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Oracle Moving HQ to Austin

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Re: Oracle Moving HQ to Austin

#381

Post by throwaway201103 »

jeffbee wrote: post #379
throwaway201103 wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I would expect that Microsoft in the late 1980s was paying much more modest salaries for software developers. That job didn't really start paying crazy salaries until the VC money arrived with the Dot-Com wave.

I'm curious if you are old enough to remember this stuff first-hand. Microsoft employees were importing ships full of Porsches. Not a joke. Here is a 1992 NYT article about how Microsoft HQ had at least 2200 millionaire employees. https://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/28/business/microsoft-s-unli...

Not really. Was in my early 20s around then, but didn't live anywhere around there. My experience with programming/IT work at that time, was that it was very much a "normal" job. It was a good, solid white collar job, paid decently well, but nothing you'd get really rich doing. That didn't change for me until the late 1990s when I got a dot-com gig for a couple of years (of course we remember how that ended up).

Were the MS people buying ships full of Porches with equity earnings or salary?

Re: Oracle Moving HQ to Austin

#382

Post by jeffbee »

throwaway201103 wrote: post #381
jeffbee wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious if you are old enough to remember this stuff first-hand. Microsoft employees were importing ships full of Porsches. Not a joke. Here is a 1992 NYT article about how Microsoft HQ had at least 2200 millionaire employees. https://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/28/business/microsoft-s-unli...

Not really. Was in my early 20s around then, but didn't live anywhere around there. My experience with programming/IT work at that time, was that it was very much a "normal" job. It was a good, solid white collar job, paid decently well, but nothing you'd get really rich doing. That didn't change for me until the late 1990s when I got a dot-com gig for a couple of years (of course we remember how that ended up). Were…

Equity, naturally. In those days it was options and not the grants we mostly see today. You're right about programmer salaries being about in the same league as other professional careers, but I don't see how we can overlook the fact that the stock options existed.

Re: Oracle Moving HQ to Austin

#383

Post by raziel2701 »

Xenograph wrote: post #129
avl999 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Californians, after years of having higher salary, more savings, and a job that lets them move, goes to Texas and offers $400k for that same house. The Californian thinks it's a great deal, because they get the same size house they previously lived in for only half the price! And the seller thinks it's great, because he now suddenly gets a huge premium on his previously-valued-at-$250k-house. All of the real es…

The real estate market (and well, most real markets) cannot be completely explained by simple supply/demand calculations covered in a high school economics course. Nor can they be entirely explained by a highly-trained economist. There are many factors at play that complicate matters.

Like what?

Re: Oracle Moving HQ to Austin

#384

Post by karaterobot »

beagle3 wrote: post #42

Likely irrelevant, but reminded me of this[0]: """Basically, we’re moving because of William Whyte‘s rule: virtually all corporate relocations involve a move to a location which is closer to the CEO’s home than the old location. Whyte discovered this principle after an extensive study of Fortune 500 companies that left New York City for the suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s""" Tesla will likely move its HQ to Texas foll…

Interesting, hadn't heard about Whyte's rule. I'm sure it is a valid observation, but I wonder whether at least part of it could be explained by a lot of corporations being headquartered on either coast. If your first HQ is as far west or east as you can go, then most places you could move are going to be closer to your CEO's home.

Re: Oracle Moving HQ to Austin

#385

Post by jahewson »

muzz wrote: post #263
dragonwriter wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drawing experienced personnel from established firms has, as I understand it, long been a big driver for startups in the region. While some established firms leaving isn’t a problem, if it becomes too common, its a problem for entrepreneurship. OTOH, a few established firms with large campuses leaving also means a lot of space without the usual problems involved available for other established firms that get into lot…

Haven't heard of many startups founded by ex-Oracle employees (ex-Google, ex-Facebook is a different story). I doubt this will improve when Oracle moves.

Salesforce ($205bn)

Re: Oracle Moving HQ to Austin

#386

Post by spoonjim »

vincentmarle wrote: post #247
beagle3 wrote: post #42

Likely irrelevant, but reminded me of this[0]: """Basically, we’re moving because of William Whyte‘s rule: virtually all corporate relocations involve a move to a location which is closer to the CEO’s home than the old location. Whyte discovered this principle after an extensive study of Fortune 500 companies that left New York City for the suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s""" Tesla will likely move its HQ to Texas foll…

Same with the Amazon "HQ2" relocation, all of the options that were considered happened to be places where Jeff Bezos owns a home.

But he probably bought homes in cities he thought were good cities with a future.

Re: Oracle Moving HQ to Austin

#387

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

SllX wrote: post #338
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd caution making this conclusion. Trump was a huge driver of turnout. I don't think the republican party is quite as strong without him on the ticket.

Considering this was an almost surgical removal of an unpopular President without a total rejection of the President's party, I feel pretty confident in my statement, but who knows, anything can happen between now and 2022 and 2024. It certainly wasn't the blue wave anybody thought it would be this year, nor in 2018. One thing I'm not holding my breath for in 2022 is seeing the Democrats in the House leverage their d…

> unpopular President

Who set a record for votes. He wasn't unpopular, he was the 2nd most popular candidate ever.

People like to undersell how well the democrats did in 2018 and in 2020. Georgia going blue, Arizona going blue, and the blue wall getting rebuilt...it's pretty impressive. They kept the house, and may yet still win the senate.

The districts are already stacked against democrats as is. Republicans won't gain much from redistricting.

Re: Oracle Moving HQ to Austin

#388

Post by wolverine876 »

As I pointed out regarding Musk's move, it's the companies with the strongest links with reactionary politics (and Trump): Thiel/Palantir, Musk, Ellison/Oracle. Does HPE somehow fit that mold?

For the sake of their many stakeholders, I hope the CEOs are not overreacting to the reactionary idea bubble - that they are not taking too seriously what is political rhetoric - or acting for political purposes. Many people do not share their political views.

It also matches the corporate outrage / take-my-ball-and-go strategy: If someone dares to regulate or tax a company - the outrage! - they say they are leaving. Think of Amazon in France and other places (IIRC Philadelphia passed a law requiring businesses to take cash and Amazon threatened to leave, then backed down). Think of Uber and Lyft in California. It's childish and I think if someone called them on it, it would be revealed for what it is. It's not clear to me how it's good for society that they don't have to contribute and pay their share.

Finally, where will these companies recruit from? The University of Texas is pretty good, but not close to the level of Berkley and Stanford, two of the top ~6 schools in the world. Also, many more people want to live in the Bay Area than Austin in general, and IT professionals want to be in SV where the center of their industry is. Austin is nice but simply is not real competition.

Re: Oracle Moving HQ to Austin

#389

Post by ctheb »

throwaway201103 wrote: post #376
tidepod12 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The supply of housing isn't a problem in Texas, but "supply and demand" isn't the end of the story. When two Texans want the same house, a bidding war is artificially capped (at, say $300k) because that's all the average Texan can afford. But when a Californian moves in with high net worth and a higher paying job, they can bid much higher, and they don't mind doing so (the mindset I have personally heard from most CA…

> they don't care if they paid more than the average Texan pays, because at the end of the day they're still paying less than half what they were paying in CA I don't understand not caring about 6 figures of money. Is that really the outlook of the average California tech worker?

The average California tech worker maybe not, but plenty of them are sitting on $500k+ in cash with yearly incomes in that same range. At that point what does $100k mean? $100k makes no difference in the person’s day to day life. If you like the house and you end up in a bidding war, the $100k is more than worth it.
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