First off, I am a HUGE fan of PBS American Experience. And I was watching the episode on “Silicon Valley” and was thinking about Tech companies making Texas their second or first home. Before SV was born in the SF area. I believe it was Texas and Texas Instruments that made a majority of the tech pool. (Correct me if I am wrong)
I would be interested in your thoughts and discussion.
Texas has always had a history in high tech. There is a 8bit nerd who toured some of the sites (not the most riveting content to visit buildings decades after they no longer serve that purpose) but you can get a sense of the history from his videos.
The whole point of what Silicon Valley has been telling us for 2 decades is that you don’t have to have a geographical base, you can work from anywhere, so I find it very ironic that Silicon Valley is still Silicon Valley and housing prices spiral out of control, so they are now planning of moving en-masse to the next victim. They are like locust.
I’m not sure “Silicon Valley is moving here!” is good news or bad news…
New jobs and money spent into local economy: good!
New millionaires with “stupid money”: bad!
There’s something magic that happens when you get a critical mass of people in any field in one geographic location. I think it’s the serendipitous meeting at the coffee shop, the quick pop-ins made possible.
I remember what an amazing ferment there was 15 years ago in the little South Park area of San Francisco. There were so many startups there, the energy was palpable.
I’m sure Austin is also like that.
Remember the tech industry has grown by an order of magnitude. Too many companies for Silicon Valley to hold. Hence the real estate prices. It only makes sense that other areas will experience a tech boom.
It’s definitely a problem many states would like to have! Unfortunately, it places huge burdens on the local non tech folks…until they’re ready to sell their homes! Surviving the property taxes until then is often rough. Texas is appealing for having no state taxes as I recall? Neither does Wyoming but the weather’s a bit unfriendly. 