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Comment by C1D | Hacker News Reader

For a long time I've admired Silicon Valley and America as a whole. It had been my dream to work and create a sartup there but after all of this. After seeing how free Americans really are I am now unsure about moving there. Although America has great opportunities for people like me, it doesn't seem worth it especially since I've found out how some people get blacklisted for no reason.

PS. I hope I didn't offend anyone

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Come to Texas--any of our major cities (Houston, Dallas, Austin, others) are great places to start doing business. We're full of friendly people and fairly permissive state government, our economy is quite strong and full of opportunities for people who want to work (startup or no), and the cost-of-living is actually reasonable compared with the coasts.

I'll personally plug Houston here (my colleague has already done the same for Austin). If you want to do energy, manufacturing, or medicine, you basically can't beat this town. We're a port city, we've got the largest medical center in the world, we've got tons of oil & gas folks, and great schools to pull talent from. Our food is also way better and cheaper than Austin. ;)

I would highly consider to the grandparent poster that they do their own due-diligence on the life in the state of Texas, particularly if they have children. Check the poverty rate, access to health care, pollution, and education rankings that all rank among the worst in the US.

The state is too large and diverse to research at that level and make any determination about the community/region you might move into. The diversity from city to city in the metroplex alone is vast.

I don't think it's meaningful to compare educational outcomes in states with large amounts of low-skilled immigration with the rest of the country. A quick look at education statistics will show you that outcomes are highly correlated with family income. Filter out[1] the schools in impoverished neighborhoods and you'll get a better idea of what kind of school your kids will go to.

[1] http://www.texastribune.org/public-ed/explore/filter/

Oh well, screw those poor people. They don't deserve proper education anyway. Who do they think they are?

I think he's saying: don't avoid Texas simply because of the number of poor people here.

I think he's saying that their situations shouldn't be included in evaluations of how well Texas is governed. Every place is well run if you ignore the parts that don't work well.

He's not saying that Texas is necessarily well governed; he's saying that it's a good place to live and start a business.

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” John Steinbeck

Or is it systemic?

[1] http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jun/21/how-tex...

Isn't Texas the state that doesn't even allow you to buy sex toys?

If that is case expect the 3d printer industry to bloom there like mad. Business opportunity.

That law was only used a few times, and even fewer times successfully. It was overturned in '08, but it was very rarely used even before then.

There's sex shops all around. That's just bullshit FUD.

Check out Yelp or Google, for example.

Also Alabama.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Obscenity_Enforcement_Act

And when you are hit with the inevitable software patent lawsuit your travel fees will be lower ;)

Is Texas as employee-friendly as California?

There are plenty of places in the US that have lots of startup action going on, but a ton less buzz. Austin, for one (disclaimer: I live in Austin). We don't necessarily have the same expertise or even interests that SV does and there are probably other problems that would never occur in SV.

On the other hand, it's way easier to fly under the radar here, if that's your thing. Austin is a hell of a lot cheaper than SV and it's surrounds, in most ways, so you'll stretch your dollars further. I'd claim we're friendlier, but that's just a guess. We can be pretty tetchy here about some things.

Silicon Valley isn't the only game in town. It's just the noisiest. And you couldn't pay me enough to put up with that.

No offense taken from me. I believe that America is changing extremely fast, some for the good but, unfortunately far too much for the bad. Opportunity still exists but many of the "powers that be" have forgotten what truly made America great. The pursuit of their and many others agenda's have hurt many good hard-working entrepreneurs and others, intentional or not. "More government" seems to be their only answer to any "problem" and this attitude has cost Americans far too much and unfortunately has spawned the evils of "Crony Capitalism", giving the false impression that true Capitalism is bad.

Some of those entrepreneurs are creating that crony capitalism. Don't try painting entrepreneurs with a pristine brush. See Cisco CEO's meeting with Obama on how to improve the country. See what others in the meeting wanted. See which of those are coming to fruition. I bet in return we got acquiescence on rampant NSA spying. Why does Obama come to the Bay Area so often? A: To raise money. What is that money buying?

> After seeing how free Americans really are I am now unsure about moving there.

As an American currently in Indonesia, I can totally understand where you are coming from. The major thing America has going for it economically at the moment is not freedom but just money and the university system. However with globalization, I think there are plenty of good opportunities everywhere in the world.

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