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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

#351

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

almost_usual wrote: post #346
paloaltokid wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you never been to Chicago? Pretty nice town.

Yes, and Cook County has a property tax rate that is nearly 2x San Francisco county.

But income taxes are lower. A $200k income has an effective state tax rate of 7.67% in California and 4.95% in Illinois (IL has a flat tax rate).

And considering real estate is much cheaper in Chicago, a home that's half as much would offer the same standard of living, when compared to SF.

So you could pay the same amount in property taxes, and less income tax.

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

#352

Post by microtherion »

bcheung wrote: post #27
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…

They will probably favor them in the beginning but I think a lot of that comes from the SF bay area echo chamber. Getting exposure to different cultures will probably average things out more politically leading to greater acceptance and diversity of thought.

For comparison, here's what a Texas echo chamber not too far from Austin looked like when Apple tried to spread their gay cooties there 25 years ago: https://www.nwitimes.com/uncategorized/texas-town-snubs-appl...

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

#353

Post by bluedino »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #334
cheriot wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HP moving to Texas is the corporate version of my grandparents retiring to Florida.

Sure HP and Oracle are not "sexy" but they do employee massive numbers of tech folks. The impact will be noticed. They hire people who later move to the "sexy" companies a few years into their career.

>> Sure HP and Oracle are not "sexy" but they do employee massive numbers of tech folks.

It's a much different type of employee than you'd have at somewhere like Netflix or Google, though.

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

#354

Post by abernard1 »

vmchale wrote: post #291
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…

Oracle leaving for Texas reminded me of this person: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18442941 People getting excited for Texas seems a bit silly! Real tech hub but... this is Oracle. C'mon.

The damage to CA's economy won't come from the has-beens leaving, but the never-will-be's that never happen.

It's hard to have a ramen startup when your garage costs a million dollars.

SF has been operating on the "Get Big Quick" financial injection model for a while now, so it probably won't stop those types of companies. But we shouldn't pretend that there's been a good environment for the idyllic startup in at least 20 years in the Bay Area.

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

#355

Post by wavefunction »

SmokeyHamster wrote: post #297
dannyincolor wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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+.

Kind of a strange analogy. Walmart provides immense value to millions of people. They've developed an infrastructure that delivers cheap products to areas that otherwise would have few other options. Oracle is the antithesis of Walmart. They provide insanely expensive options to corporations who are already locked in to their products. One of the saddest days was when Oracle bought Sun and effectively killed all thei…

Walmart has contributed to the decline of small businesses in rural areas[0] and they compensate their employees so little that they officially encourage their employees to take advantage of the social safety net[1] despite ever increasing annual net income[2] captured largely by the non-productive latter-generation Waltons.

[0]https://money.com/walmart-stores-closing-small-towns

[1]https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-...

[2]https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/net-in...

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

#356

Post by alexhutcheson »

almost_usual wrote: post #339

The real state I wonder about is Illinois. Who the hell wants to live in Illinois? Both the state income tax and property tax is absurd and you can easily cross state lines to somewhere cheaper with pretty much the same scenery.

The population of Illinois peaked in 2009 and has been declining for the past decade.

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

#357

Post by fokinsean »

njarboe wrote: post #330
BowBun wrote: post #322

> the cost of housing is one-third of Bay Area prices and the absence of a state personal income tax amounts to a 13.3% raise for top earners. This point always makes me laugh because anyone who lives in affluent TX neighborhoods knows your property tax is _enormous_ and usually makes up for a majority of state income tax you save. They still need to pay for roads and schools, right?

Which is great. A high property tax keeps the price of housing down (what people will pay for a house is cost per month, basically mortgage plus property tax), makes people want to have new housing built so that housing prices don't go up, and promotes a general attitude of anti-NIMBYism. Just the opposite of California with its low property tax and very aristocratic prop 13 problem.

> A high property tax keeps the price of housing down

Have you seen Austin prices recently, it's getting pretty hectic in "core" Austin.

> promotes a general attitude of anti-NIMBYism

This isn't entirely true. In the recent election there was a public transit bill in Austin which would raise prop taxes by 4% I think. Even though it passed there was a hefty amount of opposition to supporting it, and generally anything that deals with raising prop taxes.

Also in my local neighborhood (north central austin) there is plenty of nimbyism regarding planned multifamily construction.

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

#358

Post by cam0 »

almost_usual wrote: post #337
cam0 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For quick comparison it's 1.18% in San Francisco. Property tax bill on a $2.7m house in SF is ~$32,400/yr, and the property tax bill on a $1.5m house in Austin would be around ~$33,000/yr.

If you’re buying a 2.7m house in SF you’re paying at least 80k in state income tax.

True, and not everyone's goal is to minimize their tax bill.

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

#359

Post by bluedino »

ajmurmann wrote: post #296
refurb wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t disagree, but no doubt Detroit felt the same way at one time.

I wonder if Detroit's economy was more fragile because everything built on a handful of enormous corporations. I don't think there was much of a scene of small, innovative companies that didn't depend on the enormous corporations to be in business. Silicon Valley is full of start ups that can be successful on their own. What's really at the heart of SV is the system that makes startups. That's the universities, VCs a…

Detroit never diversified.

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

#360

Post by morsch »

octoberfranklin wrote: post #229
Jerry2 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, let's censor and ban everything you don't agree with.

On a very small number of topics HN does appear to do that. My list so far: cryptocurrencies and urbanism. It's really weird that this site has fairly balanced discussions of just about everything except those two topics. Whenver those two topics come up the result is incredibly one-sided. Like somebody powerful and opinionated has their finger on the scale...

I think it's more likely to have the same problem for most if not all topics, you just don't notice it. Somewhat related to Gell-Mann Amnesia...
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