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Silicon Valley’s tech monopoly is over. Is the future in Austin, Texas?

latimes.com

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Re: Silicon Valley’s tech monopoly is over. Is the future in Austin, Texas?

#11

Post by b0sk »

yumraj wrote: post #10
toomanyrichies wrote: post #8

My understanding is that a major reason why the Bay Area became the tech hub it did is because of academic institutions like Stanford and Berkeley, which in turn led to commercial enterprises like HP, Shockley, and Fairchild. From there, it was like dandelion seeds in the wind, with alumni from those companies going on to found AMD, Kleiner Perkins, Xerox PARC, etc. It seems to me that, until UT Austin catches up wit…

> academic institutions like Stanford and Berkeley, and dare I say politics. For various reasons, including the rather diverse nature of tech workforce due to a substantial number of immigrants and even otherwise, the tech workforce is generally liberal or are at least centrist moderate. Texas is not an ideal home for most of them.

This is absolutely true. People like Austin because it's weird and it's a liberal area but pretty sure the state level politics is going to affect you even if you want to be shielded somehow.

Re: Silicon Valley’s tech monopoly is over. Is the future in Austin, Texas?

#12

Post by giantrobot »

Silicon Valley has a confluence of things many other areas do not have.

1. Several high class feeder schools in the area including but not limited to Stanford and UC Berkeley. Note the feeder schools have robust CS programs but also renowned business and law schools.

2. A robust banking sector in San Francisco (for access to Old Money).

3. A bunch of New Money investors (Sand Hill Road gang etc) that you can wine and dine in-person.

4. California has a ton of high tech businesses besides just plucky Web startups.

A lot of supposed Silicon * regions have one or two of these things but rarely all within a two hour plane ride of each other (if not closer). Austin is nice and all but Silicon Valley (the nine-county Bay Area) is a megaregion with a population of over 7 million people with another two million in the combined statistical area. It's got twice the population of the San Antonio and Austin MSAs combined. That just makes for a much larger pool of we-don't-need-to-relocate employees for start ups or new efforts for existing companies.

It sucks Silicon Valley is so damned expensive but some other regions just being cheaper isn't going to pull away many startups. Despite bitching about taxes companies really like the fact non-competes are basically void in California. They incorporate and "headquarter" in tax havens anyways.

Re: Silicon Valley’s tech monopoly is over. Is the future in Austin, Texas?

#13

Post by quantified »

toomanyrichies wrote: post #8

My understanding is that a major reason why the Bay Area became the tech hub it did is because of academic institutions like Stanford and Berkeley, which in turn led to commercial enterprises like HP, Shockley, and Fairchild. From there, it was like dandelion seeds in the wind, with alumni from those companies going on to found AMD, Kleiner Perkins, Xerox PARC, etc. It seems to me that, until UT Austin catches up wit…

Defense spending routed through those places. But there’s also more of a cultural value of risk-taking than the super-conservative nature of Boston, which has MIT and Harvard but also a more-diverse set of concerns that use computers.

Re: Silicon Valley’s tech monopoly is over. Is the future in Austin, Texas?

#16

Post by reaperducer »

blast wrote: post #2

The article contradicts its hypey headline: To be sure, the Bay Area has such a deep reservoir of tech talent, money and infrastructure, not to mention the climate and the ocean, that it won’t be easily knocked off its perch.

Seems like yet another clickbaity article. How many times have we seen this same story with different geographies?

Every town on the planet with an internet connection and a chamber of commerce has named itself Silicon Prairie (at least three of them), Silicon Bayou, Silicon Gorge, Silicon Water, Silicon Alps, Silicon Glen, Silicon and on and on.

Re: Silicon Valley’s tech monopoly is over. Is the future in Austin, Texas?

#17

Post by reaperducer »

yumraj wrote: post #10
toomanyrichies wrote: post #8

My understanding is that a major reason why the Bay Area became the tech hub it did is because of academic institutions like Stanford and Berkeley, which in turn led to commercial enterprises like HP, Shockley, and Fairchild. From there, it was like dandelion seeds in the wind, with alumni from those companies going on to found AMD, Kleiner Perkins, Xerox PARC, etc. It seems to me that, until UT Austin catches up wit…

> academic institutions like Stanford and Berkeley, and dare I say politics. For various reasons, including the rather diverse nature of tech workforce due to a substantial number of immigrants and even otherwise, the tech workforce is generally liberal or are at least centrist moderate. Texas is not an ideal home for most of them.

tech workforce is generally liberal or are at least centrist moderate. Texas is not an ideal home for most of them.

That stereotype is about a decade out of date.

Texas is very much like New York, California, Washington, Nevada, Oregon, and most other American states: Blue large cities surrounded by red elsewhere.

Re: Silicon Valley’s tech monopoly is over. Is the future in Austin, Texas?

#18

Post by renewiltord »

Marge Simpson: Sweetie, you could still go to McGill, the Harvard of Canada.

Lisa Simpson: Anything that's the "something" of the "something" isn't really the "anything" of "anything".

I'm hesitant to say things won't change because folks who say that are usually wrong, but if I had to put money on it, I wouldn't put more than $1k (1:1) that by 2027 tech company capital deployed net 2022 is higher in Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown MSA than in the SF Bay Area.

Re: Silicon Valley’s tech monopoly is over. Is the future in Austin, Texas?

#19

Post by mythrwy »

reaperducer wrote: post #16
blast wrote: post #2

The article contradicts its hypey headline: To be sure, the Bay Area has such a deep reservoir of tech talent, money and infrastructure, not to mention the climate and the ocean, that it won’t be easily knocked off its perch.

Seems like yet another clickbaity article. How many times have we seen this same story with different geographies? Every town on the planet with an internet connection and a chamber of commerce has named itself Silicon Prairie (at least three of them), Silicon Bayou, Silicon Gorge, Silicon Water, Silicon Alps, Silicon Glen, Silicon and on and on.

There's a guy in my tiny one horse town in the middle of nowhere running for mayor right now (unlikely to break 1 digit percent of the vote) that wants to make the town a Bitcoin mining capital.

I should approach him about the possibility of making this the next Silicon Valley so I can be inundated with job offers without having to move.

Re: Silicon Valley’s tech monopoly is over. Is the future in Austin, Texas?

#20

Post by hellisothers »

reaperducer wrote: post #17
yumraj wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> academic institutions like Stanford and Berkeley, and dare I say politics. For various reasons, including the rather diverse nature of tech workforce due to a substantial number of immigrants and even otherwise, the tech workforce is generally liberal or are at least centrist moderate. Texas is not an ideal home for most of them.

tech workforce is generally liberal or are at least centrist moderate. Texas is not an ideal home for most of them. That stereotype is about a decade out of date. Texas is very much like New York, California, Washington, Nevada, Oregon, and most other American states: Blue large cities surrounded by red elsewhere.

Except all those states you listed are blueish (including purplish or very blue) where Texas is deep red.
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