Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Austin's Reign as a Tech Hub Might Be Coming to an End

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 27 posts

Re: Austin's Reign as a Tech Hub Might Be Coming to an End

#11

Post by digital_sawzall »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #5

I was there for 2 years. More or less confirmed. Austin had a lot of chances to steal the show, but there's a lot of cultural challenges there. As well a lot of the tech companies there are coddled in that they expect to pay way under market[1]. Public transit is a challenge in Austin because you get, essentially, 3 months of over 100f daily highs. Anyone who can afford a vehicle with AC is highly incentivized to not…

There is no train on the westside? Also the airport to downtown shuttle runs 7 days a week?

But yeah maybe it's because I'm a native Texan but I have never considered taking public transport anywhere. Though that's really the norm outside of a handful of US cities.

Re: Austin's Reign as a Tech Hub Might Be Coming to an End

#12

Post by hedora »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #5

I was there for 2 years. More or less confirmed. Austin had a lot of chances to steal the show, but there's a lot of cultural challenges there. As well a lot of the tech companies there are coddled in that they expect to pay way under market[1]. Public transit is a challenge in Austin because you get, essentially, 3 months of over 100f daily highs. Anyone who can afford a vehicle with AC is highly incentivized to not…

Bay Area public transit isn’t much better, to be honest.

Try using caltrain or bart to go to a concert in SF.

Re: Austin's Reign as a Tech Hub Might Be Coming to an End

#14

Post by fellowniusmonk »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #5

I was there for 2 years. More or less confirmed. Austin had a lot of chances to steal the show, but there's a lot of cultural challenges there. As well a lot of the tech companies there are coddled in that they expect to pay way under market[1]. Public transit is a challenge in Austin because you get, essentially, 3 months of over 100f daily highs. Anyone who can afford a vehicle with AC is highly incentivized to not…

tech meetups were pretty vibrant pre-covid, we were one of the biggest users of meetup.com and r/austin was one of the most active city subreddits, idk why they haven't come back.

I'm curious what crab bucket community you were part of, that's not what I've seen. I do think capital factory is truly awful at fostering community and takes a lot of energy out of the ecosystem.

The biggest issue Austin has always had is outside of "trilogy mafia" and bazaar voice and maybe now homeaway there isn't really an active investor class, it's was a lot of tire kickers playing investor wasting people's time, even in the era of cheap money I knew many startups that couldn't get any funding until they flew out to CA.

Supposedly a lot of engineers moved here from other states during that period, maybe that's the problem?

idk, I know a lot of artists left, many have come back but not all.

Re: Austin's Reign as a Tech Hub Might Be Coming to an End

#15

Post by seabird »

cebert wrote: post #2

I am hopeful that more tech companies will come to Michigan and Detroit specifically. The cost of living is reasonable and the economy here is in need of diversification.

The last thing Michigan/Detroit needs is our housing market blown up by tech workers with exorbitant salaries/buying power, and our industrial legacy supplanted by tech grift. There isn't a place for so many of our people in that cycle.

The gravy train may have dried up, but with some realignment (realignment meaning putting off your new boat for a bit so you can pay your skilled machinists, fabricators, etc. more than $22/hour) we can tap back into what we've always been good at, with the resources we have, with the people we have and the resources they have, as long as we do it before everybody who still remembers how to do it dies.

Re: Austin's Reign as a Tech Hub Might Be Coming to an End

#16

Post by ninininino »

fellowniusmonk wrote: post #14
maerF0x0 wrote: post #5

I was there for 2 years. More or less confirmed. Austin had a lot of chances to steal the show, but there's a lot of cultural challenges there. As well a lot of the tech companies there are coddled in that they expect to pay way under market[1]. Public transit is a challenge in Austin because you get, essentially, 3 months of over 100f daily highs. Anyone who can afford a vehicle with AC is highly incentivized to not…

tech meetups were pretty vibrant pre-covid, we were one of the biggest users of meetup.com and r/austin was one of the most active city subreddits, idk why they haven't come back. I'm curious what crab bucket community you were part of, that's not what I've seen. I do think capital factory is truly awful at fostering community and takes a lot of energy out of the ecosystem. The biggest issue Austin has always had is…

> I'm curious what crab bucket community you were part of, that's not what I've seen. I do think capital factory is truly awful at fostering community and takes a lot of energy out of the ecosystem.

I can speak to this a little. I'm from a Midwestern city and moved to SF and NYC for long periods.

In NYC, LA, SF, you are surrounded by literal billionaires, you walk past (or into) the HQ of Google or Meta or Twitter everyday. You are surrounded by the financial industry, or Hollywood, or the tech giants. You meet people who raised ten million dollars for a startup and that's just a Tuesday for them.

Being around so much success, so many unicorns, so much wealth, you somehow became a bit more optimistic about things and think those things could become possible for you or people you know.

If you spend your entire life in a place where the pinnacle of the local economy is a random agricultural F500 company or some trucking giant or maybe the local research medical hospital is the state's largest or wealthiest employer, you somehow just become a bit less optimistic about moonshots. The idea of the biggest success someone could realistically expect is creating something as big as Kickstarter, or as big as ButcherBox, or a competitor to Wordpress.

In NYC/LA/SF people are more likely to legitimately believe they might create the next Facebook/Twitter. And if you share with others that level of ambition, they might be doubtful but they won't necessarily see you as a fool. In a lot of smaller cities, you'll straight up be seen as a moronic delusional fool by sheer reflex.

Re: Austin's Reign as a Tech Hub Might Be Coming to an End

#17

Post by collingreen »

hedora wrote: post #12
maerF0x0 wrote: post #5

I was there for 2 years. More or less confirmed. Austin had a lot of chances to steal the show, but there's a lot of cultural challenges there. As well a lot of the tech companies there are coddled in that they expect to pay way under market[1]. Public transit is a challenge in Austin because you get, essentially, 3 months of over 100f daily highs. Anyone who can afford a vehicle with AC is highly incentivized to not…

Bay Area public transit isn’t much better, to be honest. Try using caltrain or bart to go to a concert in SF.

Try using a car to go to a concert in sf.

Re: Austin's Reign as a Tech Hub Might Be Coming to an End

#20

Post by fellowniusmonk »

ninininino wrote: post #16
fellowniusmonk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tech meetups were pretty vibrant pre-covid, we were one of the biggest users of meetup.com and r/austin was one of the most active city subreddits, idk why they haven't come back. I'm curious what crab bucket community you were part of, that's not what I've seen. I do think capital factory is truly awful at fostering community and takes a lot of energy out of the ecosystem. The biggest issue Austin has always had is…

> I'm curious what crab bucket community you were part of, that's not what I've seen. I do think capital factory is truly awful at fostering community and takes a lot of energy out of the ecosystem. I can speak to this a little. I'm from a Midwestern city and moved to SF and NYC for long periods. In NYC, LA, SF, you are surrounded by literal billionaires, you walk past (or into) the HQ of Google or Meta or Twitter ev…

I'm talking about in the startup/tech scene in Austin.

I'm well aware of the general principle and it's origins, I am from a larger market than Austin originally but moved here because my startup received funding over a decade ago.

So perhaps I wasn't clear enough that I was asking OP about the specific community this individual was involved in in Austin.

Austin gets a lot of people from outlying regions and small towns that aren't aspirational and just want a day job, they usually don't actually live in the urban core though and they usually aren't part of the "tech scene".

For example, I've yet to meet a single person that moved here from Lubbock, TX that has a growth/opportunity seeking mentality, but I also haven't met anyone from Lubbock that lives downtown either, they usually don't make it south of 51st.

Post reply on HN