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Austin is great, lived there for 4 years, and I think it's healthy to have alternatives to Silicon Valley - both geographically and taxation-wise. My observati

Austin is great, lived there for 4 years, and I think it's healthy to have alternatives to Silicon Valley - both geographically and taxation-wise. My observation is that while there are plenty of startups - helped by Joshua Baer's Capital Factory and Techstars - it seems that most of the big tech companies are more taking advantage of the state's business-friendly tax laws and cheaper labor force than anything. A lot of companies - Apple, Oracle, etc - are more using it as a customer service and sales team base than for engineering, R&D, etc. Of course there will be plenty of counter-examples (HomeAway, Dell, BazaarVoice, RetailMeNot, Indeed), but that's just a macro observation to keep in mind.

theli0nheart 8y ago
> A lot of companies - Apple, Oracle, etc - are more using it as a customer service and sales team base than for engineering, R&D, etc. That may be how it was, but recently (especially in the last year), I've heard tons of anecdotes, in addition to my own experience, that engineering teams are slowly being moved (or started) out here.
buro9 8y ago
> A lot of companies - Apple, Oracle, etc - are more using it as a customer service and sales team base than for engineering, R&D, etc. Cloudflare have an office in Austin, and it is majority engineering and mostly the R&D new experiment teams and some core security at that (first class engineering teams)
brogrammer5 8y ago
So funny to see you mention Joshua Baer's Capital Factory. I've done some work for them in the past.
- kkhire 8y ago
  he's probably a top 5 figure in the austin tech community
abawany 8y ago
To add to your counter-examples, Apple is spending $1 billion to build a gigantic campus in NW Austin. Also, PayPal and eBay have been here since at least 2008 and various PayPal pivotal technical teams were evenly or majorly present in Austin. Google is buying more property here for additional technical teams and Amazon has a fairly large technical presence (e.g. PrimeNow) in N. Austin. Edit: $1 billion, not $5 .
- josephjrobison 8y ago
  Great to hear - will be good for the city (depending on who you ask). That's a positive trend. Still think Austin needs more homegrown startups to be in the same sentence as Silicon Valley.
itronitron 8y ago
I lived in Austin for the past two years and was quite disappointed by the people, the city, and the schools. Glad to be out of there and I have no interest in moving back despite it being my hometown. Number one complaint, the city has feeble public offerings (no zoo, no aquarium, no subway or light rail, small museums). Number two complaint, the schools are overrated (and Texas math is one grade year behind most other states). Number three complaint, I encountered a lot of people with a remarkable lack of integrity. Sorry to say that as it was the most surprising and disappointing.
- dajohnson89 8y ago
  Could you elaborate on the integrity bit? Shady people exist everywhere,why expect Austin to be better?
  - itronitron 8y ago
    True, shady people do exist everywhere but I expected more of Austin due to it being in a part of the country where someone's word is supposed to, or at least used to, mean something. Maybe I'm old-fashioned that way. To elaborate on the integrity bit, ... over-promising to the point of creating an expectation that would not be met or acknowledged at any point in the future. Some people might refer to that behavior as being 'flaky'. And I should note that most people in Austin are not like that, but that I encountered a lot more flakiness there than in other cities.
    - dajohnson89 8y ago
      Having grown up in the South, I think I understand what you experienced.
      - xeromal 8y ago
        Yeah, someone's word seems to count a bit more in smaller towns from my own experience too. I grew up in nothern GA and between the methheads and bill o'reilly fans, there's a lot of goodhearted, honest people there with old-school values. If you break down on the side of the road, you'll certainly have a couple people stop to help you in a bit. I never got that in LA. I have done my part though. :)
b3b0p 8y ago
This is what I noticed and reasons I left after living their for 3 years. I lived downtown proper and had no interest in moving out in the suburb areas where these bigger tech opportunities were. The appeal of Austin is downtown to me. The areas in which these larger companies and opportunities are in Austin (or Round Rock actually?) is a rather time consuming commute. I also didn't want to have a car and the transit system is... there isn't one. There are some smaller well established and known startups closer in downtown. I applied to a few, but I guess I'm just not what they were looking for because I didn't get offers. I guess I'm not the super rockstar they want.
- josephjrobison 8y ago
  On the suburbs - the funny thing is, besides a few wealthier suburbs to the west of downtown, if you drive 15 minutes outside of downtown, it feels almost no different than the suburbs of Waco, Houston, Dallas, etc.
- sayhello 8y ago
  Google has an office downtown. They've got a growing engineering team too, mostly in Cloud.

theli0nheart 8y ago

> A lot of companies - Apple, Oracle, etc - are more using it as a customer service and sales team base than for engineering, R&D, etc. That may be how it was, but recently (especially in the last year), I've heard tons of anecdotes, in addition to my own experience, that engineering teams are slowly being moved (or started) out here.

buro9 8y ago

> A lot of companies - Apple, Oracle, etc - are more using it as a customer service and sales team base than for engineering, R&D, etc. Cloudflare have an office in Austin, and it is majority engineering and mostly the R&D new experiment teams and some core security at that (first class engineering teams)

brogrammer5 8y ago

So funny to see you mention Joshua Baer's Capital Factory. I've done some work for them in the past.

kkhire 8y ago
he's probably a top 5 figure in the austin tech community

abawany 8y ago

To add to your counter-examples, Apple is spending $1 billion to build a gigantic campus in NW Austin. Also, PayPal and eBay have been here since at least 2008 and various PayPal pivotal technical teams were evenly or majorly present in Austin. Google is buying more property here for additional technical teams and Amazon has a fairly large technical presence (e.g. PrimeNow) in N. Austin. Edit: $1 billion, not $5 .

josephjrobison 8y ago
Great to hear - will be good for the city (depending on who you ask). That's a positive trend. Still think Austin needs more homegrown startups to be in the same sentence as Silicon Valley.

itronitron 8y ago

I lived in Austin for the past two years and was quite disappointed by the people, the city, and the schools. Glad to be out of there and I have no interest in moving back despite it being my hometown. Number one complaint, the city has feeble public offerings (no zoo, no aquarium, no subway or light rail, small museums). Number two complaint, the schools are overrated (and Texas math is one grade year behind most other states). Number three complaint, I encountered a lot of people with a remarkable lack of integrity. Sorry to say that as it was the most surprising and disappointing.

dajohnson89 8y ago
Could you elaborate on the integrity bit? Shady people exist everywhere,why expect Austin to be better?
- itronitron 8y ago
  True, shady people do exist everywhere but I expected more of Austin due to it being in a part of the country where someone's word is supposed to, or at least used to, mean something. Maybe I'm old-fashioned that way. To elaborate on the integrity bit, ... over-promising to the point of creating an expectation that would not be met or acknowledged at any point in the future. Some people might refer to that behavior as being 'flaky'. And I should note that most people in Austin are not like that, but that I encountered a lot more flakiness there than in other cities.
  - dajohnson89 8y ago
    Having grown up in the South, I think I understand what you experienced.
    - xeromal 8y ago
      Yeah, someone's word seems to count a bit more in smaller towns from my own experience too. I grew up in nothern GA and between the methheads and bill o'reilly fans, there's a lot of goodhearted, honest people there with old-school values. If you break down on the side of the road, you'll certainly have a couple people stop to help you in a bit. I never got that in LA. I have done my part though. :)

b3b0p 8y ago

This is what I noticed and reasons I left after living their for 3 years. I lived downtown proper and had no interest in moving out in the suburb areas where these bigger tech opportunities were. The appeal of Austin is downtown to me. The areas in which these larger companies and opportunities are in Austin (or Round Rock actually?) is a rather time consuming commute. I also didn't want to have a car and the transit system is... there isn't one. There are some smaller well established and known startups closer in downtown. I applied to a few, but I guess I'm just not what they were looking for because I didn't get offers. I guess I'm not the super rockstar they want.

josephjrobison 8y ago
On the suburbs - the funny thing is, besides a few wealthier suburbs to the west of downtown, if you drive 15 minutes outside of downtown, it feels almost no different than the suburbs of Waco, Houston, Dallas, etc.
sayhello 8y ago
Google has an office downtown. They've got a growing engineering team too, mostly in Cloud.