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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

#171

Post by apsec112 »

xyzzyz wrote: post #97
njudah wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Attorney General of Texas filed a lawsuit claiming the results of election in four other states were invalid. If that isn't rejection of the constitution and democracy I don't know what is.

They had a dispute, and filed a court case, which was dismissed. What’s undemocratic about that? If they ignored the court verdict, that would be rejection of constitution and of republican system of government, sure. However, addressing legal and constitutional complaints through justice system is as constitutional and small-r republican as one can get.

It would be perfectly legal, for example, if a bunch of prominent Democrats got together and filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court demanding that a bunch of prominent Republicans be arrested, tried, and executed for treason. It would be thrown out immediately, for a number of good reasons. But wouldn't that be... disturbing? I don't want to live in a country where prominent political leaders ask for such things, even if they're fairly sure that they'll be told "no".

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

#172

Post by lern_too_spel »

NDizzle wrote: post #160
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…

For me a very frustrating thing was trying to figure out where my tax money went in California. Roads suck. Public education sucks. Tent cities everywhere. Then COVID-19 hit and you could tell, early on, that it was going to be mismanaged, similar to our tax money. So glad I bailed back in May. No Texas for me. Arkansas instead! I think the last new tax I voted for was in 2004. Back when I was 25 and didn’t fully und…

The California budget is public information. Proposition 13 means you as a new arrival were subsidizing property owners who were there before you, and the broken initiative process means that there's billions from the general fund tied up to pay bonds for pet projects of swindlers who are clever enough to put their projects on the ballot instead of trying to get them past the legislature.

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

#173

Post by etherwaste »

9HZZRfNlpR wrote: post #88
etherwaste wrote: post #57

[flagged]

What makes you think hackers or hacker news wants to identify as leftists, whatever that means, to begin with? I don't understand why would you take it for granted and why even think a huge website should share the same world view.

[flagged]

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

#174

Post by megaman821 »

njudah wrote: post #68
trident1000 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The LA mayor is telling people to not walk outside because of covid. If thats not absurd big liberal govt policy idk what is. Who would want to live somewhere where the govt thinks they can do that. Your rights as a person dont vanish in a crisis. https://fortune.com/2020/12/03/los-angeles-new-lockdown-rule... dannyincolor - He issued an order. Its not an ask. This isnt a where you live thing, this is a govt overstep…

The Attorney General of Texas filed a lawsuit claiming the results of election in four other states were invalid. If that isn't rejection of the constitution and democracy I don't know what is.

Texas likes to pass a whole bunch of stuff that they know will be struck down by the courts. It is purely for political brownie points, there is no real expectation that these things go anywhere.

In this specific case the Texas Attorney General is being investigated by the FBI and hoping to court favor with Trump for a pardon.

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

#175

Post by tolbish »

ramraj07 wrote: post #90

There appears to be no problem here: California is still the same sunny beautiful state and its now hopefully going to become slightly more affordable to a different class of people. At the same time, Texas gets an opportunity to get more "averaged" giving more opportunities for the popular vote and electoral college to be correlated.

I would agree with you. This apparent exodus benefits Californians who enjoy California, as well as benefiting the Texans who wish Texas would change.

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

#176

Post by jonathanyc »

core-questions wrote: post #162
jonathanyc wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey! If you have a moment: I’m a Christian and a gun owner who is not a fan of the Democratic Party. I live in SF and was born in the East Bay. Would you mind sharing some concrete examples of what you mean by CA being more intolerant than other places? I keep hearing about this but have never really experienced it myself.

Look up James Damore if you want one of the more canonical examples of this. Essentially, "tolerance" has been redefined as a term to essentially just mean "liberalism"; whenever you hear someone suggesting that one "be tolerant", you can just mentally replace that with "be liberal". The term is leveled at folks like yourself, who are deemed intolerant and illiberal for having and trying to perpetuate a different val…

Hey! Thanks for replying with your explanation. Personally I am not sure if I can see Google’s firing of James Damore as being evidence of liberal bias given the news (feels like it’s increased trust this past year?) they also fire AI researchers and union organizers.

I think for me it seems more like Google is just very much against people speaking up about anything.

I also agree with your comments about how people think they are being tolerant while they are actually being intolerant, but from my personal experience I can’t really ascribe this to either liberals or conservatives particularly. I feel like I’ve had worse experiences with this outside of CA, and I can’t see CA as being particularly intolerant this way. I appreciate you writing back though.

If you have personal experiences with intolerance in CA being worse than other places I’d be particularly interested to hear them.

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

#177

Post by sbinthree »

fairity wrote: post #106
sbinthree wrote: post #2

I think it's interesting that people forget anything network based tends to unwind just as fast as it winds up. Decorrelation (e.g. low viral coefficient) can be antifragile. If everyone moves to your city for a different reason, it is more resilient to downturns than if everyone moves to your city for the same reason and conditions change. Facebook may unwind for the same reason it was successful: the lack of privac…

> I think it's interesting that people forget anything network based tends to unwind just as fast as it winds up. I think that largely depends on market dynamics. For systems that benefit from strong, direct network effects, the vast majority of users will generally join whichever platform has the largest network. Once you are the clear market leader, you will enjoy fast(er) user growth. Even if your network starts t…

I agree, I'm arguing that the thing that leads to network success tends to also be the reason it unwinds. Facebook would not have worked if privacy prevailed, which is also the main driver impacting the unwinding of their network.

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

#178

Post by blackrock »

bcheung wrote: post #82
pb7 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any evidence that the people moving are responsible for the bad policies? Something tells me the NIMBYs that bought their homes decades ago and pay $3.50 in annual property taxes aren't going anywhere.

High taxes, high cost of living, and bad policies were the primary reasons I left CA. Property tax assessment was 1/6th of fair market value (thank you prop 13). Still decided to leave. Got a house almost 3x the size for the same price, and no homeless tents everywhere is a nice bonus.

Where did you go?

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

#179

Post by abc_lisper »

bcheung wrote: post #110
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah having a house 3x the size is not great for you or the environment, given that people don’t use most of their houses ;-)

It's people telling me what is good for me that is another reason I left.

That’s a sick burn. Well played, sir, well played

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

#180

Post by BobbyJo »

pb7 wrote: post #87
alexmingoia wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do low property taxes have to do with high rent and lack of housing? Higher property taxes would result in higher rent and property prices...

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…

There is also a huge regulatory burden to build in much of the bay area, which probably extends to other areas of California. Even when land is available, zoned, and purchased, builders often have a hard time actually getting the cities to sign off. Same for things like in-law units. My girlfriend's parent tried to build on in their backyard, but it turns out just getting the permitting done costs upwards of 80k, about as much as the building the unit.
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