
30 Austin tech CEOs headed to California in search of workers - vipivip
http://www.statesman.com/business/30-austin-tech-ceos-headed-to-california-in-1809049.html
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joe-mccann
First, Austin is NOTHING like Texas. It is a beacon of progressive hope in an
otherwise bass-ackwards state. I moved to Austin from New York City by way of
Portland, Oregon so believe me, when I say that there is no way I would live
in TEXAS; Austin is anything but that.

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.

~~~
rdouble
Do you get paid the same as in NYC?

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.

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joe-mccann
My net income was significantly higher after leaving NYC. Let's put it that
way =)

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joe-mccann
Are you asking me to share my specific income? That's not gonna happen. Let's
do some hypotheticals.

$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.

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joe-mccann
You're welcome, but the reason I explained is the answer is yes AND no. Yes,
because gross dollar amount is less but No because take home is much more.

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zbruhnke
I'm going to have to agree with most others here. I live less than five hours
from Austin, travel there for business occasionally and rarely get calls from
companies in Austin interested in hiring me or if I know anyone they should
hire.

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

~~~
gojomo
I agree, but maybe they're just treating this a warm-up/practice visit, and
chance to scout their main competition for the rest of the country. The visits
to other non-tech hubs will be the real outreach.

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.

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makeramen
I don't think this makes sense... I'm from MN and made a recent trip to the
Bay area where all the local startups were clamoring over me. Meanwhile back
in the midwest, I have to actively market myself to attract any attention. If
you're really looking for untapped talent, go where nobody else is looking.

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mcu
Exactly! Milwaukee and Madison have huge pools of programmers that are largely
ignored.

I'd try to recruit them in late November or early December...

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a5seo
I've founded a couple of startups in Austin. The thing to know about Austin is
that, at least right now, there are only about 6 consumer Internet startups of
note who can afford real talent. Unless you move here for a specific position,
or are a developer, finding a decent job will be tricky. If you like
enterprise software, though, you'll be happier than a pig in mud.

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bdr
Would you mind naming the startups?

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a5seo
HomeAway, indeed, Retailmenot, vast, Gowalla, myedu, uship,
regretsy/passiveaggresivenotes, wpengine, otherinbox, Dell.

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pavel_lishin
Regretsy is a startup? I thought it was just a blog that linked to stupid Etsy
art.

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enjalot
This seems counter-intuitive, I thought the competition for hiring in the
valley was already too high.

Isn't the benefit of being outside the valley cost of living and human
capital?

~~~
BenSS
Exactly what I was going to say! Calif is a terrible place to go and scout out
talent, unless they're also trying to raise visibility in the same shot.

I'd suggest they go to the east coast instead.

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rdl
SFBA is a better place if you're willing to offer above market (or find
someone who wants to leave the Bay Area), specifically to hire a couple of
experienced people who can be the core of a company, or who have specific
technical expertise. Basically this is the same pool as startup founders.

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.

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BenSS
This explains what they're looking for, but not why it's location dependent.
Sfba is a startup hub, but that dosnt mean that talent doesn't exist
elsewhere! What's the successful metric? Part of a startup? Founder? Product
principal?

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)

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rdl
Looking for: * deeply knowledgeable and passionate about computer security *
adequate developer (ideally in Python, C/C++, but specific languages don't
matter) -- would take better developer and less experienced (but still
interested in) security; ideally everyone is great at both the
security/audit/ops side and the dev side, but a team with everyone having a
different mix is most realistic * compatible long-term goals which are
explicit; if someone wants to use this to become a great startup founder in
1-2y, i'd be fine with that and then introducing to investors, or someone who
wants a 10y+ job, but being explicit about desires seems essential, in
exchange for the company being honest about status, long-term potential, etc.
* cultural fit: able to get along with the team, and also compatible with "how
startups work" -- easier if someone's been part of a successful product launch
at a startup in a similar role

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).

~~~
BenSS
Appreciate the insight! Makes the organizations like Dreamit Ventures and the
university business incubators even more important in my eyes. We've got the
developer talent, but more lacking in the xp of 'how startups work'.

~~~
rdl
I think internships/coop are more important; if you were e.g. a Waterloo
student who spent 2y of 5y working for Facebook, Amazon, Google, or small
great startups, you'd be in a good position to start a startup (or work for an
early stage one) locally.

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pagekalisedown
How do they plan on convincing the average liberal democrat Californian to
move to a conservative stronghold like Texas?

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mcu
I moved from reasonably liberal parts of Illinois/Wisconsin to Dallas/Fort
Worth about three years ago... I wouldn't recommend this.

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.

~~~
bretthoerner
As someone who went SF->Austin (and is originally from DFW) I'm curious why in
the hell you'd pick DFW after you looked at Portland and Austin?

~~~
mcu
Family.

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.

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hga
What about non-competes? If you take the offer of one of these companies, if
their employee contract is of the standard type outside of California, you'd
better save away enough money to move back to where they are non-enforceable
as a matter of long standing public policy.

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mrbgty
" The zero-sum-game hurts the overall tech community, so we've decided to come
together to seek out new additions to Austin to help us all grow"

It's not a zero sum game. Every individual will produce a different amount of
value depending on the position they are in.

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toddmorey
And most of California is nothing like LA or SF! This drives me a bit nuts...
I've done a ton of traveling, and while I think you can generally and
accurately describe life in a certain city, it doesn't expand well to bigger
geographies. Parts of France are nothing like Paris. Parts of Japan are
nothing like Tokyo. In general, when choosing where to live, it's best to make
sure you are a match on the city level. (Perhaps, too, give points to a city
for being enough of a hub to make traveling easier.)

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georgieporgie
_The group is targeting engineers with experience in Java, Ruby on Rails and
Python programming_

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..."

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jbail
I think you're right...except for the part about Python and RoR. I think those
are here to stay, though I doubt many people know why to would pick one over
the other, perhaps other than the buzzword value.

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georgieporgie
Oh, I'm definitely not knocking RoR or Python. But they certainly seem to be
in significantly less use than PHP and ASP.Net (using Indeed's jobtrends as my
ubiquitous measure of reality, RoR + Python jobs count approximate PHP _or_
ASP.Net jobs count).

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)

