Next month I will have been in Austin for 13 years. I was moved here by IBM. I was working at one of their sites in Dallas and my team was relocated to Austin.

Next month I will have been in Austin for 13 years. I was moved here by IBM. I was working at one of their sites in Dallas and my team was relocated to Austin. I nearly didn't relocate, because I thought it would be too hard to find another job in Austin. That turned out to be wrong. I've found there are lots of job opportunities here. Seems like there are more every day. Down side is that out infrastructure is built to handle all this growth. So traffic is going from bad to worse. Real estate is appreciating like crazy. I like in suburbs, and my house has increased in value by 50% in 6 years. So that is making the city unaffordable. Another downside is my property taxes go up every year. I've never live in Bay Area, but about 7 years ago I did some work for a company based in San Francisco. So I traveled out there a fair bit. Austin feel more corporate that SF. Companies move here once they are established and are looking to lower operating costs. SF felt to have a better startup and innovation culture. Texas doesn't have the worker protections that California has. Mainly the prohibition of non-competes. Until we get that Austin will not be a replacement for Silicon Valley.