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Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

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Re: Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

#81

Post by xxxtentachyon »

synaesthesisx wrote: post #14

I know multiple people considering abandoning California due to the homelessness crisis, as the unhoused population (and the problems associated) are expected to increase 10x in the near future as a consequence of the pandemic, with no hope in sight.

That strikes me as a bit of a ridiculous reason to move. The homeless in California are concentrated in a handful of cities, and within those cities, in a handful of neighborhoods. It’s not a problem that you’d be exposed to in a way that truly inconveniences you unless you live or work in very specific locales, and even then, what are the homeless doing that is pushing people to move all the way out of the state rather than just one neighborhood over?

The notion that the homeless population is going to increase tenfold in the near-term also deserves a citation, that’s an immense jump.

Re: Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

#82

Post by bcheung »

pb7 wrote: post #18
readams wrote: post #7

I wonder if the people fleeing California will end up voting for the same bad policies that are the reason they had to leave in the first place. That is, do they connect the bad policies to the bad outcomes, or will they still favor the bad policies? There is one major area for tech people where Texas may prove a nasty surprise to employees: non-compete agreements. For large employers this may be a bonus though as th…

Is there any evidence that the people moving are responsible for the bad policies? Something tells me the NIMBYs that bought their homes decades ago and pay $3.50 in annual property taxes aren't going anywhere.

High taxes, high cost of living, and bad policies were the primary reasons I left CA. Property tax assessment was 1/6th of fair market value (thank you prop 13). Still decided to leave. Got a house almost 3x the size for the same price, and no homeless tents everywhere is a nice bonus.

Re: Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

#83

Post by djohnston »

dannyincolor wrote: post #39
dkobran wrote: post #16

HP and Oracle don’t exactly represent the heart of Silicon Valley today and what makes it special/unique. I actually think zombie corporations like Oracle, companies that haven’t innovated in decades and instead rely on an army of sales people to sell legacy software, are somewhat the antithesis of Silicon Valley which is really about real technological innovation and disruption at it’s core. I know there are lots of…

Yeah literally nothing about Oracle is useful or innovative. It’s like the WalMart of tech companies; just kind of exists and has rested on its laurels for a decade+.

Idk if that's fair to Walmart, they are definitely trying to compete with Amazon via new efforts.

Re: Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

#84

Post by whimsicalism »

ryankshaw wrote: post #36
readams wrote: post #7

I wonder if the people fleeing California will end up voting for the same bad policies that are the reason they had to leave in the first place. That is, do they connect the bad policies to the bad outcomes, or will they still favor the bad policies? There is one major area for tech people where Texas may prove a nasty surprise to employees: non-compete agreements. For large employers this may be a bonus though as th…

could you give me like an eli5 explanation of what specific policies you are referring to? I ask this as a left leaning person living in a right leaning state. So from where I sit, I see some of the dumb things my right leaning politicians do but I would love to understand what specific policies people think are some of Califoria's dumbest.

Right-wing people will just have vague criticisms about high taxes.

The obvious low hanging bad-policy fruit in California is Prop 13 though.

Re: Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

#85

Post by [deleted] »

hellisothers wrote: post #56

I’ve read a lot of “the party is over” Bay Area exodus articles and this one is pretty limp, it did nothing but reiterate the news that a couple companies recently left and then poorly rehashed all the usual tropes. It even misrepresents how taxes work with “the absence of a state personal income tax amounts to a 13.3% raise for top earners”. Not worth arguing about here.

[deleted]

Re: Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

#86

Post by throwaway1777 »

synaesthesisx wrote: post #14

I know multiple people considering abandoning California due to the homelessness crisis, as the unhoused population (and the problems associated) are expected to increase 10x in the near future as a consequence of the pandemic, with no hope in sight.

Homelessness is not unique to Caliifornia. Seattle and Portland have a big problem with it too. Heck, I’ve seen homeless in rural Indiana by the river and in London. California doesn’t have an answer to this, and I haven’t seen any proposals from either the right or the left that seem viable, but if Texas is so great maybe we should ship the homeless there.

Re: Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

#87

Post by pb7 »

alexmingoia wrote: post #70
pb7 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any evidence that the people moving are responsible for the bad policies? Something tells me the NIMBYs that bought their homes decades ago and pay $3.50 in annual property taxes aren't going anywhere.

What do low property taxes have to do with high rent and lack of housing? Higher property taxes would result in higher rent and property prices...

NIMBYs oppose new construction because it keeps their property values high. They don't care about property values ballooning because they pay property taxes on the assessed values from when they bought, which is often decades ago, due to Prop 13. Prop 13 in general keeps things stagnant. For another example, there is no incentive to renovate/tear down/rebuild bigger because now you will pay significantly higher property taxes. Single family homes don't get turned into denser properties. The list of consequences goes on beyond my interest in it.

Re: Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

#88

Post by 9HZZRfNlpR »

etherwaste wrote: post #57

[flagged]

What makes you think hackers or hacker news wants to identify as leftists, whatever that means, to begin with? I don't understand why would you take it for granted and why even think a huge website should share the same world view.

Re: Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

#89

Post by thatfrenchguy »

bcheung wrote: post #82
pb7 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any evidence that the people moving are responsible for the bad policies? Something tells me the NIMBYs that bought their homes decades ago and pay $3.50 in annual property taxes aren't going anywhere.

High taxes, high cost of living, and bad policies were the primary reasons I left CA. Property tax assessment was 1/6th of fair market value (thank you prop 13). Still decided to leave. Got a house almost 3x the size for the same price, and no homeless tents everywhere is a nice bonus.

Yeah having a house 3x the size is not great for you or the environment, given that people don’t use most of their houses ;-)

Re: Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

#90

Post by ramraj07 »

There appears to be no problem here: California is still the same sunny beautiful state and its now hopefully going to become slightly more affordable to a different class of people. At the same time, Texas gets an opportunity to get more "averaged" giving more opportunities for the popular vote and electoral college to be correlated.
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