Beyond specific companies, Texas has more favorable business climate and tax rates.
Housing alone is such a huge knock against CA for new companies. Even paying somebody 500k there leaves them feeling middle class when trying to raise a family.
Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but in Texas they build like crazy to support population inflows. If you drive through Austin you'll see every third or fourth house is getting torn down to be rebuilt into 2-3 houses on the same plot.
Fundamentally this just gives you a lot more runway to grow.
I don't know why anybody would start a company in SF these days, aside from VC being local and sometimes requiring it.
I have no doubt Texas will overtake CA in terms of economic output, but will take decades just due to previous inertia. Also remote work may be the true winner in the end.
I do think CA is still the place you want to be if money is no object though. Unfortunately that doesn't apply for most people. There may actually be a change in political winds that blow things back the other way though, just viewing this from today's lens.
When I went to high school in Texas, my History textbook still framed the Civil War as a "states rights" and "economic freedom" issue.
Many school districts also defied the governors short-sighted/partisan order of banning masks in schools. I don't recall any representative from Texas' HHS department supporting that order.
Some CRT would be a welcome breath of reality for our education system. Could you share why you think that it's hostile to children?
The Texas State Board of Education routinely tries to push young earth Creationism into science classrooms which is a bit hostile to those who want their kids to learn actual science.
did they succeed though? And if yes, did it came at the expense of "actual science"?
An important lesson a parent should teach to their kids is that not 100% of what is taught to them is true and that some stuff taught to them is non-sense/political propaganda. In CA it is CRT, it TX it is Creationism.
You should look up all that Texas SBoE has done in regards to science, math, history, and health and their often unique and counterfactual ideas on what should be taught.
Yeah, I suspect things will reach a breaking point and the pendulum will swing back.
Just look at all the organized retail crime in Northern California. There's a new article pretty much every day about groups of 20+ coordinating mass retail thefts.
Voters explicitly put into place DA and laws that basically decriminalized crime, and now are bearing the fruits of that.
Don't think voters will continue voting for those policies now that repercussions being seen and lived.
>>"Don't think voters will continue voting for those policies now that repercussions being seen and lived."
- I really hope you are right, but I am not expecting this. Unfortunately, average voter (both on the left and right) seems to be willing to reject realities of cause->effects if they conflict with their identity.
I appreciate your response, but that is just one teacher though not any kind of policy. I am trying to find out what specific part of California's "Critical Race Theory" curriculum you object to. I hear a lot of people who are mad about the teaching of CRT in schools, but thus far no one has provided me concrete examples of any specific teachings that are objectionable.
It seems to me to be more of bogey man rather than anything real.
Can they get similar talent with draconian social policies like abortion bans? If I suggested moving to Texas my wife would (rightfully) tell me to go fuck myself.
There's been a lot of talk about Texas "turning blue" over the past few years and I wonder if these companies either moving their operations or building new plants there could be the tipping point.
"Can they get similar talent with draconian social policies like abortion bans? If I suggested moving to Texas my wife would (rightfully) tell me to go fuck myself."
- I am very much against TX's policy on this. However, how many people are affected by this policy Vs how many kids will be denied Algebra in CA now?
It is never 100% all good or bad policies in any place. It is always a mix. Rational people chose what's best for them and their loved ones overall.
You're really comparing an abortion ban to delayed algebra?
Also, that was just a single example. If you want to stick to education, Texas lawmakers have also been trying to push a book ban for public schools just this past month.
There's also a bill targeting the concept of critical race theory that would ban curriculum where “an individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of the individual’s race or sex.”
This is significantly different from pros/cons like high taxes... there's a fairly strong current of anti-intellectualism across Texan politics.
You're really comparing a state level abortion ban to delayed algebra?
Abortion at the state level is not something I would even consider in my list of priorities when choosing where to live when you can just drive to another state for a once in a lifetime event if you ever actually needed one. Public school systems are a whole other level though as your kids will deal with that daily.
There's no way the abortion ban will survive in its current form once it gets to SCOTUS. Even the Texas state legislature knows that. So it's just a matter of time before it gets watered down.
Trillion dollars companies setting up shop after getting billions in tax breaks is the opposite of how a tech ecosystem should develop. Look at the amount of VC dollars that come to Silicon Valley vs Texas.
I don't know but if you were waiting for a signal, Samsung built another, larger, and more valuable fab in Austin a decade ago. And if you are judging by fab capacity the question you should have asked is when Texas will overtake Arizona. There really are very few semi fabs in California.
the University of California system (where I got my Ph.D.) just got rid of standardized test without proposing anything better.The admission is now even more unfair and subjective. First time in a decade I am not donating to my Alma mater. Neither do many others from my class.
Also California recently tried to pass a horrendous Prop 16 to enable outright race and gender discrimination in admission process. Luckily it didn't pass, but the politicians who supported it (Newsom, Harris) are still here to do damage.
