Is There a Mass Exodus of Former Silicon Valley Tech Companies From Austin, Texas? (mysanantonio.com) 228
"Over the years, Austin has seen a huge migration of tech companies moving to the city, from billionaire owners of Twitter (X) to the largest search engine in the world," according to a local news site in Texas.
"But many startups are now choosing to leave the capital city they once flocked to because of the rising cost of living, low funding, and lack of diversity, according to TechCrunch. " On Thursday, December 7, the cloud computing company VMWare announced it was laying off 577 employees in Austin as part of a nationwide job reduction to cut costs, according to the Austin American-Statesman. TechCrunch is reporting that startup founders, like Techstars Managing Director Amos Schwartzfarb, are announcing their decisions to leave Austin's "lackluster" startup scene... In 2022, Meta abandoned plans to move into the biggest skyscraper in Austin, and Google froze plans to move into 35 floors of a different downtown building, despite paying rent to the developer, according to the Washington Post...
In January, CEO Don Ward of Laundris, a B2B enterprise industrial software platform, announced he would be relocating his company to Tulsa because it reminded him "of where Austin was 10 years ago in terms of the tech ecosystem being built," according to Tulsa World. Last month, startup unicorn Cart, an e-commerce business, announced it was moving its headquarters back to Houston after relocating to Austin in late 2021, according to TechCrunch.
"But many startups are now choosing to leave the capital city they once flocked to because of the rising cost of living, low funding, and lack of diversity, according to TechCrunch. " On Thursday, December 7, the cloud computing company VMWare announced it was laying off 577 employees in Austin as part of a nationwide job reduction to cut costs, according to the Austin American-Statesman. TechCrunch is reporting that startup founders, like Techstars Managing Director Amos Schwartzfarb, are announcing their decisions to leave Austin's "lackluster" startup scene... In 2022, Meta abandoned plans to move into the biggest skyscraper in Austin, and Google froze plans to move into 35 floors of a different downtown building, despite paying rent to the developer, according to the Washington Post...
In January, CEO Don Ward of Laundris, a B2B enterprise industrial software platform, announced he would be relocating his company to Tulsa because it reminded him "of where Austin was 10 years ago in terms of the tech ecosystem being built," according to Tulsa World. Last month, startup unicorn Cart, an e-commerce business, announced it was moving its headquarters back to Houston after relocating to Austin in late 2021, according to TechCrunch.
The guys from STH/ServeTheHome also moved (Score:2)
At least they temporarily had a studio in Austin, and now have moved back to SV if not mistaken. At least it's what I got from their recent youtube channel
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At least they temporarily had a studio in Austin, and now have moved back to SV if not mistaken. At least it's what I got from their recent youtube channel
They moved the studio operation to some place in northern Arizona after PK got married (or because he got married?).
Re:The guys from STH/ServeTheHome also moved (Score:5, Insightful)
To a Nazi, every moderate is a Commie, to a Commie, every moderate is a Nazi.
It's all a matter of perspective.
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To a Nazi, everyone left of Hitler is a commie.
That's pretty much what I said.
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It's possible to be both a Nazi and a commie.
Ernst Rohm [wikipedia.org]
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Röhm was a very special case who had very different reasons for what he did.
A more curious case would be the Strassers [wikipedia.org].
yogi Berra (Score:2)
"Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded"
The Times They Are A-Changing (Score:5, Interesting)
Geographical location is losing it's appeal. While lots of tech companies still work towards colocation as the norm, those that have embraced remote work should have exactly one guiding principle - go where the cost burden is lowest.
Seek the lowest taxes, abandon owning "towers" and campuses in favor of a small handful of meeting rooms with whiteboards, and don't worry about branding property.
Under that paradigm, lots of cities and building owners are... screwed.
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Or how about the one whose AG is suing to get an injunction because a woman wants an abortion on a non-viable fetus with genetic disorder who probably will not make it beyond 3-4 days of life after birth, and where carrying it term endangers said woman? Said AG even went as far as to tell any doctor who even thinks about doing it to save her life will be sent to jail.
Th
Re:The Times They Are A-Changing (Score:5, Interesting)
But people who fall for that sales pitch find out that it comes with a hefty price -- shitty schools, shitty roads, and a government controlled by retarded rednecks.
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They have been buying companies, rasing prices, removing good workers for years, only to resell the company after all value has been extracted in
Re: The Times They Are A-Changing (Score:3)
Sublet to whom? Most commercial leases are around 5 years. Corporate real estate has already had record numbers of lessees not renewing and it will continue for the next couple years. It's not that they're not smart enough to pull out, they just haven't had an opportunity yet.
Re: The Times They Are A-Changing (Score:2, Informative)
This is exactly what I experienced moving to California. But while I wouldn't call them rednecks, they're still pretty fucking retarded. Rednecks are at least entertaining.
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Not too mention extreme weather, including 40C heat, and an unstable electricity supply.
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I saw this coming, and it's going to get worse. Texas attracts businesses with promises of "low taxes" and "business friendly" government.
But people who fall for that sales pitch find out that it comes with a hefty price -- shitty schools, shitty roads, and a government controlled by retarded rednecks.
Yep, even though Texan cities tend to be decent (rural Texas really drags down the average), the batshit insane Texas government is putting a lot of companies off.
The problem with trying to steal companies off other states using low taxes and low costs as a bribe are two fold. 1. low costs can't be sustained unless you're seriously subsidising them, as a place becomes popular it's inevitable that costs will rise, property values go up, more infrastructure is required which adds to higher costs, this lead
Re:The Times They Are A-Changing (Score:4, Insightful)
I have only ever visited Austin, but have done so many times. The roads there seem top notch to me.
The reality is roads in any southern state are going to be fantastic compared to those in the northeast due to the lack of winter.
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fantastic compared to those in the northeast due to the lack of winter.
What were all those Texas ice storms I saw on the news? Blackouts, snow cover, and people freezing to death.
I'm Australian so no more expert than a Californian, but what qualifies as winter over there?
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It was a very RARE occurrence that happened one year....geez, they're fixing things, it isn't like this is something that happens every year.
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The problem with Texas for corporations is that it's not a cheaper place to live for their employees any more, so they won't get a break on salaries like they used to.
When I lived there over 20 years ago it was still a bargain — houses were cheaper to buy, rents were much lower (like literally one third what they would be here in California) and so people would work for a lower salary. But now the property values have risen so the rents and property taxes are just as bad as in California, so that's no
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Yeah if the employees are miserable due to quality of life - I mean.. at this point in time, I know very few LGBTQIA+ folks who would willingly relocate to Texas and I have to think the states record for diversity and equity and inclusion would not really impress BIPOC either ..
So if your company is trying to attract the best talent and values diversity, Texas is maybe not a great choice?
I would quit my job on the spot if told I had to relocate to TX.
Income Tax paid by Apple (Score:5, Informative)
Apple annual/quarterly USA income taxes history and growth rate from 2010 to 2023. Income taxes can be defined as the total amount of income tax expense for the given period.
Apple income taxes for the quarter ending September 30, 2023 were $4.042B, a 2.69% increase year-over-year.
Apple income taxes for the twelve months ending September 30, 2023 were $16.741B, a 13.26% decline year-over-year.
Apple annual income taxes for 2023 were $16.741B, a 13.26% decline from 2022.
Apple annual income taxes for 2022 were $19.3B, a 32.86% increase from 2021.
Apple annual income taxes for 2021 were $14.527B, a 50.07% increase from 2020.
- https://www.macrotrends.net/st... [macrotrends.net]
Apple likely should pay more, but they have paid over $35 billion in corporate income taxes over the past three years, plus billions of dollars more in property tax, payroll tax, sales tax and VAT.
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Apple has never paid any tax in the US. So moving to Austin for tax purposes makes no sense.
Even if you believed that first sentence (which someone else has rightly corrected you on to the tune of $35B in the last three years alone), the fact that Apple both has a presence in Austin and has been expanding their presence in Austin should have given you pause before making your woefully incorrect claims.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom... [apple.com]
https://appleinsider.com/artic... [appleinsider.com]
To summarize, Apple has multiple campuses in Austin. They employed 7000 as of 4 years ago (roughly 7% of their US workforce at the ti
Sunk Cost Fallacy (Score:2)
Apple is pragmatic. If the value of maintaining something forward drops below the cost to keep it, how much they have already invested is of little concern. Business finance 101.
Re: The Times They Are A-Changing (Score:2, Insightful)
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I do it all day every work day across 2-3 continents. One has to be organized and focused. And not prone to whinging.
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"Trying to whiteboard a solution across three continents and a dozen time zones is a failure."
People were already doing that when working in an office. Why would that be any harder in general when working form home.
Remember, the common element in all of your failed relationships is you.
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"Except we are learning that remote work fails when it comes to creativity; collaboration; and spontaneity."
Furries manage to do creative and collaborative and spontaneous work daily, why are the rest of you such failures?
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I think what will happen is those tech firms that moved to Texas will move to other metro regions like Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio and Houston. In short, it won't be concentrated around Austin anymore.
Re: The Times They Are A-Changing (Score:2)
Nope. The whole value prop for Austin was to be in a startup hub. It was the best option in TX. Every goddamn city wants to be San Francisco, but none of them ever try to figure out why companies still flock to a high tax, expensive area. They hire accountants and pencil pushers to calculate how they're going to build the Next Big Startup Hub. And they all fail to pan out.
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Exactly how many tech startups are subjected to "political related violence"?
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Diversity is a cult (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Diversity is a cult (Score:4, Informative)
Diversity is not a contributor to success and McKinsey had to largely fabricate a study for political purposes.
Huh. And to think McKinsey has been reporting on the benefits of diversity [mckinsey.com] since 2015. Apparently McKinsey is able to time travel to produce their reports.
Either that or they keep producing reports [mckinsey.com] which find the same thing over and over [mckinsey.com]: companies who have a more diverse workforce are more profitable and successful overall than their less diverse peers.
Then again, it's not as if other studies [nbs.net] show the same thing, or that more recent study results also say the same thing [forbes.com]. If you don't like those studies, maybe try one from Gartner: [gartner.com]
Through 2022, 75% of organizations with frontline decision-making teams reflecting a diverse and inclusive culture will exceed their financial targets. And gender-diverse and inclusive teams outperformed gender-homogeneous, less inclusive teams by 50%, on average.
But who knows. Maybe McKinsey did pull something out of their ass eight years ago and just now put it into words for us to read.
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But who knows. Maybe McKinsey did pull something out of their ass eight years ago and just now put it into words for us to read.
Um, yeah, because there was no diversity cult eight years ago of course ... that's just crazy talk.
Re: Diversity is a cult (Score:4, Informative)
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Sorry but McKiney's studies are proven garbage. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/p... [ssrn.com] ||| McKinsey is behind leadership trainings that explicitly discriminate against white people. https://voz.us/best-buy-discri... [voz.us]
When an article starts with the phrase Journalist James O'Keefe revealed you should probably just close the browser tab and do something healthier for your brain like bang your head against a brick wall.
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Commercial purposes. McKinsey has a very profitable business advising on DEI strategies.
Re: Diversity is a cult (Score:2)
U.S. already does this for people moving out of the country.
Re: Diversity is a cult (Score:2)
California got the idea from the federal government, not the other way around.
It's not unreasonable to claw taxes from someone who built their wealth in your lands, but then tries to transfer all that wealth elsewhere when it comes time to pay their taxes.
Like the U.S., much of California's wealth is generated in unrealized gains from stock in companies built locally upon the services and infrastructure provided by the state. Why do you think it's fair to setup a wildly successful business environment only
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Too Fucking Hot. (Score:4, Funny)
A couple of years of Texas summers will send the weak packing. It's as simple as that.
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All the boring ones are moving to Raleigh (Score:2)
And the cool ones are moving to OK?
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But at least around the Austin area, you have some of the best BBQ in the entire world....
Who would have guessed SV turncoats.... (Score:5, Interesting)
There's more to life than living expenses and taxes. Elon Musk may not be bright enough to realize this...same with many of these other companies...then they move to a red state, realize they're not saving as much money as they thought they would and they're missing out on the many good things about Silicon Valley. OK, you're not in the Valley, your tax bill is lower...but who would have guessed that you've moved from one of the most expensive real estate markets to just another expensive real estate market with faster growth and things are expensive there too!!...now you have to deal with Republican governors and the Texas talent pool. Austin has a great talent pool...but nothing compared to SV.
Plus now with the stupid war on abortion, anyone with working ovaries under 35 wants to get the fuck out of dodge. So yeah, you lure in engineers with a good job and they relocate a few years after they get married. Plus you have to deal with the mess that is the Texas educational system.
No matter how "business-friendly" Texas wants to portray themselves, outlawing abortion is VERY alienating, especially for young people...liberal and conservative. Even if the guys don't care, their wives do...and then wait until they have teenage daughters and an unplanned pregnancy can hit their family. Texas built up a great upstart competitor to SV with Austin...then shot themselves in the foot with abortion bans. Also, their constant revisionist educational battles are a huge issue.
If you want to appeal to the middle class, you dont have to go mega-progressive...but you can't be idiotic with abortion and education. I can picture a lot of people starting out in Austin, enjoying the BBQ...then realizing eventually, the shit in the news matters. Their wives have to contend with the fact that abortion is essentially banned. They have to contend with the circus that is the Texas educational system. Austin may be cheaper than SV...but not enough to make up for that nonsense for most families. I am sure many families had a fun adventure, but once the novelty wore off, it sunk in that they're in the middle of Texas and Texas' problems are now their problems. Elon Musk no doubt sends his kids to private schools and can easily afford to shuttle his mistresses to states with reasonable abortion laws...so he has no skin the game, but for his employees?...a lot are simply not going to like living in Texas. Some will LOVE it! Many will absolutely hate it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a masshole. We're not talking about my home.. I've been to SF and SV and they're nice places, not for me...but not the hellscape right-wingers portray them as. However, it's foolish to think that a "cool" city with a good tech scene can go toe-to-toe with the very best tech city in all of history. I love my city...but I begrudgingly admit, we can't compete with SV. Our talent pool can't match theirs, despite being near MIT. All the subtle tech services are lacking....financing is lacking...networking opportunities are lacking.
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Re:Who would have guessed SV turncoats.... (Score:5, Informative)
You're forgetting the shaky Texas power grid.
Thanks to the unpredictable production from GREEN energy sources like solar & wind.
No, it's thanks to decades of deregulation. It isn't green energy that typically fails in Texas whenever it gets cold. It's their natural gas pumping and turbines [texastribune.org].
Texas built their own grid because they didn't want to be subject to the sorts of regulations that govern power production on the other regional grids. They thought they knew better. They thought that winterizing their power production wasn't necessary. By avoiding those regulations, they could reduce the cost of building power plants and provide power cheaper. It worked... until it didn't.
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California has had recent rolling brownouts due to demand as well. Only mentioning it since regardless of the situation in Texas, California seems like it has similar issues...
Re: Who would have guessed SV turncoats.... (Score:5, Informative)
Callfornia has worse issues. A section of Texas had 1 outage as windmills stopped turning and the peaker plants were frozen or had been offline and physically unreachable due to weather and people are still talking about it. California plans rolling brownouts a year in advance. Most of Texas still had power, especially those powered by nuclear and regular gas plants, only the areas serviced by green subsidied power had issues.
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"Most of Texas still had power"
Hi, Native Texan here with family across the entirety of the state.
BULLSHIT. Nobody had power for a while because the grid had to get shut down to avoid catastrophic cascading failure.
Back to your regularly-scheduled program.
Re: Who would have guessed SV turncoats.... (Score:4, Informative)
Most of Texas still had power, especially those powered by nuclear and regular gas plants, only the areas serviced by green subsidied power had issues.
That is a bold faced lie to anyone who lived in Texas. I can assure you anyone who had solar panels still had power as the it was the low temperature that caused many of the problems. Gas failed because moving metal parts do not like low temperatures for obvious reasons. Wind turbines also failed for the same reason. Those few plants that were able to keep functioning were thrown offline as the grid failed.
Why did no one see this coming? In fact, people did. Ten years before the grid almost failed due to the same conditions. In the report of that near collapse, there were multiple recommendations to winterize plants. Texas however prides itself on deregulation so they were only recommendations until disaster hit.
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California has had recent rolling brownouts due to demand as well.
California has had recent rolling blackouts primarily because of fire danger. PG&E caused too many forest fires because of their high tension lines banging against the towers and shooting sparks, so they started shutting down the lines in certain places during periods of high winds.
I think there *might* have been a couple of rolling blackouts recently that were caused by simply not having enough capacity to handle record high temperatures in such a large portion of the state, and the only way to solve
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Re:Who would have guessed SV turncoats.... (Score:5, Insightful)
This reminds me that I'd said for years that actually being able or banning abortion would be a "dog catches car" moment for the republican party. As long as RvW stood, they could be as pro-life as they wanted to catch the rabid-prolifers, their money and their votes.
But now that they've caught the car, they're finding out that most of their voters are actually semi-pro choice.
What I mean by this is that, in my opinion, pro-life and pro-choice is actually a spectrum. You have loud ranters on either side, but most people are actually in the middle.
So you can actually have two people - a republican who describes themselves as pro-life, and a democrat that says they're pro-choice. But when you start proposing actual rules, well, the republican would support so many exceptions like incest, rape, health, too young, too old, can't afford, and more while the democrat would support so many "minor restrictions" like partial birth, too far along, no real good reason, don't treat abortion like birth control, etc... That they end up in the same spot.
That's what the republicans are seeing right now - that most of their supporters actually WANT abortion legal and is why despite electing a bunch of extreme pro-lifers, conservative states are having abortion protections put into their constitutions.
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Given that according to the article, the companies mentioned leaving Austin were destined for other locations in Texas such as Houston, or other conservative states such as Oklahoma, I am skeptical of your conclusion.
Perhaps they find Austin too progressive.
Ask their wives (Score:5, Insightful)
You are overestimating the importance of abortion bans. Most software engineers grew up as geeks. They were not having sex and getting pregnant in high school so they have little empathy for people who cant figure out how to use a condom. If you can write code you can use contraceptives. Believe me if you are making a 6 figure tech salary you can buy a 100 dollar ticket to fly to another state for an abortion.
Makes rational sense to a man. Ask your female friends in relationships who are in reproductive ages....I bet you'll get a slightly difference answer. Even conservative women in their 20s and 30s are a bit nervous about abortion. You're welcome to agree or disagree, but many women view abortion bans as anti-women. The majority of abortions are performed on moms with kids who can't afford another one...not the harlots my youth pastor warned me about as a child.
Look at it this way. You're a good engineer with well over a 6 figure income...if you're willing to move to Texas, why not SV? Why not NYC? Why not Seattle? Why not DC? Why not Boston? Raleigh? London? If you're not from Texas and can work anywhere...well, Austin is competing with every other city. Shit like abortion and education missteps matter. Also, if the people who want to impose draconian anti-abortion legislation and tell you that slavery was no big deal are running your government, what other fuckups are they making?...like how about that power grid? What other mistakes are they making that don't show up on the news?
I have worked in the tech industry all my life. I don't know a single good man who is unmarried. I get asked all the time if I can introduce friends to good single men and I can't. Any man I know in tech, who isn't a piece of shit, is (from what I can tell) happily married. Certainly any engineer you want to hire is. Women latch on to stable men who are smart and good earners...even if they're nerdy. So the men are not the only ones making the decision on where to live. They are thinking of their wives and their children as well.
Also, use a condom? Hmmm, if that's your thought, I wonder if you've ever been in a long-term relationship. Condoms are for dating. Not many couples stick with condoms as they get comfortable in a relationship. If you like each other, you have sex so often, you're constantly running out and it's far from convenient.
Most rely on the women taking birth control...and my wife and I had an abortion once when we were first married...she was on the pill...she had minor surgery and her doctor forgot to tell her the antibiotics she was prescribed negate birth control. Birth control fails for all sorts of reasons...even condoms fail (I've had a few break on me). Many people with accidental pregnancies are not irresponsible, so I would cut the judgmental tone. It makes you sound like someone with little experience in loving relationships. If you're fucking a woman who CAN get pregnant, sooner or later you'll have a pregnancy scare, if not an unplanned pregnancy. It can happen to you!
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As to why you would move to Austin? You can afford 3-4 times the house for the same money. Also the pace of life is slower than the Bay Area. As your children get to school age and start being fun to spend time with , you want a s
Texas is prosposing travel bans (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes it can happen to responsible folks but you didnt read the second part of my argument. People making 100K can afford to fly to California for a day to get an abortion. They also have sick leave and PTO. Abortion ban affects poor people who cant afford to fly or take days off. As to why you would move to Austin? You can afford 3-4 times the house for the same money. Also the pace of life is slower than the Bay Area. As your children get to school age and start being fun to spend time with , you want a slower pace of life instead of the perpetual crunch culture of the Valley. As to schools, for the money you save on housing and income taxes, you can afford private schools. BTW the best thing for married couples who are done with their reproduction is to get a vasectomy. Yes those fail too but the failure rates are way lower than the pill.
Hmm...you haven't seen Austin prices lately. It's not as affordable as it used to be. There is a huge tech world beyond the Bay Area and Austin is rapidly rising in prices. If you can go there, why not go someplace else?
Regarding abortion tourism? Many TEXAS legislators are proposing making that a crime. Abortion was a great wedge issue and the GOP is VERY nervous now that it's overturned...some voters who reflexively voted GOP because of abortion will now be asking "what have you done for me lately?"...similarly to how the gay community is less married to the DNC than they used to be. Now every other candidate in the primary is trying to outdo themselves in how draconian and idiotically they can go after abortion to appease the elderly and religious. So today you can travel to get an abortion...so long as you're not in a few Texas counties and their laws don't get overturned in the courts...which have been stacked by conservatives.
You view this as "no big deal". Most women don't. Doesn't matter who is right or wrong. Young women, especially those who are from or married men in California, are not as bullish on Texas as you are.
Vasectomy? Yes, you're right. I got one myself....at 45. But my wife and I were married 20 years before then. I suggested it early, but my wife wanted me to hold off..just in case one of our kids didn't make it. So that's 20 years in which we could have had our lives drastically changed by Texas' biggest idiots had we lived there with their current and proposed laws. Regardless, I don't appreciate my reproductive choices being set by the religious right. I don't want to have to get a vasectomy sooner than I would normally have just because Texas is run by the religious right. My wife and I want to choose what makes sense for us and if we were 15 years younger, we'd never want another abortion, we'd certainly resent having the option taken away in case of the unexpected.
I'm no longer the prime target anyway for most companies. Companies really want engineers between 27 and 32...the prime engineer age and the folks most likely impacted by Texas stupidity. Abortion bans become theoretical if you're over 50. If you're in your 20s, they're a huge concern.
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Abortion bans are not theoretical if you're over 50, if you have daughters.
Re:Ask their wives (Score:4, Informative)
There's a law in Texas allowing private citizens to sue someone who goes out of state for an abortion, and also sue anyone who assists them, so theoretically even your Uber driver who took you to the airport.
And when you read about the fucking punitive and mean-spirited cases like that of Kate Cox [www.cbc.ca] and Salia Issa [texastribune.org], you realize this whole "sanctity of life" posture is total bullshit and the GOP is just hell-bent on controlling people and bending them to their sick and twisted Christian fundamentalist way of life.
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The fact is abortion access is not a bigger issue than cheaper real estate when deciding where to live. Especially for people who can afford to take vacations.
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Those laws will not stand up to legal scrutiny. Freedom of movement is guaranteed by the Interstate Commerce clause of the Constitution. None have actually passed.
It's been interpreted that way in the past, but it's not explicitly guaranteed in the Interstate Commerce clause, So, do you trust this Supreme Court not to decide that it doesn't cover travel for abortions? To get to another state, you have to travel within a state.
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Believe me if you are making a 6 figure tech salary you can buy a 100 dollar ticket to fly to another state for an abortion.
The next step for those regressive states is to make traveling to another state for an abortion illegal or difficult. Probably unconstitutional, but how long will it be before that is clearly established. Also, with the current Supreme Court, nothing is certain.
Have sex more and you'll figure it out... (Score:5, Interesting)
So women smart enough to work in tech are still too stupid to use birth control?
I'm not following the argument here.
Birth control fails. Happy people with healthy sex lives have sex a LOT. Pre-kids, my wife and I were fucking 6 days a week even into our mid 30s. For us, it was an antibiotic prescribed and her doctor forgetting to tell her that it makes the pill ineffective....for my buddy, his gf got an abortion because she puked up her pill and forgot about it. For others, they didn't even do anything wrong...the BC just failed. Talk to more women. Most know someone who had a situation where a friend allegedly did everything right, something went wrong, and they needed an abortion. You can debate the numbers, but most women are far less confident than you are that they'll never ever ever need an abortion.
Also, you're talking about women employed in the tech sector...what about the wives of the men employed there?
Draconian abortion restrictions? Most young women don't like it....they have their reasons...talk to them, but this anti-abortion shit is VERY unpopular, especially among women, including Republicans. It polls poorly. It galvanizes opposition. Remember, many of these states are proposing laws making travel to abortion a crime...so you're not as safe as you think you are.
Regardless of the reason, many families move someplace for one person's job and the other spouse ends up hating it. For my household, it was because my wife was too far from her family. For others, it could be the daily living of being in a red state as well as far from your family and friends. It could be the educational prospects for their kids.
There's more to life than your job and house prices. Many men would happily relocate to a place as shitty as North Dakota for a massive pay raise and cheap house...but their wives or kids would hate it. Make your state unfriendly to reproductive-aged women and a terrible place to raise children and many will move there, enjoy the novelty and BBQ and eventually wake up and realize that they made a mistake, especially once their kids are school-aged.
Finally, consider that there's nothing unique about Austin. If you're valued in Austin, you're valued in SV, Seattle, Boston, Raleigh, LA, NYC, and even non-tech cities. The choice isn't good job in Austin or shitty job anywhere else...it's good job in Austin and equally good jobs EVERYWHERE else in the world, including telework jobs. There's a huge world beyond SV and Austin and they're looking for engineers too. With a greater demand than supply of good engineers, jobs are competing with each other and location is a very important factor in the competition. Austin is competing on the world stage...and stupid abortion and education laws don't look good in the eyes of many of the people they're competing for.
Re: Who would have guessed SV turncoats.... (Score:2)
People thought that the right to abortion was here to stay, then some states made it illegal. Are you confident that these same states won't make birth control illegal in the coming years? If yes, based on what?
Texas is not a good state for women (Score:5, Informative)
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I intended what now?
Better Data Needed! (Score:2)
There are always companies moving into an urban area while other companies are moving out. So to make any definitive statements you get to get the statistics of how many companies and employees are moving in and how many companies and employees are moving out.
But Tulsa? (Score:2)
Re: But Tulsa? (Score:2)
Tulsa has already been overrun with the hundreds of millions of people fleeing California! The new destination is Tupelo, MS : even redder necks than Tulsaâ¦
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Austin is gridlocked (Score:2)
Austin has nowhere near the road infrastructure to handle all the incoming population. A 20 mile radius around downtown is completely packed with cars for much of the day. Everything anyone liked about the city has been wiped out by this influx of people and tech money.
It's the politics (Score:2, Troll)
University educated, wealthy, upper middle class software engineers are probably not all that enthusiastic about raising their teenage daughters in A Handmaid's Tale. They likely aren't super enthused about Ted Cruz being their Senator and an economy and ecosystem where fossil fuel companies are allowed to run wild. Combine that with the cost of living in Austin starting to rival the west coast, chasing pretty much everyone else out of Austin and stripping it of its culture and there's not a lot of reason
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In other words ... (Score:2)
In January, CEO Don Ward of Laundris, a B2B enterprise industrial software platform, announced he would be relocating his company to Tulsa because it reminded him "of where Austin was 10 years ago in terms of the tech ecosystem being built," according to Tulsa World.
In other words, the whole point is that there is no magic location for tech.
That Austin isn't (or isn't staying) "the new SV" is only surprising to people who didn't get the point in the first place.
Wherever they go this time will be a repeat. (Score:2)
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This sounds like both the Sundance episode of South Park and the Fred Armisen "hipsters come to Springfield" episode of The Simpsons.
Robert Redford: This is perfect. Why didn't we think of it sooner? This town still has some charm left, not the mess we turned Park City into.
Phyllis: Forgive me for being observant, but, won't we just end up doing the same thing to this town?
Robert Redford: Yes. And the town after, and the town after that. Like termites, we will move this film festival from town to town until
Excellent actually. (Score:2)
Go home. You'll be happier, we'll be happier. It's really a win-win for everyone. First person to find a way to get Texas back to around 17 million people is my hero.
Sigh (Score:2)
Lack of diversity? (Score:2)
Is this just the latest buzzword to use as an excuse for a business making a change they fear will be unpopular?
I haven't spent a lot of time in Austin, but I was down there just a few years ago on a business trip, and the area felt pretty darn diverse to me. The hotel I stayed in was even hiring people from so many different parts of the world, they had a policy of each employee having their country of origin on their badge, just below their name.
Austin drew a large crowd of artsy types, whether it was mus
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Re: Plus... (Score:2)
Is everything AND everybody in Texas called "Travis"?!
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A place devoid of any real physical beauty or natural resources.
You've either never been to Texas/Austin area, or you're just intentionally full of shit. I'm not saying it is as nice as the most beautiful parts of California, but to say its completely devoid is just obvious bullshit.
Re: Smart people don't want to live in stupid stat (Score:3)
Ok but have you tried the barbecue there?
Re:Roads Should be Private (Score:2)
Or because your product has entered maintenance mode and so you no longer need innovators, you just need people to keep it working as designed.
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"Texas can do well on its own without people pushing their California idiocy"
Once Texas stops trying to export its bullshit brand of 'education' to the rest of the country, maybe you can talk shit about California.
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If that is the case, can you get Cali to take back its rude, haughty, and shallow masses out of Texas?
Going by your post it seems like they were already there before Californians showed up.
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5: The airport is a mess, which has not been expanded since 2000, with zero plans of expansion.
Um what? So I imagined the new parts of the airport as well the new West Gate [austintexas.gov] construction? I am highly suspicious of all your point if you are so willing to lie about factual matters like airport expansions.