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Comment by driverdan | Hacker News Reader

I considered moving to SF but chose Austin instead. I refuse to live in a state with such a dysfunctional government and ridiculously high taxes. Some of the same reasons I left NY.

You can do tech anywhere. You do not need to live in the bay area. If you really like the city pick a place (like Austin) with inexpensive direct flights and go a few times a month. You'll still save money.

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You CAN do tech anywhere, just as you CAN be a banker outside of NYC or an actor outside of LA. Doesn't mean it's the most efficient or effective way.

I have lots of respect for people who choose to live in other parts of the world but to suggest that there's not much difference between living in SF or Austin for someone interested in starting or working for a successful technology firm is inaccurate.

I don't count freelance development as "doing tech" as it's equivalent to being a "day-trader" vs banker or "youtube star" vs actor.

^This. I've lived in both SF and Austin. Austin is a bad ass city. In terms of quality of life, as a young and single male, it is a complete and total no brainer that Austin is better than SF. Better nightlife, more attractive women, cheaper cost of living, less bums, more sunlight, better weather (if you prefer hot to cold), better urban/outdoor balance...

BUT, in terms of the startup scene, SF is in another league. Austin has some successful startups, but they seem to be largely enterprise focused. It's going to be a long time before you see a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Yelp, Dropbox etc. founded here. If you're doing a startup, particularly in the consumer space, SF is the place to be.

Austin has some successful startups, but they seem to be largely enterprise focused.

And? Is that supposed to be bad or something? I don't know about you, but I find consumer webapp startups to be dead boring. Who cares about building yet another way for people to share pictures of cats doing stupid shit, or whatever? At least with enterprise software, you're doing something that's actually improving someone's productivity, helping other businesses grow and prosper, etc.

Disclaimer: I am the founder of a (non-SF based) enterprise focused startup. So, yeah, I'm a little bit biased. :-)

Totally agree man on everything you said.

But please stop the influx of Californians to Austin... I don't want them to ruin Austin the same way SF and LA are ruined...

> better weather (if you prefer hot to cold)

You are the first person I've ever heard claim this. :) I found Austin's humid 90 degree summers rather unpleasant.

Heh... "90 degree summers" is mild. More like 105. Summer is brutal, though I actually haven't found it all that humid. That said, we were throwing pool parties in November while my friends in SF were walking around in coats.

Sept-Nov is nice in SF, but otherwise it was too cold and windy for me. I lived in soma, though -- if I were to do it again, I think I'd live in the Haight, mission, pac heights or the marina and I'd probably have a different experience. The variance between neighborhoods in terms of climate and culture seems to be greater in SF than I've found in Austin.

Are the women really more attractive in Austin? One of the things mentioned in the article is that in SF, people are in shape. How are things in Austin?

I've lived for several years in Silicon Valley and Austin, and would have to agree that Austin has more attractive young women. The University of Texas probably has a lot do with it. It also helps that that Austin has 10-11 months of warm weather (January is our winter), so you're seeing more skin here, to put it bluntly. :)

And yes, Austinites are healthy and in shape. Take any survey like this with a grain of salt, but Austin was recently rated the most health conscious city in America. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/08/most-health-conscio...

Austin has more in shape and attractive people by FAR. I moved to SF a couple years ago and moved back... SF was like clowntown when it came to fitness... Austin is orders of magnitude better when it comes to the fitness scene.

I mean shit, I'm running a 5km this Sunday in a gorilla suit... http://austingorillarun.com/

Maybe date in California and move to Austin?

I also heard Austin is like a Californian oasis in TX (when it comes to politics/race/etc.)

There is also visiting a different country if you want to find a spouse. The foreigner mystique (esp. if you are pale and Caucasian) is still somewhat alive... based on the vlogs/blogs I've read about: South Korea, Japan, China, etc. Foreigners who blog/vlog eventually talk about foreign guys who date outside of their league because of the foreigner mystique. "Why are so many beautiful women have ugly white boyfriends?"

The paleness comes in handy because of some dumb stereotype: People who are pale work in offices, not in fields, and are wealthier.

Oh, there's no doubt that there's a sizable portion of East Asian women who have a Caucasian fetish. While this is good for dating and hooking up (even the most clueless and ugly white guy will get so much action in Tokyo, Shanghai, or Seoul), I disagree that it's a good basis for a marriage, particularly a cross-cultural one.

However, I'm not sure what this has to do with SF vs Austin, other than for the sizable Asian population in SF (in which regard Austin isn't "a Californian oasis in TX"). In that regard though, SF is a good place to be, as the Caucasian fetish is in full effect among Asian American women as well: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/01/29/us/20110130mix...

I've lived in a Austin (5 years), NYC (6 years), and recently moved to SF. In my experience, Austin has many more attractive people, in general, than SF. NYC has more than both of them, but also 10 times the population, so there's that...

Those analogies aren't made equal.

There is nothing more equalizing than your ability to sell software to random strangers over the internet. It truly can be done from anywhere and potentially in a more efficient way than in SF.

Selling software over the internet to strangers is only a very small part of what "doing tech" is. Like I said, you could "act" in a local volunteer theater in Nebraska but to say you can "be an actor" anywhere is inaccurate.

If you want to grow beyond a 1-5 person shop, if you want to build incredible software that is used by hundreds of thousands or millions of people, you need a critical mass of great engineers, designers, marketers, etc working together.

Sure virtual teams are possible but just ask Jason Evanish (OP) about how Kissmetrics went in the reverse direction - from virtual to in-person and how that's transformed their business for the better.

That's incredibly short sighted. There are too many examples of large tech companies not in the valley or SF for that to be true. They might not be household names but that doesn't mean they aren't killing it.

I think conditional probability is more informative than number of examples

What's funny Jason is that we met through a mutual friend in 2011 on one of my trips to SF. RideJoy had just launched and you were looking for talent. I was interested in your startup but wasn't interested in a job.

> I don't count freelance development as "doing tech" as it's equivalent to being a "day-trader" vs banker or "youtube star" vs actor.

For every big name actor there are 1000 serving food to make ends meet. For every investment banker managing billions there are 1000 working in cubicles analyzing obscure sectors and securities. Are you implying that their work is more desirable and/or more real than a successful day trader or YouTube star?

I get what you're trying to say and I completely disagree. I think my clients, many of which are startups who happily hire freelancers, would too. I really dislike this condescending attitude some startup founders and investors have. If you're a freelancer, run a "lifestyle business", or bootstrap with a real business model and and target long term growth you're looked down upon. It's bullshit.

"I refuse to live in a state with such a dysfunctional government"...so you picked Texas..hahahah

You can absolutely do tech anywhere. But it is a very different experience. I had the exact same rationale before moving to the bay area. It was a tough decision to make, even loving the city, was it really worth it. Here, you're surrounded by tech. It is literally everywhere. When you have conversations with people, you no longer have to change your stories, your talking points, your vocab, people actually understand what you're talking about here. Sitting in a coffee shop, or on the bus, almost all you hear is tech conversations. If it's a passion, if it's what you love, it's worth every single penny to be in the heart of it. I've never been more motivated in my life.

I considered moving to SF but chose Austin instead. I refuse to live in a state with such a dysfunctional government ...

You do realize you live in Texas, right?

Have you been to Austin? Or Dallas? (I'd personally stay away from Houston and San Antonio). It sounds like you're passing judgement without really experiencing the area.

Texas is a fairly reasonable state when it comes to most of their laws. There has been some controversy around the human-origin that will be taught in schools, but this issue isn't isolated to just Texas. And beyond that, if you really dislike the public schools, you can always go for private or charter schools, or even homeschooling.

Texas government tends to stay out of the way of their people for the most part (at least compared to NY or CA). No state income tax, though, property taxes are fairly high in the cities and suburbs. Gun laws are very lax. It's overall a pretty good state.

Don't forget the Anti-Dildo laws:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_obscenity_statute http://daxlegal.com/dildos-sexually-obscene-toys-illegal-in-...

This is so fantastically nutty I could hardly believe it (when I first read about a woman that had been arrested in Texas for smuggling Dildos).

Well, they definitely sell 'em in stores in every decent-sized city I've been to in the state...

>It sounds like you're passing judgement without really experiencing the area.

It sounds like you did the same to California. The parts of the government being reacted to are probably the laws about when you can kill people (e.g. if they rob your neighbor), express lane to the death penalty, etc., etc.

Yeah, the state with the surplus. The weather in Texas isn't anything to write home about, but in every way that matters it's a more competently run state.

They probably have a surplus because they underfund health care system, among other things... (I remember being surprised at the full-time firefighting budget cuts not long before the huge fires two years ago)

EDIT: Oh and apparently there is no surplus

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/04/us-usa-deficits-st...

the article cited was from last year.

from last week: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/us/texas-budget-surplus-pr...

"A boom in revenues from sales taxes as well as taxes from oil and natural gas production have given Texas a budget surplus that the state comptroller has estimated at $8.8 billion."

Of course this will start a new debate about how it's only a surplus because of previous budget cuts, but that's for another time and place. Still others will crunch the numbers differently and say there was actually a deficit. Politics is fun.

Texas has really crappy Medicaid coverage, but is anyone here really going to base their decision on which state to live in based on that?

2011? Try to keep up.

Meh, original comment about shitty services holds

http://www.texasobserver.org/how-the-budget-got-cut/

I don't see anything in that article that isn't sensible. There's no reason government expenditures have to keep going up in good times and bad.

Quite the contrary, when times are bad, social services are needed more, not less.

In broad strokes states have essentially two functions - education and social services. Of course when you make substantive cuts that's where they're going. There's no "right" amount of social services - as a state you pay for what's reasonable at the time given budgetary constraints.

It's no coincidence the Economy in Texas has recovered while the economy in California hasn't. This is particularly galling given the number of tech companies in Northern California with highly compensated employees.

In any event, California didn't slip into a budgetary black hole by coincidence. State employees are grossly overcompensated, and much of that compensation takes the form of generous retirement benefits. The state will be raising taxes and using budgetary gimmicks for decades because the real problem is unfunded pension liabilities, not delivery of current services.

> Yeah, the state with the surplus.

You mean California?

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-california-budget-surplus...

There's a big difference between an actual surplus and a "surplus" based on accounting gimmicks. You can only pretend California is in surplus by pretending to believe the state retirement systems really will return 8% on average.

Nobody believes that.

Please explain which gimmicks you think are currently active. Your knowledge of California budgets seems to be a few years dated. We've reformed a lot about the budget process in the last few years. Up to and including how many votes are needed.

There's a lot wrong in California, but a lot of people are barking up the trees from years ago instead of the ones that are real problems today.

I put the biggest gimmick right there in my post. What does "how many votes are needed" have to do with returns on state retirement funds?

This is not barking up trees from years ago. They have done nothing to address the structural problems in the state budget.

As a non-Texan, I'd be interested if could you share some of the dysfunctions of their government? I haven't heard many people claim that before, so I'm curious as to what I'm missing.

TX has had massive shortfalls in the last two biennial budgets. As big as CA's annual one:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/04/us-usa-deficits-st...

So imagine an already very low service state having to cut budgets even more. Am sure that will work out well for the kids long-term. The State is tossing welfare/health/service issues down to the counties now, so expect your property taxes to skyrocket in the next decade. Some counties will be rich, and most will be poor.

Not happy to with keeping MLK or Jefferson out of K-12 history textbooks, the governor and his lackies are going after those pointy-head elitists at UT.

Expect the next short-fall to be ~$30B. You're going to pay one way or another.

Does texas even have property taxes? They didn't use to.

Counties set valuations and property taxes

except Texas has a lot more money from oil taxes to give to things like schools, no sales taxes etc.

There is a 6.25% sales tax in all of Texas with counties having the option to raise it an additional 2%.

You do realize that there are people outside of your little world that aren't leftists/socialists/fascists, right?

You do realize that, objectively, Martin Luther King was more instrumental in the Civil Rights movement than Lyndon Johnson was, right?

Oh, wait, you might not, because the Texas Board of Education took it upon themselves to re-write history.

Low taxes are cool and all, but I don't see how anyone could live in peace with that public school system.

Let's face it: American governmental bodies are dysfunctional at almost every level. Most people live in California, Texas, Florida, and New York. All are poorly managed. And then there's the federal government sitting on top.

The key to thriving in the US is to have a high net worth so you can feel independent of this dysfunctional government. And then ignore all the stressful noise in the crisis-obsessed news cycle.

Anonymous wrote the Declaration of Independence too, apparently.

Honest question: do you actually know what fascist means? If so, do you not understand that it is vastly different than "leftist" or "socialist"?

Yeah, I know that leftist groupthink doesn't comprehend that fascism is a leftist political ideology.

Hint, you know what NAZI means?

You should educate yourself to avoid further embarrassment.

From wikipedia:

"Fascism was founded during World War I by Italian national syndicalists who combined left-wing and right-wing political views.[11][12] Fascists have commonly opposed having a firm association with any section of the left-right spectrum, considering it inadequate to describe their beliefs,[13][14] though fascism's goal to promote the rule of people deemed innately superior while seeking to purge society of people deemed innately inferior is identified as a prominent far-right theme.[15] Fascism opposes multiple ideologies, such as communism, conservatism, liberalism, and social democracy.[16]"

More or less, fascism is the supremacy of the nation/state & creation of a civil religion around it. It merges the idea of the nation, the government, and links proper behavior to operating accord with the principles set forth by the leaders. At least that's what I got out of Mussolini's writings on the matter.

It's the people in service of the State, as opposed as the State being the People(communism).

Do you know what "Go back to /r/politics" means?

Wow, you're shockingly ignorant for this site. Go education yourself a bit: http://politicalcompass.org/

One of these things is not like the others.

Here in Texas we have dysfunctional government and ridiculously shitty services.

No government pleases everyone and no government is perfect. However, from someone who has been a citizen of both Austin, San Francisco, and other cities, Texas/Austin, despite some shortcomings, is to me clearly the less dysfunctional government. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has been citizens of both cities and honestly thinks otherwise.

I'm not saying Austin is better than San Francisco or anything super subjective like that, but only the mildly subjective assertion that the government is less dysfunctional in Austin, compared to SF.

As a former Austinite, I can say that it's very easy to forget that you're in Texas when living in Austin. This creates the good feeling of being an oasis and the bad feeling of being a bubble.

But now you're living in TX? Despite Austin being an enclave of politically progressive views, you're still surrounded by well armed pickup truck driving rednecks on their way to the Dairy Queen in 110" heat?

Paying the SF "tax" is worth every penny in my opinion.

I live in small-town Texas.

Yes, people here are (on average) conservative and well-armed, and the most common vehicle is a Ford F150, but I wouldn't describe anyone here as a redneck. They're happy, polite, friendly, community-minded people.

I'm not entirely sure I could say the same thing about San Francisco, where I didn't like living at all. But that's fine, isn't it? Different cultures for different types of people.

on their way to the Dairy Queen in 110" heat?

How hot is it? Almost 10'

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