

Why we're moving our startup from Houston to Austin - jdrock
http://blog.datafiniti.net/?p=151

======
nilkn
> The 1% of fresh graduates that would be a good fit for us already have job
> offers by their junior year by the likes of Google & Facebook. Just ask the
> students at Rice.

As a Rice graduate, I can say that not all of us went to Google or Facebook. I
stayed in Houston, for instance, despite options to go more or less wherever I
wanted. High wage, low cost of living. My apartment is _so_ much nicer than
what many of my friends in SF or Mountain View are living in despite higher
salaries.

The problem is I had to aggressively seek out smaller companies and start-ups
here to find my current job. I can say with utmost confidence that there are
some incredibly talented CS graduates coming out of Rice, completely on par
with Stanford or other top schools. It is so bizarre to me that the few
startups that we do have in Houston often make little to no effort at all to
recruit from Rice.

------
pm24601
I for one would move completely from Texas. Texas has this pro-business
attitude that makes it bad for employees - little protection legally from
being screwed over. Low wages and poor health care systems. Oil and Chemical
industry heavily favored (West, Tx anyone?)

There is more to life than work. Like being able to live.

~~~
Casseres
> _Texas has this pro-business attitude that makes it bad for employees -
> little protection legally from being screwed over._

Which makes it good for a start-up; if they need to fire someone, they can
without cause.

> _Low wages and poor health care systems._

Cost of living is a lot lower compared to New York or Silicon Valley and
Houston has the best medical center in the world.

> _There is more to life than work. Like being able to live._

Houston has a lot of great opportunities (being the fourth largest city in the
United States). I like to consider the IMAX factor. Houston has the most IMAX
theaters of any city in the United States.

Disclosure: I grew up in Houston and currently live right outside of Houston.
I do hate the traffic however, though according to a recent report [0], it's
not even in the U.S.'s top ten, but Austin is.

[0] [http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/05/07/top-10-u-s-cities-
with-t...](http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/05/07/top-10-u-s-cities-with-the-
worst-traffic/)

~~~
pm24601
Dreamland.

===================

1\. The "pro-business" attitude is anti-startups.

For example in California non-compete's are pretty much unenforceable. No
company even bothers to ask for them (
[http://www.californialaborlawattorney.com/non-competition-
cl...](http://www.californialaborlawattorney.com/non-competition-clauses.htm)
) :

 _"In a few states, they are generally not legal. For example, in California,
a non-compete agreement is enforceable only if someone sells a business and
agrees not to compete with the new owner. That aside, California employers
cannot restrict the livelihood of their current or former employees."_

Eric Reis (Lean Startup) ( [http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/business-
brains/-8216non-com...](http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/business-
brains/-8216non-compete-agreements-stifle-entrepreneurship-startup-guru/18009)
):

 _"Eric Ries, creator of the Lean Startup methodology and the author of the
entrepreneurship blog Startup Lessons Learned, says that Silicon Valley’s
celebrated entrepreneurial culture isn’t necessarily a result of the research
universities and venture capital dollars in the area, since similar resources
are available elsewhere._

 _Instead, he gave a lot of credit to California’s legal system in a recent
interview. While the state may have more than its share of budget issues and
crushing tax burdens, the entrepreneurial spirit is allowed to flourish
without teams of lawyers putting a damper on things:_

 _“[California has] the kind of legal framework that makes that doable. For
example, one important difference is in California no matter what kind of
employment agreement you sign, most forms of non-compete and really onerous
trade secret agreements are non-enforceable in California. So if you’re
working on a cool new idea in your own time without using any company
resources, your employer can’t lay claim to that same invention, and therefore
you’re free to incubate something on the side and then go pursue it as a
company."_

===================

2\. Low wages and poor health care systems

> Cost of living is a lot lower compared to New York or Silicon Valley and
> Houston has the best medical center in the world.

Yes and your kids will go to shitty schools. The medical center is great if
you can afford it -- but we are talking about a startup right - low wages,
lots of equity.

25% of Texans are uninsured ( <http://www.texmed.org/Template.aspx?id=5519> )

I would also point out that Thailand has even lower wages and a good health
care system.

===================

There are reasons why businesses continue to stay in "high-wage" "high-cost"
places like New York and California: High-value employees are there.

As a final point, the recent joke of a tour by Rick Perry to "lure" California
businesses to Texas ( Read more: [http://business.time.com/2013/04/24/why-is-
texas-governor-ri...](http://business.time.com/2013/04/24/why-is-texas-
governor-rick-perry-in-illinois/#ixzz2TxqwnAnc) )

 _The short-term costs of relocating and the uncertainty a move brings to a
business often outweigh any potential long-term benefits from setting up in a
more pro-business environment. According to the Public Policy Institute of
California, even with California’s history of high taxes and heavy regulation,
only 2% of job losses between 1992 and 2006 were due to businesses leaving the
state._

===================

> I grew up in Houston and currently live right outside of Houston. I do hate
> the traffic

I live in Silicon Valley and I use Caltrain and Light Rail a lot ( Free Wifi
). Los Angeles is building a massive rail network as fast as they can (
<http://www.metro.net/interactives/metrorail_timeline/> )

Traffic? You can keep it.

~~~
nilkn
> I live in Silicon Valley and I use Caltrain and Light Rail a lot

I live in Houston and I just walk to work.

There are also some very walkable and hip places like Midtown and Montrose--
lots of restaurants, bars, theaters, etc., all in walking distance of one
another.

If you do the whole commuter suburb thing, though, then Houston could be a bad
deal. Solution: don't do that.

When I do need to drive, it's never rush hour and it's not a problem.

> Yes and your kids will go to shitty schools.

There are many fantastic schools in Houston. And as far as colleges go, Rice
is ranked nationally alongside Cornell. In this sense, Houston actually has
better schools than San Francisco.

> There are reasons why businesses continue to stay in "high-wage" "high-cost"
> places like New York and California: High-value employees are there.

Houston has a major talent pool coming out of Rice that local companies are
doing a poor job of exploiting. In all honesty, this talent is completely on
par with that coming from Stanford, which fuels so much of the Silicon Valley
start-up scene.

~~~
pm24601
Compare the walk ability maps for Houston (
<http://www.walkscore.com/TX/Houston> ) with San Francisco (
<http://www.walkscore.com/CA/San_Francisco> )

Oh and by the way, Obamacare is coming big-time to California: (
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/23/california-
health-i...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/23/california-health-
insurance-premiums_n_3328110.html?1369347779) )

 _In all, 13 health insurance companies will sell products on the exchange,
and premiums will range from 2 percent more to 29 percent less than what
comparable plans cost this year, the agency said._

~~~
nilkn
Comparing the walkability scores for the entire cities is a bad comparison.
Houston is downright _huge_ compared to San Francisco in a geographical sense.
The area of Houston I live in has a walk score of 82 apparently. There are
many areas of San Francisco with walk scores below that.

Yes, in general Houston is not a walkable city at all. But you can
significantly reduce your reliance on driving by just making more intelligent
choices about where you live. Many people here think that they've got to go
buy a house as soon as they can, so they go buy out in a suburb with a 30
minute commute because they can't afford a house in the nicer inner loop
neighborhoods. I choose to just rent an apartment downtown--significantly
better quality of life, incredible dining options (Houston is frequently rated
the best city for restaurants in the US), stunning wooded neighborhoods nearby
(River Oaks), and if I ever decide I want a house, I can just go buy one for
cash in a suburb (or nearly so)--yet I still retain the option also of packing
it all up and going to SF if I wanted to.

