Also, other reasons Austin may be attractive to potential candidates:
1.) No state income tax. This is huge. If you make $140k a year in SF, you take home significantly less than you do in Texas. Also, there is no "city tax" like SF has.
2.) Cost of living is HALF, that's right, HALF of SF. Beautiful homes or urban condos are available and priced well below what you would spend buying OR renting in SF.
1 + 2 = lots of $$ in your pocket.
Not to mention the fact that Austin is arguably the hippest city in the country from a growth perspective. With events like ACL and SXSW (plus the thousands of live music shows throughout the rest of the year), the creative arts scene is flourishing.
Finally, the weather. It was 86 degrees, no humidity on December 19th last year. And yes, it is HOT in the summer, but with all that extra cash, you can go live in Europe for a few months to beat the heat.
I get recruited by companies in the midwest who tout that the cost of living is half of NYC. But, they also pay half as much as NYC, no relo package available. Whenever I do the math I still come out ahead in NYC.
The other downside I have found is that there are usually only one or two interesting companies and the rest is enterprise software.
I moved from SF to Austin last year and have found this to be true.
I'd love to move there because I'm really into the food and the music scene down there, but my Michigander wife is not into the brutal heat. I'm not sure what my point is, except that in my personal experience, Austin is absolutely exploding right now. There are at least a couple incubators down there, ala YC. The culture is really cool. It's pricey compared to Sussex county NJ, but there's also stuff to do there, not like Sussex county NJ.
Cheers.
And there is Miami, FL. Nice weather, no income tax. I don't know anything about the housing market there, or culture.
You can also work in the UAE/Dubai, with 0 income tax! The laws are a bit oppressive and slavery in all but name fuels all the construction work. Or Singapore, with something around 9/10% total income tax at typical SF engineer wages. If your american, you still have to pay taxes to uncle sam after ~$94k if you work in another country.
On the flip side, I am rarely in the valley (a few times a year at best) and I get calls or emails almost weekly asking either if I am interested in a job or if I might know someone who is, most of these even offering sign on bonuses and bounties for hires.
Yet the CEO's of companies in Austin are trotting out to the valley to find the talent while everyday good programmers from surrounding states go to the valley because they don't see Austin as a viable alternative.
They have a top tier engineering program only hours away (Rice) which has basically become a funnel for Microsoft and Amazon in Seattle yet they want to focus their attention on the valley.
Go to schools like Georgia Tech, Rice, Carnegie Mellon, Illinois, UT. Alot of those kids are coming from the south or the midwest and they end up in the valley because they think that is the only place they can make it.
At the end of the day this really comes down to marketing, and when you spend your money marketing to developers that have already been sold on another city often you are too late, but if you hit them earlier like the valley has gotten so good at doing they are MUCH more likely to see Austin as a viable solution
A direct appeal to founders and investors to start more ventures and offices in Texas, for the advantageous business climate, would make more sense.... but such an effort wouldn't be led by CEOs/recruiters from established firms... who probably don't want the competition of more employers.
I'd try to recruit them in late November or early December...
Isn't the benefit of being outside the valley cost of living and human capital?
I'd suggest they go to the east coast instead.
My startup is in SFBA. I'd love to be in Seattle or Austin instead (I like guns; taxes are secondary consideration; and I'd love a 5k ft2 house), but from a hiring perspective, it's easier to find people who have already done something successful in the bay area.
Maybe set up a second US office for development in one of those two later, but initially, it's hard to beat SFBA. (I guess I'm in the "boring enterprise software" space, at least more so than Facebook, but less so than SAP).
Recruiting from elsewhere (especially Boston/Cambridge) makes a lot of sense, but people are generally more willing to relo to SF than to either Seattle or Austin, at least from my experience.
It's not a zero sum game. Every individual will produce a different amount of value depending on the position they are in.
I read this and thought, "hm, although the markets for RoR and Python are not massive, they have been growing at a good clip, perhaps that's a good area to focus on." (I'm from a background of C++ and PHP, and I'm thoroughly burnt out on them)
Then I realized that these guys are idiots. They're follow-the-crowd types who are ignoring masses of untapped talent elsewhere in the nation and flying around to recruit in the same "rockstar" seeking circle jerk as everyone else. It's no wonder they're short on talent, they probably don't have the slightest clue what it looks like.
So now I wonder, "hm, maybe those are actually just buzzword technologies and they won't hold up in the long run..."
Since I assume that the total number of jobs in a given field are proportional to the number of open listings, and since I assume that the number of skilled developers is tied to the historical job number, I am led to imagine that there is a much bigger pool of skilled ASP.Net and PHP candidates out there.
Basically, it sounds like these guys are just manufacturing their own dearth of job applicants. They're using hot, newer technology and flying to the most high-demand location to seek talent. If they made their products in ASP.Net or PHP and hired from other areas of the country, I'll bet they would have no trouble getting their product done quickly. But that's less buzz-wordy and they couldn't live their rockstar-wannabe fantasies.
(Note that I'm not making any claim as to the superiority of any language, or potential speed of development)
You will see more Democratic lawn signs, bumper-stickers, and billboards in conservative areas of Texas than you'll see Republican signage in liberal areas of California... conservative politics is strong but does not enforce the same orthodoxy as in the cities of California.
Over the last four decades, Calfornia has been led by Republican governors for more years than Texas has. Houston is the largest city in the world to elect an openly gay mayor.
People, companies, communities, and regions are a lot more interesting, and compatible with each other, than reductionist left-right political averages might lead you to believe.
Texas, though still a 'stronghold' for the Right at the moment, is getting whittled down. For example: in the Fort Worth area, one of the reddest in a red state, 12 years ago was voting 96% Republican. 4 years later it was 88%. These days it is around 65%. Strongly red to be sure but the trend is unmistakable.
Also, a lot of 'Rockstar, Ninja SuperHumans' in SF are eventually going to want to raise a family. I love SF (aside from the slight claustrophobic feeling it gives me) but it is terribly hard to raise kids there. Aside from the tiny living spaces and lack of places to play, child care is astronomical. Austin is a great place for raising a family.
Everybody's mentioned the cost of living.
Some differences with the Austin 'scene' as opposed to CA. Ideas are greeted with a bit more skepticism...the second or third question that will always be asked is 'Sounds great! How is it going to make money?' That can be a bit of a wet blanket but it could also serve to keep you focused. Not to say that there is a lack of enthusiasm. There is plenty of that, but it is a bit more sober. Also, entrepreneurs seem to be a slightly older set of people. Not much but it is noticeable. One problem is that traditional banks around here (Austin) seem to be next to clueless or just extremely cautious when it comes to technology (if someone has a favorite tech savvy bank(er) in the Central Texas area, please let me know).
Anyway, I have convinced people to move from SF kicking and screaming. They have had a lot of the same reactions of people here ("I never want to be a Texan!", "Where will I get good beer?", "Is there any good food there?", "The jobs are not as exciting." etc, etc.) and they have ended up being very happy here.
Austin is awesome! Just my 2 cents.
When I decided to move from DFW to start a company I looked at Portland, Boston, San Francisco, and Austin. Austin made sense, financially. Texas has no state income tax (unfortunately the social services reflect this), jobs, and the cost of living is a fraction of what it is in other cities of its size. Also, winter is just another word for January here.
Unfortunately, Austin is still a reasonably small town surrounded by Texas.
I wouldn't have come here if I wasn't trying to sack away money in a town with a reasonable selection of 24-hour cafes and restaurants. While I know a few SF->Austin transplants who love it here, I'd rather be in San Francisco.
But if you live in a good location you can rent your place for $$$. :)
About $600 for a nice one bedroom. Right by Epoch, Dragon's Lair, Great Hall Games, Austin Books and Comics, etc...
Not so true this summer...
http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bi...
(I live in Austin.)
The Hill Country is nice tho.
They moved down after I went away for school. After being away from them for about 6 years during/after school, I went down the summer before my brother got married and ended up staying for a bit after meeting a girl.
This was well before I considered Austin or the others. I didn't intend to settle in Texas when I first got here.
Admittedly, I may be slightly biased here because I wonder why much of the east coast tends to get marginalized when talking about startup activity. (I'm in Philly)
There are way more of those people in the bay area (although, many more jobs, too) than in Philly (I am from suburban philadelphia myself). Recruiting from enterprises might be ok for employees 20+, but not as good on the cultural fit issues for #1-10.
NYC is basically out (they are a net importer); Boston is a major source; philadelphia, atlanta, north carolina, etc. might be minor sources, and DC is probably a net importer.
I'd relo candidates from places like that (we can't really do remote yet), but wouldn't personally want to set up an office anywhere but SFBA, Seattle, Austin, a few non-US places, or unfortunately DC-Metro (I hate DC Metro myself, but in the long run, it's necessary; not sure if MD, VA, DC makes the most sense).
$140k in NYC (this is a common salary/comp) $120k in Austin (this is a common salary/comp)
Nominal dollar amounts, yes, $20k is dollar for dollar, less. But now, factor in your taxes (NY State tax, Kings County, etc.) That $140k is now significantly less. Factor in cost of living being TWICE as much (literally, my rent per sq ft was more than twice what it was in Austin). You now are TAKING HOME less money.
So when I said net income, that's what I meant. If you're more concerned with a higher salary and less net income, then, well good luck to ya. I prefer to have more $$ in my pocket after it's all said and done.
Or you make $120k, but take home $95k. Then it's about the same.
Now factor in cost of living. The $$ in your pocket is higher. If you more concerned with the nominal/gross dollar amount as opposed to net income, I feel you are looking at the wrong metric.
FWIW it looks like $120K in Austin is indeed almost exactly the same take-home as $140K in NYC. Austin you would make about 20 more dollars per week.
