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A month ago I was talking to another HNer about where to take a startup after launching in the valley. There's a ton of great places: Seattle, Raleigh-Durham,
by DanielBMarkham 13y ago
A month ago I was talking to another HNer about where to take a startup after launching in the valley.
There's a ton of great places: Seattle, Raleigh-Durham, Boston, L.A., DC beltway, etc. but I kept coming back to Austin. They've got so many things you would want: low cost of living, low regulatory burden, friendly community, lots of parks and open spaces, great nightlife, ease of travel, and so on.
When I look at the bay area, I wish them the best. They're still hands-down the best place to find money. But not so much in my mind of places to actually live. If I had a break-even startup and just wanted to live somewhere that I was surrounded by great talent doing cool things? I'd choose Austin in a heartbeat.
Although it's a close race, in my mind over the last few years Austin has moved to #2 in the startup world stateside. And it continues to improve.
- wavefunction 13y agoCost of living has continued to skyrocket, and all the newly arrived are destroying the once great character of Austin. It's already too late.
- famousactress 13y agoSaid just about everyone who's ever lived anywhere at any point in time.
- wavefunction 13y agoMinorities and artists, and the poor are getting priced out of the city and abandoning the "Live Music Capital of the World" for friendlier and cheaper climes. But don't let the facts get in the way of your snark.
- dmix 13y agoThat's literally been said about every big cultural city in the world. Berlin, nyc, sf, Toronto... Gentrification in Austin is not at all unique.
- famousactress 13y agoWho's avoiding facts? The facts are that this happens constantly. Places change, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.. which is always a matter of individual perspective. The only constant is that expecting conditions to never change in any material way remains a very poor bet.
- wavefunction 13y agoThe facts are that the cultural character of the city, "live music" is getting pushed out by the same people touting that as a reason to move here. They move here from SFC and NYC and then set about trying to change all the things that supposedly drew them here. Whatever, y'all are right, and I shouldn't have expressed my view that the things y'all think are here are not in fact here.
- fchief 13y agoStill cheap when compared to San Francisco.
- hkmurakami 13y agolong time locals are probably feeling the crunch just as badly as long time SF locals though
- pchristensen 13y agoThe worst people to ever move to a location are the ones that get there after you :) When you move there, you're of course strengthening the character of the place, but the riff-raff after you spoil it.
- mahyarm 13y agoBut, unlike the unaffordable areas, texas isn't restrictive with it's land use, which is strongly co-related to housing affordability. Just look at the chart on page 18 here: http://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf http://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf
- fixxer 13y agoYou sound like a lot of people I knew from Seattle back in the 90s... Funny. For the kiddies too young to remember: After the S&L crisis, there was an exodus from SoCal to <anywhere else>.
- encoderer 13y agoAnother benefit to Austin: No state income tax.
- InclinedPlane 13y agoNo state income tax for Seattle either.
- UVB-76 13y agoMy understanding, at least in the case of Texas, is that the lack of a state income tax is largely offset by significantly higher property taxes.
- saryant 13y agoOn average an individual's tax burden will still end up being less in Texas.
- scotch_drinker 13y agoMy guess would be that most people working at a start up would be renting and thus would avoid the property tax.
- neilc 13y agoWell, obviously renting doesn't "avoid" property tax -- the owner just passes the cost of the tax on to the renters. That said, the cost of housing in Austin is probably still considerably less than, say, the Bay Area or NYC.
- michaelochurch 13y agoThat's how it should be. That's actually a progressive way of doing things. People who can afford pay higher taxes do.
- jbooth 13y agoProperty taxes actually wind up being regressive a lot of the time. Having 2x or 10x income usually translates to a house that's less than 2x or 10x in value.
- mbesto 13y agoI've been saying this for the last 2-3 years now. I'm taking my startup to Austin for sure (after we get cracking here in London/Barcelona). So many reasons to go there that I've lost count. They're still hands-down the best place to find money. Yet there are so many VCs in TX! From what I've been told, many VCs in TX only deal with TX companies. I think there is some law about owning a large plot of land that allows for many VCs there to hide their earnings there well. Anyway, we'll be looking for Rails and front-end UX guys in about 1 year time in the Austin area. So any of you ambitious people looking to join a startup, and want to be part of a tech+athletic (triathlon+endurance athletics) culture, feel free to get in touch with me now just to get the ball rolling. I know things can always change over a year, but happy to start the convos going now. My company is http://www.competehub.com http://www.competehub.com
- nostromo 13y agoI find that Seattle has most of those benefits (no income tax, better regulation, state and city with balanced budgets, lower cost of living) but also the benefits of living in a socially liberal state (gay marriage, access to family planning, sane regulation of pot). Austin however wins on weather, unless you like to stay buried in your cave programming, like me. ;)
- Avshalom 13y agoin 2011 it broke 100f 30 days in a row in Austin. 2012 was a bit of a ball buster too, this year is predicted to break records (though it hasn't been too bad so far). I assure you Austin does not win on weather.
- w1ntermute 13y agoI think this is highly dependent on the individual. I despise the heat, and definitely prefer Seattle's weather to Austin's. But I know plenty of people who are the opposite.
- jlgreco 13y agoI assume places in Austin at least come with AC. It doesn't get anywhere close to 100f in Seattle but you'll still some solid stretches 85+F which, while absolutely peanuts in most places, is pretty brutal for someone used to AC. It is one thing to be brutally hot during the day when you are outside, and an entirely different thing to be rather hot at 3am when you are trying to sleep.
- tdees40 13y agoDo keep in mind that if you move to TX, your children will learn creationism IN SCHOOL. Also, they will likely learn about a white-washed version of slavery. This is a really big deal to me, and it should be a big deal to more liberals who move out there. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bryan-monroe/how-texas-school-board-tr_b_586633.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bryan-monroe/how-texas-school-...
- skaevola 13y agoI attended high school in TX and can verify that in biology class I had absolutely no exposure to creationism. For what it's worth, the Texas Legislature recently signed a bill vastly decreasing the number of high-stakes standardized tests required to graduate high school, which I hope is a sign of improvements to come for the public school system here.
- bconway 13y agoSorry, but that's nonsense. Don't believe everything read on Huff-post. Edit: And since it's sure to come up, our sex education isn't abstinence-only, either.
- damoncali 13y agoAustin is great. Except for the traffic.