Live data from Hacker News

Silicon Valley exodus: Bay Area tech companies leaving for Texas

ktvu.com

471–480 of 622 posts

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

#471
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+.

Jdk?

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

#472
post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of company CEO’s know little to nothing about taxes and simply hand relevant details to a different firm. Growth gives exponential returns, taxes give linear returns which is why they can be ignored for years. Regulations are similarly irrelevant for most companies, as long as the competition needs to play by the same rules they tend to zero out as just a cost of doing business.

> taxes give linear returns which is why they can be ignored for years This isn't true at all. The effect of taxes compound just like anything else. E.g. if Warren Buffet had originally incorporated Berkshire as a Bermuda-based reinsurer, he'd be worth over $400 billion today. If he didn't structure it as an insurer at all he'd only be worth $20 billion. Tax savings compound at whatever the long-term ROE of the corpo…

When you’re growing at even 10% per month the difference between 50Billion and 400 billion in 50 years is a rounding error on a rounding error. Further, diminishing returns means your stuck investing in ever less profitable operations as you grow. These will often lose money, just look at say Microsoft or Google to see how little an extra 100 billion 10 years ago would give them now.

Nobody is saying they don’t have any upside, but as always it’s the opportunity cost that kills you.

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

#473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/cla…

Not to go too off the rails, but they only “contributed to the decline” by being a better option for customers that switched from small businesses in rural areas to Walmart. A lot of small businesses are bad. Bad hours, bad selection of products, bad customer service, bad prices. They’re often held up in some idyllic form, but it’s clear from the behavior of their own customers that Walmart provides these customers m…

My wife teaches in a small, poor town that is off the beaten path. It is just outside of what most would consider the suburbs (we live on the edge of a suburb and she commutes through rural area to get there). The only grocery store in town is what used to be a locally owned and supplied store, and is now under the branding of a "Piggly Wiggly Xpress." The options are to go there, Dollar General, or drive almost 30 minutes to another option, one of which is a Walmart. Everyone who can just drives to the Walmart.

The local grocery store is the worst excuse for a grocery store I've ever seen. There are only a handful of fresh vegetable options, including $1/lb bananas and $5/head iceberg lettuce. Everything is overpriced and there are very few healthy food options. Apparently a lot of people due to transportation limitations can ONLY shop at this store (or Dollar General), which is expensive and mostly has unhealthy options. There are talks of a Walmart coming in, and I have no doubt it would be a huge quality of life improvements for folks in the town.

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

#474
post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sf property tax is 1.2

Thank you! That would make property taxes in Austin need to be 3 * 1.2 or 3.6, which is double what they actually are. So people in SF pay basically double property tax of people in Austin for their houses, excluding the fact that houses in Austin are much larger.

You are just continuing to make numbers up in every post you make. Why not just google it? Here are the real numbers:

https://www.austinchamber.com/economic-development/taxes-inc...

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

#475
post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did develop GraalVM, which is quite a technical achievement, or so I've heard (not a user).

That got started under Sun, not Oracle.

And absolutely nothing good happened in 12 years, right?

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

#476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lea…

> It's hard to have a ramen startup when your garage costs a million dollars. Word. Peter Thiel had something to say about this - basically, he said that so much of the VC money that a start up would raise would go to rent that it no longer makes sense to start a company in the Bay Area. And those garages in Austin, Nashville, Charlotte, Railegh-Durham, and basically every where else are starting to look very attract…

But I dont want to live in any of those places. Too hot.

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

#477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People with children older than 18 or with no kids have no use for public schools. It is unbelievable to see this actually written down, and in an argument asserting that people from generations ago built an ecosystem for what is currently an exploding knowledge based economy, no less.

Would you like me to clarify something?

1. A public school education costs anywhere between 10-14k/annum per student.

2. There are 18 years of subsidized free public education.

3. The average home value is around 500k and sometimes higher. Average property tax bill is 6k. But often 15-20k in the Bay Area.

4. Homes that pay 15-20k in the Bay Area only get less than 8k-10k/student. Oakland that makes still less in property taxes has a budget allocation of 14k/student. This is a redistribution of taxes so everyone gets an education.

5. If A has 5 children and rent a home, education is still free.

If B is an undocumented immigrant picking strawberries for minimum wage and have 3 kids, education is still free.

If C has two children and pay 12k as property tax, education is still free for my two kids.

If I am 70 years old and my kids have grown up, my kids are paying taxes. I am still paying taxes on a property that I haven’t sold yet.

Why should I pay MORE taxes for a home that I paid mortgage for ..when all of my property taxes have been paid for 40-50 years. When I get no benefit out of the current school system but still willing to pay my promised share on the home that I finally own after 30 years of mortgage.

Trying to displace elders and seniors who have done their part to educate the children of YOUR loins is like robbing old people to buy candy for your kids.

The younger generation needs to grow up and stop being grabby. We should be taking care of our seniors. We stand on their shoulders. Pay your fucking taxes and raise your own kids instead of trying to chase older people out of their homes because you can’t manage your finances or elect leaders to do their jobs. Stop protesting and go to a city council meeting instead and ask why the taxes you already pay aren’t used for what they are meant for.. fucking hell! Show some fucking respect for all the freebies you enjoy from those who built these cities after wars and depressions and recessions before you were a twinkle in your fathers eye. Goddamit! California needs to fucking wake up.

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

#478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/cla…

Not to go too off the rails, but they only “contributed to the decline” by being a better option for customers that switched from small businesses in rural areas to Walmart. A lot of small businesses are bad. Bad hours, bad selection of products, bad customer service, bad prices. They’re often held up in some idyllic form, but it’s clear from the behavior of their own customers that Walmart provides these customers m…

They're held up in some idyllic form because while they're worse for customers, they're on average much better for employees. 'Small business' isn't just meant to be heartwarming when talked about as important - small businesses also spend a much larger percentage of their money on wages.

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

#479
post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're analyzing the effects of Prop 13 at face value, while ignoring its many unintended effects of commercial property undertaxation and rentiering, reduced workforce mobility, concordant increased incentives for NIMBY behavior, effective increase in regressive taxes, etc. Prop 13 (along with California's constitutional amendment referendum system) has a network of pernicuous effects that promote cynical behavior a…

Unintended consequences don’t matter. The intended purpose was to keep seniors and retirees in their homes without the danger of them being made homeless due to the speculative nature of California housing market whose instability is largely contributed to the said feted ‘new comers’. What you type are talking points that make no sense. Ask anyone who had lived and paid taxes and mortgages in California before 1980,…

> The intended purpose was to keep seniors and retirees in their homes without the danger of them being made homeless due to the speculative nature of California housing market whose instability is largely contributed to the said feted ‘new comers’.

That was the stated objective given to economically illiterate voters but not the intended purpose. Those property owners can be targeted with tax exemptions without the "unintended" consequences of Proposition 13. The vast majority of the beneficiaries of Proposition 13 are not seniors who would be put on the street, and the fact that the tax benefit is inheritable makes the idea that this was the purpose of the initiative even more of a farce.

https://www.sccassessor.org/index.php/about-us/department-or...

https://www.sccgov.org/sites/dtac/tax/Pages/parcel-tax-exemp...

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

#480
post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're analyzing the effects of Prop 13 at face value, while ignoring its many unintended effects of commercial property undertaxation and rentiering, reduced workforce mobility, concordant increased incentives for NIMBY behavior, effective increase in regressive taxes, etc. Prop 13 (along with California's constitutional amendment referendum system) has a network of pernicuous effects that promote cynical behavior a…

Unintended consequences don’t matter. The intended purpose was to keep seniors and retirees in their homes without the danger of them being made homeless due to the speculative nature of California housing market whose instability is largely contributed to the said feted ‘new comers’. What you type are talking points that make no sense. Ask anyone who had lived and paid taxes and mortgages in California before 1980,…

I think you've made my point for me quite well. Especially around cynical behavior.
Post reply on HN