
HOWEVER, If you're a Californian moving to Texas, be prepared for Texans to piss and moan about how you're ruining their state and driving up property taxes. (Prop 13 keeps property taxes fixed; property taxes in Texas fluctuate from year to year, and are around 2.5%). You can tell the cranky Texans that their governor puts paid spots on CA radio stations bragging about Texas and begging people to move here, and they won't care. Somehow you, with your education, high-paying job, consumer spending, and entrepreneurship are RUINING their great state.
And—last, but arguably most important—Texans cannot. drive. for. sh*t. They. cannot. drive. If you grew up driving the 101, the 405, I-5, the Nimitz Freeway, 280—any of it—you'll either die of shame on behalf of Texans who don't know better, or you'll die of an aneurysm from rage at Texans who won't learn better. They don't know how to merge, they don't know how to gauge the relative speeds of multiple freeway lanes, their signage is atrocious, their onramps and offramps are designed by sociopaths, and they literally have a state law restricting drivers from using the left lane of the interstate, FOR HUNDREDS OF MILES, except as a passing lane. That's right: instead of "Slower traffic keep right" (which makes perfect sense), it is "Left Lane for Passing Only" for HUNDREDS of miles. You've never seen anything so pathetic as a Texan at a four-way stop.
If you can stand all that, plus the state government in the hands of fundamentalist Christian dominionists with legislators who regularly blather about secession, come on down! If enough progressive Californians move to Texas and flip the whole state blue, I can either stay here and enjoy living in a semi-functional society or I can move back to California, where I can live in a semi-functional society that has amazing scenery.
Surprised you didn't mention Prop A in Austin's context. The buildout of high-quality rapid transit is going to make serious urbanist policy in Austin even more viable.
Austin was a small state capitol and college city when my parents met at the University of Texas in the 70s and still basically was when they named me after it in 1989. Now I'm starting to think that it might be one of our most ascendant and prominent national metropolises in the coming years. I hope it retains the palpably fun and exciting energy that it had when I went for business in 2018.
1. Dereglations ( Californian Law banning non compete agreement)?
2. Access to young labor and startups due to CA's vibrant universities?
With the exception of Tesla, what I see is a bunch of companies like HP and Oracle that aren't known for their innovation ( and therefore don't need to surf for the newest ideas and talent) moving to cut costs without wasting too many brain cells.
To be fair, this is fine and maybe will even let CA adapt and lower taxes! But it's gonna take many many years before the next world-changing tech company is from Texas.
Density of the 4 players in your diagram is often attributed to the Valley's success. Groups like Capital Factory in TX are trying to create programs to tie the triangle of resources between Dallas, Houston, and Austin together to create a similar effect without the density (they call it the Texas Manifesto: https://austinstartups.com/the-texas-startup-manifesto-42f06f2a7075). Would love to see you write about if that could work
Francesco Nicoletti beat me to it. Austin has UT, but UT isn't up there were with Stanford and UC Berkeley, at least not yet. Austin also lacks something like Ames or Livermore Labs. This isn't a show stopper. Look at Seattle as a counterexample. Historically, innovation centers have required smart people, but also something to push the technology. That something is usually some branch of the government pushing the envelope.
A more realistic view is that the technologies created by Silicon Valley have been played out like those of Dayton, northern NJ, Boston, South Bend, Pittsburgh and elsewhere. Just as corporations left NYC in the 1960s and 1970s, opening HQ in Armonk and Purchase, they are "fluffing out" and turning into mature, or perhaps senescent, industries.
One often sees an innovative company stop innovating, and one of the markers is moving its HQ. Look at Boeing leaving Seattle then losing its mojo with MBA driven 787 screw up and more recently the 737 MAX failures. Look at Bell Labs and IBM leaving NYC and moving to the innovation sidelines. This isn't the end of engineering or making money, but it is an acknowledgement that the world changing is over.
Musk is basically saying that Tesla has done its space shot. It's a mature company, and while it will continue to improve its electric cars, its wildcatting days are over. It's about maximizing its profits now. Ellison is making a similar admission. We'll be seeing a lot more of this. There seem to be two types of successful startups these days. There are the ones bought out before any IPO, and there are the ones that build a business by using massive spending to clear competitors from the market before their IPO.
Are not the other two things required for a tech cluster , early military spending and good research Universities ? The military spending provides the seed money for a lot of high risk/ high return ventures and the universities provide the tools to create new solutions.
I have never been to Austin Texas. I had been to El Paso on a business trip with the military department. My knowledge about Texas is very limited. However, as a software developer from Boston, there is no way I would relocate to places like Texas. It is the culture that keeps me in the Northeast. Everyone around me are interesting and have so much to offer and to learn from. The Massachusetts state government is not like Greg Abbot and Dan Patrick to sacrifice the vulnerable for the economy. My state has policy to protect its residents in health care, education, labor laws and social justice. The population in Massachusetts are very educated, and you find talking to your neighbors and colleagues is a rewarding intellectual experience. I could never imagine myself talking to a bunch of low information people who lacks critical thinking skills, who has never see the world but MAGA. Yes, I sound like coastal elite, oh well. BTW, isn’t Texas planning secession from the union?
If you move to Texas don't try to turn it into CA. We don't like CA or it's stupid rules. Tejas is not CA. Let's keep it that way. Or else well have to get out the big guns and run you idiots out of town.
Other than taxation policy, I'm a little baffled what Texas has going for it. It's not as screwed as the Southwest as global warming happens, but it's miserably hot in the summer. And it doesn't seem like the kind of area that can support that much population growth long-term, in terms of water.
In general I'm really baffled at any growth happening in areas that seem patently water constrained 10-30 years out. Just seems like a not great investment. Particularly if a person/company is already fleeing the Bay Area b/c they don't see themselves as having a long-term future there.
I've been to both Houston and San Antonio, but sadly couldn't bring to Austin. I loved both but San Antonio is the more "hip" place.
What about a High-speed train to connect those three cities, making it easy for people to live in Austin or Houston for business and travel to San Antonio for fun on the weekend?
I was amazed by seeing the hospital "cluster" in shouthern Houston. Would it be realistic for Houston to become a hub for medical technology in the future?
Despite having not great public transit (Houston did approve a massive transit millage, but still sprawls), Austin does have an excellent bike culture. I'm not sure if it's enough to make up for the lack of public transit, but I feel like as biking becomes more normalized and e-biking really takes off (mitigating for the sweatiness of analog biking), more of the tech crowd will favor bike infrastructure in lieu of public transit.
In theory, excellent bike infrastructure and culture would allow Tech People to not own cars (or minimize driving) and deliver better flexibility over shorter distances than public transit, which seems to be the biggest frustration with it. However, cycling commuting rates are still pretty low across the board so we have a far way to go.
Non-compete clauses are enforceable in Texas. They aren’t in California. Labor mobility from established firms to startups has been critical to Silicon Valley’s success.
I work in tech as a fairly top 1% individual contributor in terms of pay, but ymmv with my perspective. I have lived in New York, Toronto, the SF Bay Area, Tokyo, etc. I would certainly consider Austin Texas if I didn’t have family obligations and the opportunity was the right one (I have interviewed before with Texas companies but never found a fit).
Austin has a lot going for it and has a good startup scene.
Two main problems:
A) utterly batshit insane toxic state level politics far beyond anything California local nuttiness could ever muster. Seriously, I can’t think of anyone that would want to live in a place where Paxton could be governor. The COVID response has been a joke. The revisionist history in the schools mean that no one with sense will want their kids to be educated there. It will take a lot of people to jump ship together for a REALLY good opportunity to get past this.
B) startups are the main attractive thing. For tech workers, there is Big Tech (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, Microsoft), there are startups, and there is Everyone Else. Tesla or SpaceX as they grow in Texas is a good start but I don’t see them focused on attracting talent to move there yet.
IBM, HP, Oracle, and Dell are dinosaurs, they don’t really attract talent. Startups do but don’t bring the state revenue. Big Tech needs to make more moves into Texas (and attract people to move there) for tech workers to want to move there.
Many professionals would prefer to live where they are more comfortable being themselves, whether that's gay, trans, jewish, muslim, or any other identity that's not respected by the right. Hopefully for Texas it may not be controlled by the right for much longer.
I enjoyed a visit to Austin a few years ago. And having San Antonio nearby gives one more choices where to live.
Houston's future might not be so bright with worsening climate, more storms, and sea level rise.
One Thing:
1. Why not include the university system in your list of things the needed for a start-up city? I gotta imagine the University of Washington, Stanford, and UC Berkley have all played a major role in making Seattle and San Francisco the tech-hubs they are today.
The Dallas area has arguably done the best job with tech startups / headquarters, thanks to the long presence of Texas Instruments, E-Systems (now part of Raytheon), etc. Dallas also has a growing light-rail system with new lines under construction, including a line to connect the N. Dallas suburbs from Plano (where Toyota is now headquartered) all the way to DFW airport.
The higher ed scene in Dallas is more dispersed, but there are more research universities here than in Austin: UT Dallas (with strengths in electrical/software engineering and computer science), SMU, U. of N. Texas (in Denton), U of Arlington, and a couple of small liberal arts colleges.
HOWEVER, If you're a Californian moving to Texas, be prepared for Texans to piss and moan about how you're ruining their state and driving up property taxes. (Prop 13 keeps property taxes fixed; property taxes in Texas fluctuate from year to year, and are around 2.5%). You can tell the cranky Texans that their governor puts paid spots on CA radio stations bragging about Texas and begging people to move here, and they won't care. Somehow you, with your education, high-paying job, consumer spending, and entrepreneurship are RUINING their great state.
And—last, but arguably most important—Texans cannot. drive. for. sh*t. They. cannot. drive. If you grew up driving the 101, the 405, I-5, the Nimitz Freeway, 280—any of it—you'll either die of shame on behalf of Texans who don't know better, or you'll die of an aneurysm from rage at Texans who won't learn better. They don't know how to merge, they don't know how to gauge the relative speeds of multiple freeway lanes, their signage is atrocious, their onramps and offramps are designed by sociopaths, and they literally have a state law restricting drivers from using the left lane of the interstate, FOR HUNDREDS OF MILES, except as a passing lane. That's right: instead of "Slower traffic keep right" (which makes perfect sense), it is "Left Lane for Passing Only" for HUNDREDS of miles. You've never seen anything so pathetic as a Texan at a four-way stop.
If you can stand all that, plus the state government in the hands of fundamentalist Christian dominionists with legislators who regularly blather about secession, come on down! If enough progressive Californians move to Texas and flip the whole state blue, I can either stay here and enjoy living in a semi-functional society or I can move back to California, where I can live in a semi-functional society that has amazing scenery.
Surprised you didn't mention Prop A in Austin's context. The buildout of high-quality rapid transit is going to make serious urbanist policy in Austin even more viable.
Austin was a small state capitol and college city when my parents met at the University of Texas in the 70s and still basically was when they named me after it in 1989. Now I'm starting to think that it might be one of our most ascendant and prominent national metropolises in the coming years. I hope it retains the palpably fun and exciting energy that it had when I went for business in 2018.
What do you think about other factors like
1. Dereglations ( Californian Law banning non compete agreement)?
2. Access to young labor and startups due to CA's vibrant universities?
With the exception of Tesla, what I see is a bunch of companies like HP and Oracle that aren't known for their innovation ( and therefore don't need to surf for the newest ideas and talent) moving to cut costs without wasting too many brain cells.
To be fair, this is fine and maybe will even let CA adapt and lower taxes! But it's gonna take many many years before the next world-changing tech company is from Texas.
Density of the 4 players in your diagram is often attributed to the Valley's success. Groups like Capital Factory in TX are trying to create programs to tie the triangle of resources between Dallas, Houston, and Austin together to create a similar effect without the density (they call it the Texas Manifesto: https://austinstartups.com/the-texas-startup-manifesto-42f06f2a7075). Would love to see you write about if that could work
Francesco Nicoletti beat me to it. Austin has UT, but UT isn't up there were with Stanford and UC Berkeley, at least not yet. Austin also lacks something like Ames or Livermore Labs. This isn't a show stopper. Look at Seattle as a counterexample. Historically, innovation centers have required smart people, but also something to push the technology. That something is usually some branch of the government pushing the envelope.
A more realistic view is that the technologies created by Silicon Valley have been played out like those of Dayton, northern NJ, Boston, South Bend, Pittsburgh and elsewhere. Just as corporations left NYC in the 1960s and 1970s, opening HQ in Armonk and Purchase, they are "fluffing out" and turning into mature, or perhaps senescent, industries.
One often sees an innovative company stop innovating, and one of the markers is moving its HQ. Look at Boeing leaving Seattle then losing its mojo with MBA driven 787 screw up and more recently the 737 MAX failures. Look at Bell Labs and IBM leaving NYC and moving to the innovation sidelines. This isn't the end of engineering or making money, but it is an acknowledgement that the world changing is over.
Musk is basically saying that Tesla has done its space shot. It's a mature company, and while it will continue to improve its electric cars, its wildcatting days are over. It's about maximizing its profits now. Ellison is making a similar admission. We'll be seeing a lot more of this. There seem to be two types of successful startups these days. There are the ones bought out before any IPO, and there are the ones that build a business by using massive spending to clear competitors from the market before their IPO.
Are not the other two things required for a tech cluster , early military spending and good research Universities ? The military spending provides the seed money for a lot of high risk/ high return ventures and the universities provide the tools to create new solutions.
I have never been to Austin Texas. I had been to El Paso on a business trip with the military department. My knowledge about Texas is very limited. However, as a software developer from Boston, there is no way I would relocate to places like Texas. It is the culture that keeps me in the Northeast. Everyone around me are interesting and have so much to offer and to learn from. The Massachusetts state government is not like Greg Abbot and Dan Patrick to sacrifice the vulnerable for the economy. My state has policy to protect its residents in health care, education, labor laws and social justice. The population in Massachusetts are very educated, and you find talking to your neighbors and colleagues is a rewarding intellectual experience. I could never imagine myself talking to a bunch of low information people who lacks critical thinking skills, who has never see the world but MAGA. Yes, I sound like coastal elite, oh well. BTW, isn’t Texas planning secession from the union?
If you move to Texas don't try to turn it into CA. We don't like CA or it's stupid rules. Tejas is not CA. Let's keep it that way. Or else well have to get out the big guns and run you idiots out of town.
How’s the surfing there? Mountaineering?
Other than taxation policy, I'm a little baffled what Texas has going for it. It's not as screwed as the Southwest as global warming happens, but it's miserably hot in the summer. And it doesn't seem like the kind of area that can support that much population growth long-term, in terms of water.
In general I'm really baffled at any growth happening in areas that seem patently water constrained 10-30 years out. Just seems like a not great investment. Particularly if a person/company is already fleeing the Bay Area b/c they don't see themselves as having a long-term future there.
I've been to both Houston and San Antonio, but sadly couldn't bring to Austin. I loved both but San Antonio is the more "hip" place.
What about a High-speed train to connect those three cities, making it easy for people to live in Austin or Houston for business and travel to San Antonio for fun on the weekend?
I was amazed by seeing the hospital "cluster" in shouthern Houston. Would it be realistic for Houston to become a hub for medical technology in the future?
Despite having not great public transit (Houston did approve a massive transit millage, but still sprawls), Austin does have an excellent bike culture. I'm not sure if it's enough to make up for the lack of public transit, but I feel like as biking becomes more normalized and e-biking really takes off (mitigating for the sweatiness of analog biking), more of the tech crowd will favor bike infrastructure in lieu of public transit.
In theory, excellent bike infrastructure and culture would allow Tech People to not own cars (or minimize driving) and deliver better flexibility over shorter distances than public transit, which seems to be the biggest frustration with it. However, cycling commuting rates are still pretty low across the board so we have a far way to go.