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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

#451

Post by raldi »

gonehome wrote: post #376
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #24

This general topic seems to come back into focus on a regular basis on HN (last time, 1 week ago). People have been leaving SV in numbers for the 30 years I've been here, always citing traffic & cost of housing as the primary reasons. Though this time, you could add decriminalization of petty crime. Nonetheless, the population growth remains net positive. The fundamental design of the Internet was to be robust agains…

I’ve seen comments about the “end of Silicon Valley” as early as 1993. Though back then you could get a house in Cupertino for 300k? It’s now $3M. This has some effect and makes living here to start a company higher risk.

The 1993 post you refer to: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/alt.folklore.comp...

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

#452

Post by driverdan »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #257

Traditionally this stuff has meant race to the bottom in terms of taxes and regulations. That is terrible. But if it instead helps wake up California to actually rezone, densify, remove prop 13, and improve social services, that could be quite good.

> Traditionally this stuff has meant race to the bottom in terms of taxes and regulations. That is terrible.

How is that terrible? That's the best thing that could happen.

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

#453

Post by lotsofpulp »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #432
lotsofpulp wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IL tax rates will have to go to pay for all of the debt for their defined benefit pensions and retiree healthcare. CA also has that problem, but not to the degree IL has. IL has fewer high income earners to spread the pain around, and higher debt amounts overall. It’s part of the reason why land is so much cheaper in IL.

Illinois voters defeated an initiative to implement graduated income tax in the November 2020 election: https://ballotpedia.org/Illinois_Allow_for_Graduated_Income_... Agreed the state has financial issues, but it remains unclear if the upper middle class will bear the responsibility.

Anyone that has money and lack of political power. Middle class is a vague term, but currently, a flat % income tax takes evenly from rich and poor, so it benefits the rich.

What will happen now is that IL will increase then 5% income tax to 6% or whatever they have to go meet their needs, and so it will continue to benefit the rich.

Until it gets to a point where the lower income people realize they can make the rich pay more, and vote for marginal income tax rates. That’s when the screws will start getting turned on higher income people.

Once that happens, I would assume anyone with disposable income will have their incomes taxes go up. It only failed 47 to 53 this year, so I imagine it will be soon, but I predict the marginal income tax rates will ratchet up even at a “middle” class household income of $80k+.

And then as more rich people leave, the more the marginal income tax brackets have to be expanded and/or percentages increased.

In any case, there’s no relief until sufficient benefit recipients die, and that stupid COLA is no longer in effect. That is one of the most egregious examples of corruption I have seen. Anyone with high school math can see a 3% annual COLA increase would destroy you unless you had the power to print money.

I’m really curious what this map looks like for last decade instead of just 2017:

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iPUtINXvmFd...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-05/even-befo...

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

#454

Post by chrshawkes »

Hypx wrote: post #28
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…

Agreed. They're companies trying to avoid taxes or regulation. Only companies on the downslide really consider that as an relevant option.

Like Tesla.

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

#455

Post by jartelt »

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.

Sure for the more rural parts of IL, you could just as easily live in WI, IN, or IA. A small town in one of those states is not that much different than one in a different state.

But if you want to live in Chicago or the Chicago suburbs, moving to Milwaukee, Madison, or Indianapolis is not the same. Those cities are smaller and won't have the same job opportunities. You also have a major airport in O'hare which allows for easy travel, while airports in WI and IN are smaller with fewer direct flights.

Plus IL has Northwestern and the University of Illinois, which are top tier research universities supplying a lot of jobs. UW-Madison is also a good school, but not in the same league and the past governor in the WI was not good for their university system.

You can also take a look at how WI and IA handle the COVID situation and it tells you a little about the state governments in those states.

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

#456

Post by mtnGoat »

njarboe wrote: post #332
joubert wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazon Headquartered in Seattle, Washington. Not California.

Which also does not have state income tax.

nah, we got some of the highest sales tax in the country instead.

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

#457

Post by thevardanian »

pembrook wrote: post #328
vmchale wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universities help I think. Stanford, Berkeley &c. Many great public universities and many great universities!

The east coast has entire Ivy League and yet no Silicon Valley. Also, how do you explain Seattle?

A lot of East coast Ivy League grads simply either go into the public sector, or finance. They essentially feed into either D.C. or New York.

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

#458

Post by chrshawkes »

xienze wrote: post #264
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…

A tech company, leaving the Bay Area? Don’t make me laugh! Tesla’s leaving? Good riddance to Musk. HP and Oracle are leaving? Good riddance to zombie tech companies! Uber is leaving? Well they’re slave drivers anyway, good riddance. ...

Don't forget Charles Schwab leaving to Texas from CA as well. Lefty's will try to justify this all day long. California is bad for business. Period.

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

#459

Post by majormajor »

residentfoam wrote: post #184
pb7 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prope…

This! Right to the point. I think Texas got this right. Higher property taxes are assessed every year on the current property value. This has the positive effect to keep the real estate market within reason. Home owners have no incentive to see their taxes explode, unless they plan to sell and move. CA is a mess! And don't get me started on the fact that property taxes pay for public schools, so if I buy a property t…

> I think Texas got this right. Higher property taxes are assessed every year on the current property value. This has the positive effect to keep the real estate market within reason. Home owners have no incentive to see their taxes explode, unless they plan to sell and move.

And yet density is anathema, single family home zoning is everywhere, and new development construction happens on the edges, and traffic and cost gets worse every year. Just a little more slowly than in the current CA bubble. But make the TX bubble hotter, and watch the prices then!

Republicans who haven't yet had to deal with the same level of bubble-driven rapid inequality growth don't have some better policies in mind - they just haven't hit the breaking point yet. I'm sure things will get there in another decade or two, but I guess perpetually running away from self-induced problems is a pretty good strategy for folks with the money.

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

#460

Post by SubuSS »

spamizbad wrote: post #345
gedy wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prop 13 is one of the few reasons many could consider staying in California, vs having to pay property taxes on the bubble prices here. Property taxes do go up at what amounts to reasonable inflation numbers.

What do you think happens in most other states with normal property taxes? Do you think people just continuously get pushed out of their homes because of local taxes? It's pretty rare even in extremely high property tax counties like Cook and DuPage here in Illinois.

I am (not American) trying to see how framing this as getting pushed out of your house is better than saying 'being able to sell your house for a huge gain' is better.

Yes this means folks will have to move, but again as cities grow and shape themselves, is it even the same place people have in mind that they started in?

May be my attitude is colored by my immigrant status though - I was willing to pack up and move, so trying to understand what makes people sticky.

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