Austin sees mass exodus of ex-Silicon Valley tech companies, here's why | Hacker News Reader

Austin sees mass exodus of ex-Silicon Valley tech companies, here's why

mysanantonio.com

20 pointsDogOfTheGaps55 comments

To save you a click on this ad-infested website: It does cite a TechCrunch article: https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/07/is-the-texas-boom-town-of-...

The reason is "the rising cost of living, low funding, and lack of diversity".

I'm an experienced product designer with 25+ years of experience. I've been doing a job search across the US.

I have three kids, two girls.

I will never take them to a place like Texas. It is anathema to my core values as a person and as a parent.

I'm shocked that a place like Texas became a draw for tech companies at all.

And there must be people who feel exactly the opposite.

As long as there are options then we can all be happy. I guess.

> As long as there are options then we can all be happy. I guess.

Oppressing others is really not about options. It's one thing to live your life according to your own beliefs and principles, but it's an entirely different thing to feel entitled to selectively impose them onto everyone around you.

>It is anathema to my core values as a person and as a parent.

What does it mean? (Im not from US)

They likely believe that the more conservative political atmosphere in Texas is an unsuitable place to raise children, especially young girls.

Isn't Austin a very left-leaning city? Though, to be fair, the people I know in Austin are deeply conservative Texas natives who hate the new atmosphere...

Edit: I'm missing the point, they said Texas, not Austin.

They're all left-leaning cities, but the Gerrymandering is strong in Austin, which divides it into four Congressional districts: the 10th, 21st, 25th and 35th.

I don't understand

How things can differ so hard that you decide that place is unsuitable to raise children?

In the US, states are afforded a lot of leeway to differ legally from each other.

The rights and restrictions you see in one state can differ wildly from the next. This allows for drastically different cultures to pop up.

There is still a lot of shared US culture despite this.

Just a guess:

Texas Supreme Court Temporarily Halts Court-Approved Abortion https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/us/texas-abortion-court-k...

As an observer from afar it seems like the US is sorting itself into different places with different core values, so presumably whichever group finds your values anathema to theirs likes it there.

As an outside observer who is a little closer to it I think that's not really the dynamic. The states that are deeply conservative have a significant minority who are not conservative. The spread of conservative and liberal views also seems much much wider than you'd think - i.e. many conservative republican voters I've met seem to have little interest in LGBT issues at all or are supportive. They're fiscally conservative. And many people who are otherwise liberal do want to see less immigration.

Why? I'm not American at all, but have a friend who moved there for a job (with wife, and a daughter), and he seems to be doing fine with everything except climate

Until his daughter marries and has children. If something goes wrong, they'll let her daughter die before they give medical aid. If she goes somewhere else to get medical aid, they'll jail her on her return.

That's the concern.

This is exactly it. Doesn't matter how liberal or "hip" Austin is. It's the state-level that's bad.

I have two daughters child-bearing age, and I live in Wisconsin. Same issue. Thankfully one has moved to Oregon. The other is still here. She is on birth control, but is taking a risk as there is a family history of difficult pregnancies.

You're talking about abortion then? My friend is a Catholic, so I'm not sure he approves abortions anyway. Also, are you sure your statement is not exaggerated? IANAL, but superficial googling shows that preserving life, and bodily functions impairment is under exemptions.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/24/texas-abortion-law-a...

But in any case, this looks like a very activist thing. In general economy always beats this kind of argument. Objectively, there are no cases where workforce migration happened to an abortion-approving areas with less opportunities.

The 'exemptions' are playing out like this in a case:

https://apnews.com/article/texas-abortion-ban-supreme-court-...

Earlier:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/pregnant-texas-woman-says-...

Imagine being someone going through that, and then having to deal with this nonsense.

There it is, the conservative game, recast everything as their hot-button issue and claim you're their enemy and all wrong.

No, I meant health care. And I meant, jailed for seeking it.

Be as superficial as you like, if it helps you sleep at night. Some of us have real concerns at the extremism sweeping the country.

>Some of us have real concerns at the extremism sweeping the country.

The country under discussion has always had a large population opposed to abortion. Gradual changes to the Supreme Court have given that population more influence.

Redefined 'abortion' to mean something particular to a dogma. To score their imaginary points with their imaginary being. And to control women.

What does he not like about the climate? Is it too cold in winter?

Austin is not super conservative. It's actually pretty liberal.

Source: I live in austin

There have always been reactionary and libertarian streaks in Silicon Valley. Charismatic figures like Larry Ellison, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk embody different configurations along these dimensions.

I live in Texas.

The values exposed by our state government officials are often at odds with Texans generally - its particularly true for Urban Texans - but even with rural Texans there is a sizable disconnect (see the latest battle about school vouchers).

Don't get me wrong, a great many Texans believe in a certain 'good fences make good neighbors' kind of conservatism - even urban ones who are pretty socially liberal believe some flavor of this - its the overriding cultural value of the state.

The reasons government does not well reflect average Texans is because of some complex political factors - identity politics, single issue voters (abortion and guns) anti-partisanship, low voter turnout, and no citizens ballot initiatives. A majority of Texans are pro-weed legalization, pro-medicare expansion, and pro-choice.

In fact because of low voter turnout and anti-partisanship - the political destiny of the state is largely determined by the 10-12% of voters who show up to vote in the Republican primary - which unfortunately for us are the most extreme ~10% of the voter base. If 80% of Texans voted in every election, the state would be much more purple ideologically and politically - because thats the reality on the ground.

Will this change? I think so, I think when it does it'll change relatively rapidly - I just dont know when it's going to change.

What you are describing is a dynamic that has existed in Texas since the oil boom. I'm also from Texas, and this sort of dominance by a small group of old white men exists at all political levels of scale. It's a place run by "good ole boys" and always has been. Maybe it will change but the circles of power and influence here are very small and very closed to outsiders. It's not a culture that values democracy very highly at all.

And to the point the op made about not wanting to bring his girls here, what the majority believe is irrelevant as the laws are made by the small cabal of religious right-wing authoritarians.

I believe the runway for that is running out, for a couple of reasons. But I want to preface this with something, while rural Texas will remain Ruby Red no matter for the time being, but suburban voters - in particular suburban women, are needed to keep the party in control of statewide offices - without them, the math doesn't work.

Republicans continuing focus on restricting abortion rights - while Texans are culturally on the conservative side, the outright ban, followed by continuing inflexibility (more like unwavering support to the hard right evangelical base) on the issue, is damaging the party in the suburban areas it must carry to carry statewide office.

The Paxton impeachment trial fundamentally exposed the good ol' boy network in Austin - laid it bare to voters across the state. While this network pre-dates RPT control of the lege - I believe on some level it deprives the Republican Party of whatever moral authority it could (and did) claim - also, no matter how the Senate voted, if you watched the trial in depth, Paxton came off with at least a whiff of corruption about him - I believe this also damages the party among suburban voters.

Trump is another factor, and he's generally repellant to college educated suburban voters, particularly college educated suburban voters - also Trump on the ballot (and there is basically zero change he will not be) will juice Democratic turnout.

The final nail in the coffin is demographic change - this one to me is not quite as clear as some pundits think - but the youth are generally more liberal socially than their parents are - and further left economically no matter their social alignment - this also bodes to a sea change coming - and is part of what is driving the political realignment we're seeing - I just dont know the particulars yet, or how its going to shake out - but the realignment that is coming is on the scale of what happened when FDR or Reagan appeared on the scene - an upending of what came before. This event won't really finish until Trump dies - he's the only glue holding together a really.. unstable coalition of voters, until then, we wait.

In the end, I want to implore all Texans to vote and participate in politics, run for office, vote like your life depended on it, implore those around you to vote - not just at the general, but in the primaries too - the politics in the state are shit because not enough voters pick the candidates - which leads to shitty candidates, and then not enough people show up to vote in the general, which leads to those shitty candidates making it into office.

Texas is a great place, culturally, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest and most vibrant in the nation. We can make this a better place - change the status quo - no, better doesn't mean some 'progressive' paradise - but it need not be like this, we can have better and frankly we deserve better from our state government than this.

Why? I find living in Texas (Houston) to be quite lovely, despite disagreeing with the politics.

It's nice until it starts affecting you.

https://apnews.com/article/texas-abortion-ban-supreme-court-...

Better not get into that mess to begin with, if possible.

Yeah but that's true regardless of where you live.

Texas actively scares me. I hate it when I have to go there.

> 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.

That's not entirely accurate. Broadcom, VMware's new owner, is shuttering offices all over the country to consolidate with their existing office portfolio.

Headline states 'mass exodus', article names three known companies that never actually moved to Austin, then three unknown companies with no context of those companies' workforce or products.

Texas has problems, but this isn't journalism.

> Headline states 'mass exodus', article names three known companies that never actually moved to Austin (...)

I'm not sure which article you read, but the one linked to in this discussion mentions:

* VMWare laying off 577 employees in Austin,

* startup founders, like Techstars Managing Director Amos Schwartzfarb, announcing their decisions to leave Austin,

* Meta dropping plans to move to Austin,

* Google freezing plans to move to Austin, in spite of already paying rent.

* TikTok not establishing plans to move to Austin in spite of already leasing office space,

* Don Ward, the CEO of Laundris, announced he would be relocating his company to Tulsa,

* Cart announced it was moving its headquarters out of Austin back to Houston, after spending little over 2 years.

The article is solid journalism. It's a summary of individual news pieces which is tied together by observations from leaders of established companies over their decisions and economic forecasts.

Lack of diversity is stated but never mentioned again. Diversity of what is left to the readers interpretation. This reads like a hit piece rather than a genuine exploration of a real issue.

It’s paraphrasing from the Techcrunch source mentioned in other comments:

> The summers are brutal — 2023’s was the hottest on record with 78 days of triple-digit temperatures. The startup scene, some argue, is lackluster. And funding — especially for midsize companies — can be hard to come by. A perceived lack of diversity is also an issue.

TechCrunch has the same problem of never again referencing this perceived diversity issue. They don't make clear what kind of diversity, who perceives it as missing, or if the perceived lack of diversity matches reality.

Edit: ignore this! I didn't read the original TechCrunch article closely enough, it is mentioned later in the article as corrected in a following comment

No, that article goes on:

> "The cost of living, especially housing, has made it more challenging for middle-class professionals — especially people of color — to buy into the market, which hurts startups that have to compete with the Googles and Teslas for talent,” said Spearman, who is Black. “The monoculture speaks more to the income disparity that is pricing out musicians, artists and hospitality workers who are so essential to the creative culture that makes Austin a great market for startup founders in the first place"

Oh thank you for this, I skimmed the related TechCrunch article and must have missed this, and a search for "diversity" only hit on the original mention.

I stand corrected!

This is just an anecdote, not a meaningful statement. Housing has gotten expensive everywhere in the past few years.

From 2010 to 2020, the latino population grew by 35%, the black population grew by 26% and the asian population grew by 96%.

https://www.austinchamber.com/economic-development/austin-pr...

Thanks I just meant that the article did address it.

The ad for Austin you posted cites census statistics from 4 years ago, which are more meaningful, but not the topic, and they still show the city as majority white.

It cites 2020 statistics, which are 3 years old, the city has not changed so dramatically in the past 3 years, it's just agitative hyperbole. Most important is that census stats are the most accurate stats.

Most of the United States is majority white, being a country founded by white people, this should not be a shocking fact nor a point of contention.

I didn't write the article, their point is that aspects of it (like the housing market) have changed in that specific period, not the period the ad you linked to discusses

The demographics of Austin have not meaningfully changed in the past 3 years. It's not in the data, it's just a made up hit piece. Even if it was slightly more white than it had been 3 years ago, no one say why that would be a bad thing.

It wasn't the hottest on record. In 2011, Austin had more than 100 days with triple digit temps:

https://www.citizen.org/news/austin-tx-100-degree-days-final...

>Lack of diversity is stated but never mentioned again.

They wouln't say it if it wasn't false;)

What can you say, compared to most other places in the USA?

Looks like Houston is still the most diverse city in the US by many criteria:

https://www.governing.com/community/houston-is-the-nations-m...

The weather's usually hotter and far more humid than Austin, but still comfortable most of the year without air-conditioning for well-acclimated residents.

Others need not apply.

I remember Miami was also going to be the new Silicon Valley at one point, did that end up doing any better?

A hear-say: it has typical liberal-city corruption and crime issues, and, of course, with a very high cost of living in safer neighborhoods.

Better for taxes if you are ultra-rich, but otherwise you will be commuting 1.5 hours into an office in Miami, if you want to live in house that you can afford, with nearby public school where your kid will not be bullied.

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