And we coined “Management by Zooming Around.” Which is what Oracle’s Larry Ellison is doing.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
When on December 11, Oracle disclosed that it “is implementing a more flexible employee work location policy and has changed its Corporate Headquarters from Redwood City, California to Austin, Texas,” it was another step in the process that we will henceforth call “Techsodus.”
The exodus of tech companies, executives, billionaires, millionaires, and regular tech employees from California, and particularly from San Francisco and Silicon Valley, is a combo of fleeing California and a shift to work-from-anywhere. Texas, Florida, Colorado, and other states have been among the destinations. Texas and Florida don’t levy state income taxes, so sure.
But Larry Ellison, co-founder and chairman of Oracle, isn’t moving to Texas along with the headquarters of his company. He has moved his primary residence to Hawaii, following Oracles new doctrine of working from anywhere. And Hawaii’s state income taxes are not far behind California’s.
Oracle already has a 560,000-square-foot campus in Austin, which it opened in 2018 – and moving its headquarters to Austin might not change all that much at first in terms of employment. Oracle said that it would “continue to support major hubs for Oracle around the world,” including its soon-to-be former headquarters in Redwood City. Oracle, founded in 1977, is one of the older tech companies that helped make Silicon Valley.
The move of its headquarters to Austin will “provide our personnel with more flexibility about where and how they work,” Oracle said. “Depending on their role, this means that many of our employees can choose their office location as well as continue to work from home part time or all of the time.”
“By implementing a more modern approach to work, we expect to further improve our employees’ quality of life and quality of output,” Oracle said.
And Larry Ellison is leading by example, telling his employees in an email, first reported by Recode: “I’ve received a number of inquiries about whether or not I will be moving to Texas. The answer is no. I’ve moved to the State of Hawaii and I’ll be using the power of Zoom to work from the island of Lanai.”
In the old days, the doctrine for achieving excellence was called “management by walking around.” Now it’s “management by Zooming around,” another term we coined today.
Working from anywhere for Ellison means working on a 140-square-mile island, a former pineapple plantation that Ellison acquired (98% of it) in 2012 from David Murdock who’d obtained it via his purchase of Castle & Cooke that Dole Food had spun off. The economy on Lanai has been dedicated to tourism: It has three luxury hotels that Ellison owns, plus a grocery store that Ellison owns, a school, an airport where Ellison’s corporate jets drop him off and pick him up, and about 3,000 residents whose jobs mostly depend on Ellison’s operations on the island. Ellison also owns part of the housing on the island, and to top it off, he bought the only local newspaper – another billionaire buying up newspapers.
Techsodus by companies.
Oracle’s decision to move its headquarters to Texas followed the announcement by another Silicon Valley company, Hewlett Packard Enterprise to build a 440,000-square-foot campus near Houston for its new headquarters. Like Oracle, HPE already has big operations in Texas.
Charles Schwab is moving its headquarters from San Francisco to its campus in Westlake, a suburb north of Dallas; the change, announced in late 2019, will be effective this January 1. Schwab’s workforce in San Francisco has been shrinking for years.
Macy’s announced on the eve of the Pandemic in early February that it would shut down its entire tech center in San Francisco – the headquarters of macys.com, Product and Digital Revenue, and Technology – and lay off 1,080 employees and contract workers, including executives, software engineers, and analysts. The activities would be moved to Macy’s locations in Atlanta, which “will serve as the primary technology hub for the company,” it said, and in New York.
Macy’s was one of the top 10 ecommerce sites in the US at the time, according to eMarketer. But Macy’s has since then fallen off eMarketer’s Top 10 list.
Palantir Technologies said in August that it was moving its headquarters from Silicon Valley’s Palo Alto to Denver, Colorado, and its website now lists Denver as its headquarters.
Techsodus by billionaires and similar.
Ellison follows in the footsteps of another billionaire that bailed out of California, Elon Musk, who’d said last week that he’d already moved to Texas, surely salivating at the prospect of dodging state income taxes. Musk had followed in the footsteps of Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, who’d purchased a home in Austin for his full-time residence, as was reported in November, after the San Francisco company switched to permanent work-from-anywhere in October. Douglas Merritt, CEO of San Francisco enterprise software company Splunk, which also makes tools for monitoring work-from-anywhere, purchased a home in Austin as primary residence.
“Techsodus” is real. It’s the move from California, and particularly from San Francisco and Silicon Valley, to other states. These are just the most famous examples of executives, founders, and their multi-billion-dollar companies that are making the move. And there are many others.
The term “Techsodus” was suggested today by a WOLF STREET reader who is in real estate down in Carmel-by-the-Sea on California’s Monterey Peninsula. This is its inaugural use here to describe this situation as we follow it going forward.
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Hoping they leave their socialist statist values behind.
They won’t. They will take their ‘woke’ value system to Texas and ruin that fine state also,
Surely has happened to FL,,, and is definitely still happening in spite of the appearances from the last elections where the Republican machine — same folks who used to be the democratic machine– produced the outcomes,,, just exactly as did the democratic machine in earlier decades..
But even so, many races in this recent election were much much closer than anyone thought possible,,, and after watching the backs and forths in FL since the mid 1950s era, I suspect that state will once again be majority democratic sooner and later,,, that party being the exact opposite of what it was until the 1980s or so..
Many states in ”fly over” country are and will be experiencing the same thing, so, as has been suggested here before, “May we all live in interesting times.” is right on the money these days, eh
Socialist how, precisely? Despite having a Democratic Governor and supermajorities in the state legislature, California does not have single-payer health care, free college, a $15 minimum wage, or anything resembling a Green New Deal. There is fracking being done up and down the state, California has the lower literacy rate in the country, prisoners are used to fight the state’s wildfires.
California has the fifth highest wealth inequality in America measured by the Gini coefficient.
People like to wear blue or red cheerleader outfits and wave pom poms around for their tribe, but the percentage swing from California to Texas is just 18 points.
“California does not have single-payer health care, free college,” Not for long term tax donkeys in the middle class anyway. For others, it certainly does:
“The agreement marks the end of months of negotiations between Newsom and the Legislature. The agreement includes funding to let undocumented adults under age 26 enroll in Medi-Cal, the state’s health insurance program for low-income Californians.”
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/06/10/undocumented-immigrants-to-get-health-care-in-california-budget-deal/
A few months later:
“Newsom’s latest proposed budget now aims to extend free health care coverage to illegal immigrants 65 years old and older as a part of the state’s Medi-Cal program. This would add $80.5 million to the budget this year and $350 million annually once fully implemented”
College?
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/03/12/more-states-are-encouraging-undocumented-students-pursue-tuition-free-programs
So you are against helping people under 26 (basically still kids), over 65 (basically have done their fair share of work given our current life span), and letting the working people between 26 – 65 bare the load?
What part of that seems unreasonable?
J Wolff: ‘what seems unreasonable?”
You have to ask? These are lawbreakers, in this country illegally. There’s a process for legal immigration. These lawbreakers cut the line. They are here illegally. We taxpayers owe them nothing. I’m tired of liberal socialists being generous with real citizens’ money.
Yes. If someone is living in our country, I don’t care where they are born. I don’t think immigrants are any more likely to burden the system that native borns. Both are equally likely to be good people.
I don’t think anyone should be without basic healthcare. I would like to see healthcare costs made more efficient as opposed to kicking people off the system.
Texas will soon be blue. Thank God. No more Ted Cruz.
Nope, part and parcel. They bring enlightenment with them.
I can’t wait! (right..) As long as they go to Austin which is already contaminated by billionaires and the like.
Madison WI and Ann Arbor MI too cold for them.
I’m so glad techsodus is happening. Finally, good successful ideas can be spread from sea to shining sea instead of all the educated folks being forced to live in a few cities.
By 2030 Texas will be a blue state which will usher in a generation of Democratic Party control in America. And there really isn’t anything that can be done to stop it at this point.
GOP voters are primarily boomers and the simple fact is there will be 20% fewer boomers alive to vote by 2030. On the other side of the ledger, a large infusion of educated D’s from California are being bussed in by the hundreds of thousands in techsodus.
Texas was basically a swing state in 2020 separated by only 5.5%. So it is certain the growing blue wave will swamp that with all these migrations.
Yeah, because one party Democrat rule has really worked wonders for California and New York City.
This has been awesome for the city I grew up in (Chicago). I am sure it will work out the same in Texas.
RightNYer, what kind of rule would you say has “worked wonders”?
I’ve been to many parts of the USA. CA is better than most. It’s a big state too with a lot more complexity to govern than most places.
Your opinion is tired and backed by nothing.
A, you’re missing the part where young idealists (who lean progressive) grow up to become mature realists conservatives (who lean conservative). It doesn’t matter how many Boomers age out, they’ll be replaced by a new generation of people who have matured into a fresh perspective on the limited capacity of government to fix all our problems.
Zantetsu
Strogly disagree with “…Your opinion is tired and backed by nothing…”
I’d say significant numbers of workers and wealth producing enterprises moving out of a political entity is a strong statement of opinion.
@RightNYer
to be sure, it’s the idea of one party rule that is the problem. If people don’t believe it, they can visit Hawaii where that has been the case for 40+ years. The evidence of failure are all over the place even as the politicians try to cover it up.
I can’t think of an obvious case with a red state since I’ve lived mostly in blue states. (although such a one party rule failure wouldn’t surprise me in red states. it’s just human nature) I would expect there are people here who have lived in one party rule red states that can provide immediate examples.
So MCH, you’re able to rewind history in your head and predict with certainty how much “better” things would be with different politics? You must be to be able to to be able to say with such certainty that things are worse than they might be otherwise. That’s an amazing power, I wish I had it.
CA is an absolute powerhouse economically compared to most other places. Most of its problems are a symptom of its success, not its failure. Also some of its problems are caused by perhaps being “too democratic”, allowing the populace to choose significant policy via statewide propositions, instead of leaving the decision making up to better informed experts (i.e. the elected).
@Zantetsu
All I can point to is evidence of what has happened. 40+ years of one power rule has caused all sorts of problems in the one state (Hawaii) I know fairly well. No amount of sugar coating is going to cover that up. Nope, I don’t know what would happen if Hawaii had 40 years of being a purple state, may be it’s better off, may be it’s not. Can’t tell the future, sorry.
CA seems to be bent on that path… will it end up the same way, may be…. may be there is a miracle. But if we take your fun little point.
“Most of its problems are a symptom of its success, not its failure. Also some of its problems are caused by perhaps being “too democratic”, allowing the populace to choose significant policy via statewide propositions, instead of leaving the decision making up to better informed experts (i.e. the elected).”
I see, so let me do a little projecting here of my own onto your thought process.
What you’re saying is that the problem is the voters. They don’t know what’s good for them. That perhaps the will of the people is irrelevant because (insert your favorite reason here) Yes, may be elections should be cancelled, cause the voters are clueless?
That sounds a little like a certain someone who refuses to concede despite the will of the people? How very Democratic of you.
MCH, I’d say Mississippi is a red corollary. The best governed states, in my experience, tend to be the purplish ones.
Wolf presented a lot of data of companies leaving California. However, this is just anecdotal. It would be interesting to see data on startup frequency in all the states and major cities.
I saw that Austin and Denver have been ranked highly (due to people moving to these cities) and the quality of life scores. However, I wonder how that affects start-up quantities.
Not possible. You’re going to see the government bow to big business. Musk is the second richest man in the world and he’s building EVs. Watch Texas start changing its mind on climate change when the green hits their pocket. Thats free market capitalism!
Also, you’re worried about millennial who are conservative compared to gen z. The new generation think millennial are stuck in the mud conservatives afraid of change. Most think Bernie Sanders was far too right wing for them.
This isn’t surprising. I’m an old fart myself and I’ve seen a lot of change in my years. Not surprising the young is more liberal. After all, do you think we are going to have a new Dark Ages where we burn money and books at the stakes for the church?
Texas has already swallowed the Green Energy kool-aid and has more generating capacity than any other state, including California.
A rancher out in West Texas once told me, “Look, they pay me for wind!”
These people know how to make money off wind!
Keith-relax! It’s just the chillun’, grandchillun’ and great-grandchillun’ coming home after their parents fled your little bit of heaven back in the day (and, who were absorbed and accepted more or less grudgingly here in CA, and subsequently made into the big dog it became) for a legion of good reasons (that i’m sure you will find in the records of your own state’s history).
On a more cociliatory note-remember, as Americans, a paraphrase of our Founders in the face of an uncertain future world: “…if we do not hang together, we will surely hang separately…”.
May we all find a better day.
It seems pretty obvious that we are in a financial and tech valuation bubble that if big tech stock prices pop New York and California are going to have very severe tax revenue problems on top of Covid. Remaining 48 will hurt as well, but not as much.
Texas and Fl have higher property taxes, albeit on less expensive homes.
Texas and Fl require extreme A/C in summer and Fall. That can add $1500-3000 /year in living expenses.
Texas and Fl have little in the way of natuar beauty.. Fl more so with their beaches. Add 5-20k/year in vacation costs to get the hell away from hell 2-3x year
Texas and Fl have bland cities and geography.. mental costs incalculable. But let’s say $1500 in extra bar tab because that’s all their is to do.
That equates to about an additional $30k/year to exist in these tax free states compared Bay Area. Ontop of lower salaries and lower quality of life.
Can’t wait to see the herd move to Texas. Will vastly improve the bay.
The majority of CA bashing comes from either people upset with liberal policy OR people that don’t understand Urban Policy and city/state growth. We have had so many people moving to our cities, of COURSE there will be negative side effects & growing pains. These exact scenarios (rising rents, housing prices, under-funded infrastructure) will come to a city near you as people leave CA. And although I’m told by plenty of Urbanists online that we don’t have an overpopulation problem, we have a housing supply problem, I can’t help but to cheer when I hear of exoduses to other states. Getting NIMBY’s to want to build affordable housing isn’t happening soon enough. We need pressure on the other end as well.
It also comes from people who can balance a ledger. People who remember another situation were off balance sheet liabilities “weren’t a problem” until they were and in a big way(Enron). Housing is expensive but by no means the main problem in this state, not by a long shot.
But don’t worry “were number 6 by GDP” so we can excuse gross fiscal mismanagement, and slow.but steady single party ruin over decades. We won’t be number 6 after Covid is over. Gavin has seen to that.
They won’t.It reminds me of earlier,high profile relocations by the entertainment industry people who flocked to Montana,Colorado,Wyoming.Talk about culture clash!Lanai should have reverted back to the vestiges of the Hawaiian royalty-talk about ewuity and reparations!
I can only imagine what would happen to the U.S. economy if some kind of glitch, blackout or carrington type solar event took down the internet for several months following a full rollout of the techsodus. But I guess most of the companies involved in the tecsodus would be toast anyway in such a situation.
San Francisco will be a much more interesting place if this continues.
It would really really suck darn it if the whole bay area was less expensive and less crowded, especially with the pretentious billionaires and all their quislings.
Detroit, not that long ago, was once the third largest city of America and called the “Paris of the midwest.”
Be careful what you wish for.
Do you remember the article here on the citizens in Barcelona wanting to limit and reduce the tourists?
They got what they wished for too.
The difference between Detroit and SF is orders of magnitude on countless levels. Like comparing a Ford Pinto and a Jaguar XJS.
Wait a little bit more.
Global warming and sea-level rise will do SF in. /s
You do realize that is exactly how someone in 1950s Detroit would have talked about hicktown SF?
Along with mentioning no water, wildfires, earthquakes, poor transportation access to the rest of America, no industry, cut off from the rest of the state, etc…
“The difference between Detroit and SF is orders of magnitude on countless levels. Like comparing a Ford Pinto and a Jaguar XJS.”
Barcelona is WAY over rated Actually I like Madrid better Less parasites living off the tourists blood
Prior to the Civil War, the richest city per capita in America was Natchez, MS. Ring a bell?
Maybe because of who were counted in the ”per capita” at the time, eh Pet…
Really can’t count on any kind of statistic of that nature back in those days anywhere, but especially in the southern states of USA.
Not really that much different in the south of the late 40s-1950s that I grew up in where many folks of many colors were not counted unless they were known by the local sheriff or chief of police, etc…
VV,
The southern states kept very good records of property. When people died their property was recorded in their estates. They knew exactly what people were worth, because they knew what they owned.
Slavery.
lol agree! heck enough of them clear out in California I might move there! Might become affordable again. Texas is going to keep inflating that’s for sure. All that hot money in there.
Agree with you on both Earl,,,
Love CA, from La Jolla to Crescent City, and most all the dozen or so places we have lived in in between in the last 50+ years, except for the still badly polluted parts,,, (not all in SoCal, though that area continues to be the most visible.)
Would love to move back to the bay area once our duty is done in tpa bay area… and keep hopium alive to stay alive to do so…
TX and FL and some of the other now popular areas of fly over states will not only keep inflating, but that inflation, especially of RE, will continue to accelerate as has happened to my certain knowledge (and benefit) these last couple of decades..
OTOH, TX and FL are not really livable with modern standards without air conditioning for many months of every year before, and continuing with, global warming,,, so keep that in mind when trying to buy what will be waterfront property in either place when we come to the global max temps very likely sooner and later…
Funny real life story: Speaking with a services supplier today, one of the issues we noted was the discontinuity of the project management group (we have had several since the beginning of the year). We were told that their company policy is that the project management role is an on-site role. but due to Covid, they have been losing project managers to companies that allow and encourage working from home.
The new dividing line (at least in the American Work Force) will not just be blue collar versus white collar or skilled versus semi-skilled or the trades versus technology, but those that must work on site and those that can work from everywhere.
The upside of working on site is it’s hard to export that to China or India. That should stabilize the trades more than the tech workers. I expect the “mobile” earning power will diliute over time.
Good point.
This ‘work from anywhere’ hyped paradigm is a double-edged sword, so enthusiasts should be careful what they wish for.
When a major portion of workforce has only a virtual presence in businesses it presents some interesting issues.
Digital workers working remotely far away from any headquarters or company office (which is touted as ‘location independence’) may be considered also more detached from their org in tangible terms (skin in game, physical commitment/onsite presence).
A digital nomad relaxing on a tropical beach (or in a mountain chalet) equipped with a laptop and cell phone sounds more like a vacation rather than work, and eventually I think that’s what it will be seen in retrospect.
Out of sight (except as an email sender and virtual pixel presence) can mean out of mind = less importance in the org in some ways. Perhaps the first to go when layoffs come around?
If employees are more like digital ‘ghosts’ only seen on computer screen they have given up face-to-face, in-person persuasiveness and charisma, and that hard to describe ‘personality’ that can convey honesty and trustworthiness– important traits for corporate upward mobility. Will the organization chart and corporate hierarchy be as relevant in many WFA scenarios?
Since some knowledge and office work lends itself to more AI automation it will be easier in future to cut cord on newly expendable remote workers. Just a standard form email termination message would do the trick. No need to clean out desk, stop at HR, and be escorted out the building for sure.
WFA (work from anywhere) will surely evolve and it’s hard to predict what it will look in 5 or 10 years. I have a hunch though that its inherent impersonality and a vague sense of anonymity will not bode well for a lot of workers. Likely many will end up as free lancers or temporary contract workers rather than corporate employees. Time will tell.
I review the work product of overseas engineers on a daily basis, in addition to doing my own work. Given what I have seen, I am not in the least bit worried.
Gonna agree with Zantetsu on this one. I have been doing the contract SW gig for over 25 years now. Many of our clients are just an email address and a bank routing number.
We do business world wide. Clients in Europe, Taiwan, Japan, New Zealand, and all across the US.
There is a marked difference when dealing with foreign clients. Domestic clients are concerned only with the money. (I have negotiated contract deals with managers from big US SW companies – you would recognize them – and been told, to my face, they don’t care if the project is ever completed, and they don’t care if it works. They only care that the cost per engineer is under $20/hour.[1]) Meanwhile with the foreign clients… you are usually negotiating with someone that knows the tech, knows their market, and wants to know what you can do and when you can do it. Cost is usually negotiated at the end. Just a night/day difference.
Many companies outsource. For most it is a net loss. Only two of our clients in the last 25 years have tracked and measured what they are getting from their overseas operations. Both stated that by the time you factor in the overhead for travel, coordination and working through the cultural differences it is a wash. But they do it anyway so they have a story for the board of directors that they are “offshoring”.
Also, as I tell the C-Level guys we contract for, when you look at an organization from the bottom, it looks way different from what is seen at the top. Especially when the “facts” have been massaged as they go up the management chain.
We have a couple of clients that have *never* shipped code from their overseas dev operations. (Well, maybe different now, that was a few years ago.) One managed completely separate Potemkin Village JIRA bug tracking and code repositories that their Indian division worked with, and then they shipped production code from the *real* systems that are hidden from their management and parked in the States. That operation had over a 1000 employees in India. (You wouldn’t believe the lying that goes on in most big American companies.)
[1] – The first time you hear this you think… that guy is a crank. After you hear it the 20th time, you start to ask WTF is going on. It’s all about the compensation. A lot of these guys get a bonus for reducing SW dev cost. They don’t get jack for increasing product quality or hitting ship dates. Look at the incentives when you see a dysfunctional organization.
Telecommuting was the big buzzword in the 90’s. High speed connections were beginning to roll out, and companies liked the possible cost savings. They soon found that productivity dropped. People were goofing off at home, or taking off to do other things, and communication was hampered by the lack of face time and charisma, as mentioned. Thus it was eventually abandoned, they wanted people back in the office. Then in the 00’s, chasing more of that communication, the “open office” was advocated. No more cubicles, big collaborative tables, and those fancy chairs that become symbols of the dot-bombs. Then this had its issues too. We’re about to embark on the same cycles again.
Yup. Larry seems like he will be first to be axed if the stock goes down and they need to make some changes.
@BrianC – Pretty damn accurate, from 2000 onward! I was a senior project manager for embedded software development (internationally) for a Fortune 50 telecom mfgr. You hit a nail on the head, hard.
Onsite managers also not vulnerable to emf/solar flare/gridhack depending upon the energy infrastructure.Everyone needs to learn from the various disasters and create energy sovereignty and built-in redundancy.Passivhouse-style design+solar+battery packs+diesel/biodiesrl generators.
Also,there is This:Templeton at Deutsche Bank just sent out report or email suggesting a TAX on workfromhomers so $ could be given to workers who can Not work from home!!!!This is Real.Whomever this is,they blatheted on about homeworkers not using or contri uting to infrastructure that took decades to build and thesr workers apparently do not eat lunch at home because that was cited as a cost savings to homeworkers so yhe yax would not be so egregious and laughable.Homeworkers should get discounts or bonusesbecause they are not pollutin up the air and soil driving their pricey suvs to the office and going out for drinks afterwards.
There are several potential upsides to all of this.
California’s overdue to get less overcrowded. The congested freeways and hyperinflated housing markets may finally experience some sanity.
The productive folks in the tangible economy aren’t going anywhere – the techspatriates (another good new term for Wolf!) will still want their fantastic California wines and so on. Those who remain will have less crowded parks, cleaner air and better quality of life.
Distributing the passionate techno-tycoons more evenly around the country might, finally, cure the boom-and-bust dynamic which has plagued California since 1849.
Halting the brain-drain of talented and ambitious young people from Middle America to the coastal cities might strengthen Middle America once more.
And maybe, just maybe, some legitimate competition between the states might force some improvements in the bloated single-party political regime?
> Halting the brain-drain of talented and ambitious young people from Middle America to the coastal cities might strengthen Middle America once more.
As someone from Middle America that has been working remotely from various places in the world for about 5 years… this is a pipe dream, esp as more corps wise up to remote work workflows/comms…
Don’t let the few bad apples fool you. CA is strong, it’s economy resilient. So what if a has been like Ellison goes, we have a dozen more billionaires where he come from. As for that loser Musk, easy, we replace him, the Valley itself is a land of opportunity, some new guy will come in within the next couple of years and no one will even remember Musk and the failure that is Tesla, or SpaceX.
As our glorious governor will proclaim in a couple of months, the state of the State is Strong. Don’t let the doubters mislead you.
California will be leading the way to a brighter, more inclusive, and a more equal future.
?
Gavin, can I work for your spin team? Think I have the goods. I am very affordable, $500k a year plus a million dollar bonus if you get re-elected.
?
MCH, you’re delusional. The free market system is at work, capital flows to where its best utilized. Over tax, over regulate and the market reacts. You’re counting of white billionaires to take their place? Don’t hold your breath.
I might be wrong, but i think MCH is being sarcastic here.
MCH was writing sarcastically as evidenced by his emoji and final paragraph.
What you call free market, you bourgeois dog of the capitalist… no wait… that’s too 20th century… let’s try something more modern, you mindless slave of a tyrannical system is obstructing the way to an racially equitable, socially just and something something really cool (I will fill in the blanks later) way of doing things.
Progress will only be had by removing the old obstructions, if they leave voluntarily, so much the better.
?
Dearest MCH
California is also the land of strange people and even stranger weather ( Yes, die of shock as I’m talking about the past) There were two massive droughts in the 1600’s and 1700’s, one lasting 100 years and the second 50 years…. Now I know we didn’t have Tesla to save the day in 1600 but those Spanish must have been doing something other than naming all the big cities to cause such droughts…
Can you imagine a 100 year lack of water today. Well, yes I can, because if has happened once (or twice) it can happen again and for a lot of people the sooner the better but not for me. After all, who would want evil Hollywood moving next door…yuk… Though, saying that, I think we all wish for a brighter, more inclusive, and a more equal future to keep us thin by putting us all off our daily tea and crumpets, served at four pm, of course……. :-)
And capital is best used by speculative flows into the stock market?
Lol sadly
CA is losing its tax base and this will ultimately mean that critical support services such as fire police sanitation and health services will be cut. You can be sure in this global reset hell that is being formed that predatory criminals and gangs will strengthen. CA in no place to be right now to have a bright future.
You took the thought right out of what’s left of my brain, Scott.
Maybe it didn’t, for decades, have a “tax base” in the first place that it is now making up for it?
Totally agree California is in big trouble If I owned real estate there I would be a seller and be looking abroad to reinvest my millions No doubt about it
This is so true. You don’t have to look much farther than San Francisco where this type of nefarious criminal activity is already increasing due to the widening wealth gap.
Thank god there’s still sarcasm in this world. ? Thanks MCH.
I can understand the dislike of an ego such as Musk’s but Tesla and SpaceX failures! Come on man he did in ten years what no government has done Ever…..Create from scratch a cost efficient space launch system. The Heavy lift will kill the market when perfected and their close. 5 years ago people laughed at the idea of a self landing first stage rocket.
Tesla will follow. Their followers are becoming cult like. He started from scratch! Manufacturing performance will follow!
Give credit where credit is deserved!
“So what if a has been like Ellison goes, we have a dozen more billionaires where he come from. As for that loser Musk, easy, we replace him”
LOL as if it matters where a few tech billionnaire’s official residence is located. If that was the case then Tesla China wouldn’t have worked.
Denial is tough I know intosh although I agree Elon is a bit crazy , but aren’t most creative people that way
intosh
“…LOL as if it matters where a few tech billionaire’s official residence is located…”
If you understood the CA tax system, you’d understand why millionaires & billionaires are so important to CA taxes:
According to the CA Legislative Analyst’s Office:
1) Half of the state’s personal income tax revenue comes from those making $500k (half a million/year) or more.
2) Households making $50k or less make up nearly 60 percent of tax filings but make up just 2 percent of revenue.
JC,
I understand perfectly. The problem CA is facing can be put in a simple way, it’s perception, if guys like Elon and Ellison are leaving. Then it’s a signal that not all is well any more in the valley or the rest of the state. The top guys don’t care as much (or carry as much weight in the taxes) because their army of lawyers and accounts will make sure they pay minimal taxes. If you don’t believe me, just listen to Chamath on his podcast.
But it’s the upper middle class (the Bourgeois) who will get a kick in the balls because they don’t have those fancy tax shelters. They are going to get the brunt of the tax increases, and that’s going to accelerate the downward spiral.
But I’m sure instead of meaningful reforms, we’ll get more tweets like that imbecile from So Cal who will soon be running for higher office in the vein of “F*ck Elon.” It plays very well in the media. But in reality, as Musk responded so succintly: “message received.”
P.S. he is not the only one that received that message either. Never mind the context of the message. The meaning was clear for lots of people.
I am sure Ellison still has houses in Silicon Valley in addition to the island in Hawaii.
To be serious, the only thing that matters is keeping Musk in the US.
Whether you love him or hate him, the guys is a damned genius, and I think by the time he finally goes, he’ll be recognized as having more impact on society (in a positive way) than Jobs ever did.
Wasn’t Techsodus a hit by Bob Marley?
Dey took da Texas bus
It was da Techsodus
Ai yai yai
Ai ya yai yai!
Ai yai yai ya yai ya yai yai!!!
Burnin’ and Lootin’ was prior
I think he spelt it texodus.
“Who’s Zoomin’ Who?” was a hit by Aretha Franklin in 1985. Might be the theme music for this article.
Your chorus is from Buffalo soldier.
It’s like this:
Texodus, movement of ja people
You are good! You caught that!
Byte-ing on the mainland……Byte-ing in the Carribe-an?
Glad to be of service, Wolf, and thank you for the props! Jan/Carmel
Hey Wolf! Guess what happens if you remove the “u” to Techsodus?
You get what many people are thinking those companies are.
Techsods, modern day sodbusters, doomed to fight new old range wars over grazing, water, square dancing, or what have ya.
Who are the new Rangers, Marshalls, scouts, pioneers, wagon train provisioners, Alamo developers?
Readers need those answers along with investment tips, moving company referrals, WFA best practices and yoga mat suppliers. ;)
Welp, guess everyone else will have to move out of Austin now. I just hope people can move back into SF. And that more can afford to not be homeless in Ca.
There’s a migration of California pot growers to Oklahoma now as well.
Bravo C.A going down hill .grossly miss manage . L.A going S.F way ,Voters are blind def to the Leader of the State , Fail Leadership ,open dispensery close small business ,
Texas will become the next California. Not in a good way.
Can you surf on waves of illegal immigrants?
Once the newcomers learn the Texas Two-Step all will be good here.
A (somewhat) subversive British IT-focused website called ‘The Register’ ran this story a few days ago:
Wolf may remove the link, but to sum it up the Brits’ take is:
“… California, right from the first year of its inception as a state, has suffered from booms and busts and still seems to come out on top.”
‘In the old days, the doctrine for achieving excellence was called “management by walking around.”’
Usually credited as a fundamental part of ‘The HP Way’ (another dinosaur retiring to Texas).
The old Black guy that I used to buy tractor parts from retired to Texas, too; is that part of the exodus?
Techosauras Rex + boots/saddle –>> Techosauras Tex?? or is that Tackysauras Flex?
Please keep your California out of our Texas.
Besides, you don’t really want to live in flyover country. What a humiliating comedown that would be for you.
Move the wall from the Mexican border to the California border before they can escape.
States can be provincial.
When the Alaska Pipeline construction was underway, there was much consternation among the locals about the presence and ways of intruders from the Lower 48.
They came up with sayings, some less good than others, to pass the time, like the following:
A B-52 is a Texan flying home with Okies under the wings.
re: “Please keep your California out of our Texas.”
Quit bribing Californians with tax breaks. You can’t have it both ways.
CA legislators (aka, gestapo) are proposing legislation to tax millionaires and billionaires for 10 years AFTER moving out of CA. Apparently they’re acknowledging the exodus without admitting the exodus?
If you listen you can hear the sounds of holes being blown in CA State & Municipality budgets everywhere.
Sadly, like Illinois, there will probably be no pension reform coming, so those 6 figure retirees (ive met a few personally) will continue to be supported off the backs of people who will never get a chance to ever retire.
A big part of CA budget comes from stock sales & cap gains taxes. Oops! Can’t get those from TX, now can we,
Underfunded pensions are not unique to California. Texas currently has about $86 billion in unfunded pension obligations.
Hopefully all of those billionaires moving to Texas are big spenders!
Those “holes” have been there for decades. Now that CA is doing something about it; it gets called “miss management”, “socialist regulation” or “gestapo” (a new one from the bloke above) tactics.
In a few decades, TX will also be “mis-managing” and some Elon Musk-like moguls will complain and leave.
Lou, Austin is pretty much like California already. Nothing new coming here. (well, no state income tax….yet)
California’s State politics have been solidly Democrat for over 40 years. If they are just now “doing something” it’s because they dug the hole. CA is the poster child of what rule and regulation from the urban centers does to a State.
This isn’t quite true. Democratic state house, mostly, but Pete Wilson was still governor a little more than 20 years ago. The leftward shift there didn’t really take off until the 90s.
Makes it the 5th largest economy in the world?
Zantetsu,
CA economy has happened because of the physical climate and educational powerhouse of the Bay Area, the political climate there is not the proximate cause of CA economic story.
And the underside of CA is the state with the most inequality and the largest percentage of people in poverty. That’s not entirely positive.
Pension reform in Illinois passed in 2011 (Tier 2). The ILSC spoke on what reforms are legal and illegal. If you think switching everyone to a 401K would be good it makes the budget situation worse as those matches would be due from the day someone is employed until retired instead of payment starting when someone retires until death.
Hello from IL.We Are broke,it is true.Should be interesting?to see how all plays out.I have been telling my sons for Years that many,many oldies will Never see a dime of their pensions and I am even more convinced of this no matter What state gramps may dwell.The Trump card would be the imposed digicurrency policy well underway.If gramps agrees to some things and keeps mouth shut about the constitution,civil rights,free speech,soveriegnty,decency,etc. He May get his allowance like a good boy.That is,of course,If he Survives the forced,barely tested vacc.Check out all the class actions against flu vaccine makers.Apparently many side effects including permanent nerve damage.
Wonder what Governor Newsome’s strategy will be for California?
Also, as a passing note, I read in the Marin IJ newspaper that Marin County is in the process of shifting to become a Bio-tech Hub! I am sure the city of San Francisco will follow via sub-lease maybe the Twitter or Macy’s space?
In the context of humanity, I am horrified at the reality of the increasing dominance of ‘Bio-Tech Hub’ as its clinical trial targets the elderly & marginalized residents — most vulnerable in need of a monetary stipend.
As SF Mayor generously distributes ‘needles’, alcohol and weed, is the next freebie — ‘designer pharma drugs’?
I don’t understand all the love for Austin. It seems great on paper until you live there. Horrible traffic, frightening temperatures for 3-4 months, lots of homelessness and violence. The music and barbecue are terrific, but you get over that, you’re eating from a truck after all.
I wonder if people think they’re moving to some 21st century Nirvana of coding, no taxes, music, art and “restaurant culture.”
Ask a local what they think of the Cali transplants.
That’s what happened to Boulder Co in the early 90s (it’s prettier tho) and more recently Asheville NC (also prettier.) The kids make a cool culture anybody can afford and the rich flock to it, gentrify it and the culture divebombs because the ‘interesting’ people can’t afford to live there anymore. Hasta la vista Austin.
Bastrop Rocks!
Housing in Austin has skyrocketed to the point that many of the musicians that play there cannot live there. Some go down the road to San Antonio which is dramatically less expensive. Several of my children live in Austin but I don’t see the allure. Horrible traffic 24×7 and homeless people everywhere.
“Everybody told me you can’t get far, On thirty seven dollars and a jap guitar….”S.E. Guitar Town.
That’s what I saw as well – Lockhart is another destination, I think. It was fun for 18 months, and I did get to see Spoon play a show at Stubb’s, which was nice.
Lou: My response to your post above ended up under “intosh’s” post, sorry (mouse is getting a glitch).
My wife and I lived in Marin and considered Austin in 2013 after friends moved there. We have visited a few times since, and it’s a nice, interesting town. Surprisingly, housing (even back then) was not THAT much less expensive than prime Nor Cal, and when you factored in the much higher property taxes, a lot of the 0% state tax benefit was lost (if you are income rich relative to your house, then the trade is great). Other things important to us, like restaurants, were not significantly less expensive either. We opted out. And…our friends moved back to the Bay Area a few years later, having enough of “that cow town” that felt smaller and smaller each year.
Cost of living not that much less than prime NorCal? Are you nuts? My middle class sister easily affords a home in Austin, about 300K, room for 4 kids. The same home would cost 2 million in Marin.
Yeah, December, January, and February there can be brutal. Ugh, the cold!
That’s easy to explain. Austin is the most liberal place in all of TX, it would be like the TX SF.
A lot of tech talent there, and a good pool to draw from, very liberal (in TX terms) I think they even have a defund cops movement going.
So, the Californians will feel comfortable there. It’s basically kind of the culture of a fairly conservative CA county, but with most of the advantages of a big city.
You should patent your terms and demand royalties every time they are used in print or otherwise. Just like drug companies are for Covid vaccines and other drugs despite the fact most R&D is and has been funded by the government.
I get moving your production to Texas, but live there yourself? I’ve lived in Texas. Houston and Fort Worth. You have to experience it to understand why you should never actually do it.
You find out that a cultural event consists of a tractor pull and a BBQ.
Dallas and Houston are world class cities for culture. The real problem is the weather and lack of mountains (for me anyway).
Don’t worry, the billionaires who are setting up “permanent” residence there don’t actually live there. At least not in the summer.
Ellison’s move to Hawaii makes sense because he bought his own island and can probably dictate terms to the small state’s government now. Sorta like how Delaware got to be Delaware, back in the day.
Ellison moves to HI makes sense because he is going from a big pond where he was a big fish, but not so much any more. To a little pond where he is the biggest fish… until Bezos and Zuck and Gates move there and buy up Kauai or Niihau…
Anyone who knows Hawaii will understand why the last line is so insulting. Especially about Niihau.
And HI would welcome the big fish. BTW, I think this whole move out of CA is kinda silly, because the big fish doesn’t care… the amount of taxes they pay will be minuscule because of the army of lawyers and accountants they use to hide their incomes.
Exactly, billionaire types can live in a place for enough months to establish residency, and then spend the bad weather months in one of their three or four other homes. Poster child for this phenomenon is Jackson Wyoming.
It is the high earning upper middle class that is truly screwed. They don’t make enough to spend the summer in Jackson Wyoming or the winter in Palm Beach. So they are stuck.
“If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent out Texas and live in Hell”
― General Philip Henry Sheridan
To which all Texans replied to the Yankee Military Governor
Go to Hell
Goldman Sachs is moving from NYC to West Palm Beach. Blackstone is moving a tech unit to Miami. Hertz moved from New Jersey to Estero, FL. They have filed for bankruptcy.
Good luck to them. TX is hellishly hot in the summer, and it is only going to get worse from here on in. I prefer being able to go outside without a fire proximity suit on a regular basis. I don’t mind if they put the headquarters there, I be Zooming in from somewhere else.
Texas: it’s literally NOT for snowflakes. ?
Texas has lots of A/C! No problem!
With the coming economic collapse accompanying the dollar collapse AC might just become an unaffordable luxury so you may be wrong Tony
Fredrick, we can always go back to using swamp coolers when that happens! Much cheaper to run. Plus, by then, the New Green Movement will allow us free power since solar panels and wind turbines will be in everyone’s yard.
And boy, do we have sun and wind here. Also lots of rain. Why back in 2017 Houston had a 53″ rainstorm! Lots of free water too.
Anthony-as a descendant of a West Tx family run off their farm from lack of water in the ’30’s, i suggest you consider lobbying your legislators to construct H2O pipelines from the eastern portion of your state to the west. (The Oglala Aquifer isn’t recharging sustainably…).
may we all find a better day.
This is the main thing. All these billionaires think they’re being smart, but they’re not. Vast swathes of Texas are going to be a hellscape come 2030, with yearly heatwaves that will likely kill thousands, if not tens of thousands. The whole American Southwest is living on borrowed time, as is the Southeast. The fact that we hit another record year for hurricanes should tell people that we’re in trouble, but hey, I guess so long as those bonuses keep rolling in, nobody will do anything.
“‘Techsodus’ is real. It’s the move from California, and particularly from San Francisco and Silicon Valley, to other states.”
It’s more of a history lesson now than any living person’s personal memory, but it was not too long ago when the flow was the other way around. Everyone was going to California, even professional baseball teams. California was the golden state…was…
California isn’t going anywhere, but it will be different.
One major difference between CA and TX…the supply of buildable land.
So if Austin gets delusions of CA blind liberalism (it has always had a degree of this affliction), a company can decamp 5 to 50 miles E/W/N/S and find a much, much, much more hospitable business climate…while still having pretty easy access to Austin’s labor force…which can *very* cheaply relocate if they so desire.
Good example…Dell, which is actually just north of Austin, not *in* Austin.
A quick look at the growth of counties *adjacent to* Austin’s Travis County also bears this dynamic out.
That sort of near-relo flexibility really doesn’t exist anymore in a coastal dominant CA of 40 million (TX has a *lot* more buildable land and just 26 million people).
CA could relieve some cost pressure by becoming more inland oriented…but then the CA “miracle climate” is gone…so you might as well move to Phoenix/LV/UT/CO/ID/OR/WA and escape the psychotic CA regulatory/tax state.
There’s lots of available land on the coast. California regulations makes it impossible to build on. The San Francisco peninsula is about two-thirds empty. A look at Google Earth shows just how desolate it is west of I-280 between Daly City and Los Altos.
I thought most of that “available” land is not readily “buildable” due to earthquake, wildfire or coastal-erosion risks…
I think the bottom line problem is basically that what people think of “California” (ie, perfect climate) is really only more or less a 30 mile wide coastal strip of land running from the border to (sorta) SF.
North of that, it starts getting cold.
East of that, it starts turning to desert.
And the coastal strip is frequently bisected by steep hilly ranges which significantly increase building costs.
And land use regulation is not rarely blindly idealistic and/or bought off by existing land owners (to create further price peaking scarcity).
And a big, big chunk of CA’s 40 millions insist on living in that circumscribed area…sorta believing that to live anywhere else in the US is akin to living on the surface of the sun or on the dark side of Pluto.
It is made much worse by the carriage class corporate leadership (price insulated) insisting on having corporate HQ’s being close at (their) hand…consequences for their workforces…sorta be damned.
That’s watershed land where San Francisco’s water is stored, from Hetchy, and where some of it originates. The rest is parkland and zoned agricultural. Plenty of vacant land in Nevada’s desert to build all the low cost housing you want.
Please, no more Californiacs in AZ. I’ve seen what they did to Seattle. Like a locust plague of bad ideas.
Actually, most of the people that are leaving California aren’t originally from California, including the latest batch of billionaires that have left.
Well noted, and at the opposite end of the spectrum, the majority of ‘unhoused’ in San Francisco, the opposite side of the pliers jaws squeezing the middle class taxpayers are not from California either. The ‘trijaw’ is the cost of illegals as noted in reply to Harvey Cotton above.
Correct.
As a San Francisco resident for most of the last four decades every last one of the political nutcases I have ever met is either from somewhere else, out of state, or else a trust fund baby. The locals who were born here or settled here for good, ordinary folks, tend to be just as reasonable, down to earth, and middle of the road as everywhere else.
One of my most interesting discoveries of the last decade, now that I act and have the public body language of a local, is that San Francisco is actually really a wonderful small town at heart. The locals are as friendly and neighborly as in any small town. While the large overlay temporary population of tech bubble people and Ten Year Tourists just float by. Politely ignored and oblivious to the real city.
The talk among the locals for the last few years was about how we are overdue for the Next Big One, 1989 was actually just an almost Big One, and how that would finally get rid of the bubble people. At least for a while. This bubble has been even more destructive to the Cities fabric than the 1997/2000 one.
So I feel great sympathy for all my city neighbors who have lost jobs and businesses during the Covidian Catastrophe but if it clears out the bubble people (the most boring uninteresting unpleasant nonentities you could possibly meet) and the alternative was a large earthquake then this man made disaster was the least worst alliterative.
San Francisco has always been a boom / bust city since the day Dona Briones first built her adobe up the hill from those Yanqui merchants on the beach. So ends another boom. So starts another bust. And life goes on. Between the cold fog and the golden hills. Just as it has for the last 180 odd years. Nothing ever really changes.
jmc,
Shush… You’re spilling a secret. If you keep doing this, pretty soon a million people show up here and want to live here, and then the whole circus starts all over again. You need to tell everyone that SF is a terrible horrible disgusting place to keep people from moving here. At the same time, you can throw in a line about how great Texas is … there’s something for everyone, including liberals, and it’s nice and warm in August, and there’s no state income tax. Lot’s of reasons to move to Texas.
JMC, as a six decade resident, I commend and thank you heartily for creating one of the better descriptors out there:
“The Ten Year Tourists”
The kind of people who buy overpriced pretentious poorly built condos on Russian or Telegraph Hill, rent in the Marina, or proudly mouth with their Atlanta or Connecticut accents the brand name of their luxurious tower condo like anyone gives a damn, make a big deal out of rooting for their home town, or college teams, the kind you would never see in a real North Beach coffeehouse, but who definitely would go to a Starbucks.
They think Pier 39 is a real historical location instead of an amusement park mall, who are disappointed that Johnny Rockets or the ‘historical’ Hard Rock Cafe closed. The believe that “McMillan & Wife” or “Full House” accurately portrayed life in the city and who never saw Bullit or Dirty Harry’s accurate portrayals. We won’t miss them.
Dont worry Wolf. As I have been telling the loud mouths over on another local SF website who all arrived in the City after Three Strikes made the streets safe that between Prop 47 / Prop 57 and the kiddie lawyer City DA they will all get to experience first hand the daily risk of getting mugged and robbed in the next few years. Just like we did back in the 1980’s and early 1990’s.
Based on all the people I knew who were crime victims back then, and they mostly had street smarts, I’d give the recent blow-ins a 50/50 chance of getting mugged at knife point / gun point in the near future. I recently got my first serious casing by a street crim for a mugging in over two decades. I made him well aware I knew what he was and what he was up to so he went elsewhere to rob someone. They prefer easy pray. Which I see from the police reports he did soon afterwards a block away. At knife-point.
Its going to be interesting to watch the reaction of the tech bro’s etc as their recently gentrified neighborhoods return to the very high crime areas they were before Three Strikes. Now that all the street crims have been released and the gang task force disbanded. They are in for a short sharp rude lesson in how the world really works.
I’m not that worried personally because I know the lay of the land and learned such useful skills as keeping car doors locked and rolling stops at red lights from when car jackings on Oak/Fell, Army St, etc were a regular occurrence. Its not like SF was the Mad Max world of LA in the 1980s, which Gascon down in LA is currently intent on bringing back.
Plus its basically impossible to get a concealed carry permit to protect yourself unless you have the right political connections. Sheriff Hennessy made sure of that.
So Texas sounds like a great place for all those people who might think of moving to SF. You’ll just love it there. Much nicer than this crime ridden hell hole run by ineptly corrupt crazy people and none of the very expensive city services work. Plus we really are over due for a Big One. No one under 40 has experienced a major earthquake in California as an adult. And no one under 50 in the Bay Area. The next one is going to be real fun. In a very bad way.
Will that keep them away?
No one is going to live in Austin and commute 50 miles.
There’s a reason no companies are relocating to San Antonio.
Plenty of people are moving to Hays and Comal counties between Austin and San Antonio.
And San Antonio is growing (all of Texas is growing…and from adult in-migration, not just inertial birth natural increase like CA)
The real value of Austin’s surrounding counties is the “threat value” check they place upon “Austin Crazy” (ie, The California Disease).
If and when Austin goes full SF (hard to imagine since there are 24 million other Texans) the choice of nearby corporate relo is much, much easier than in over-stuffed coastal CA.
Austin knows this.
In terms of the weather, if you live in the Central Valley, you might as well live in Texas. But wait… in much of Texas, it gets very humid, which is a very different form of heat than the dry heat in the Central Valley. Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and the entire Gulf Coast can get outright steamy.
So, oppressive legislature vs. oppressive humidity?
AC can fix one of those.
I’ll never forget flying into Houston from Tokyo some decades ago and having to turn on the A/C in the rentacar due to the heat and humidity — in February!
Maybe, but the there’s an upside…I remember doing my daily run around the perimeter of Rice University in shorts…and no top…in January.
It seems like so much of prosperity is a feedback loop. Let’s take two cities. Detroit. Once the most prosperous city in US. Once the wealth generator (auto production) is gone you start the long decline of population and real estate development.
A second city (say Nashville) becomes the go to City because of favorable business climate and population grows feeding a real estate boom.
I once read that most of the high wages in go go times ends up in some form of real estate.
“It seems like so much of prosperity is a feedback loop.”
And a curse. I remember when the Willamette Valley in Oregon was farming country! Now they only grow suburbs — miles and miles and miles of suburbs.
Let’s all sing together (altered lyrics): “McMansions on the hillside, tasteless McMansions made of ticky tacky.”
Yep. It’s happing surrounding Raleigh for sure. Small farms selling out to become housing developments and new highways. I am ok with it though. I like choice. As long as we can move to a place that fits us I am good with it though.
When I sold my house in NY I considered Raleigh but found it much too cookie cutter( boring)
You wouldn’t happen to live in one of those tacky McMansions would you?
Also, straw man. He never said anything about NYC studios or any ghettos. That’s your bias showing.
But let’s keep going. You insult my area, I’ll insult yours, but each time let’s do it harder. Make sure that you say over and over again how no one from California or wherever else it is you think you are superior to, is welcome in your neck of the woods.
@Zanzetsy
I know. Its really getting stale isn’t it.
80% of all bank loans go to property purchases. We’ve gone a long way away from being self sufficient. Maybe move some tech giants to Moscow, where there are apparently some pretty talented coders.
“Favorable (big) business climate” not only feed real estate but usually also public finance holes. Then, when the state/city decides to do something about that, big business will call it “mis-management” and treatens to leave.
It’s definitely a curse.
That’s just another part of the “Privatize profits and socialize losses” playbook.
Greatly enabled when many large corporations are larger than cities, counties, most states and a number of small countries…
Geez, I remember visiting my brother and wife at Ft Sam Houston back in the early ’70s. I drove down there from Canada on some little 2 lane highway that ran straight down from the border north/south, camping along the way in every decent spot of shade. I remember at the time thinking about Texas, “I could live here, no problem”. That was 45 years ago. Drove all around the place for quite some time. Of course it helped that I had a gun rack in my PU with some fishing rods. :-)
Texas will change. The hordes will ruin it, if it isn’t already well on the way.
Suggestion: If you are going to flee for a better life maybe pick a place that doesn’t bake you to death, or flood you out every damn year. (Stay away from tornado country). Might also be nice to pick a place with enough drinking water for the future which pretty much leaves out all the SW. Find a new career that doesn’t require working for grifters or island dwelling potentates. It might also be nice to find somewhere that people don’t pack handguns, think they need to for personal safety, or for that just in case moment some shooter decides to take down a mall or the movie theatre. Maybe even find a place that has more than one election drop box in every county.
Frying pan into the fire.
For those of you living in places the techexodus is landing, my heart goes out to you. They are not moving there to assimilate and fit in. At first it will be a welcome boost of spinoff cash and opportunities for locals, especially for RE agents. But give it a few years when the new arrivals look around, don’t like what they see, then start to change things. They’ll work at it like a critical mass of termites, until one day you look around and realise you no longer fit in or want to live there.
And when you find your new special place keep quiet about it.
Good music, though. Great music. But you can listen to good music anywhere.
Our winters are pretty nice here in Texas, too!
Paulo,
Have to add on to your good comment that I was born and raised in a place where almost every pick up had a rifle AND shot gun in the rack,,, and almost every high school person with a vehicle also had one or more guns in that vehicle,,, and we never once had any problem, in spite of the fact that there was a fist fight at least once a week in the parking lot after high school.
What has changed is the question we all need to ask,,, and find some down home and even more local answers to make everyone as safe as we all were in those days.
Lately have lived in an area where a lot of folks ”carried” openly, and it actually made a lot of sense when the local county said we had NO public shootings,, mass or otherwise…
Keep in mind when the first ”mass shooter”,,, long ago in TX, started, there were many folks with good hunting weapons who took him out without him killing any/many innocents, that being the only valid/honorable intent of any and all legal gun owners…
Otherwise, we are going slowly and surely to the condition of the nationalist socialist parties of many other countries,,
to first take away all the weapons,,, then march to the gallows, guillotine, what ever,,, first the ?? next the ??,,, and then you,,, and then me
Charles Whitman laughs at your “folks with hunting weapons”.
He’s dead (and not laughing) and at lot of us Texans have more than “hunting weapons” these days.
Is anyone laughing at the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?? I guess the Supreme Court of the United States needs a copy of this governing law that is supreme to all other statues and precedents. We a slowly slipping into a country where existing laws are not enforced. Very dangerous. More dangerous than those gun toting hillbillies in Texas!! Tongue in cheek.
There is no connection between the widespread ownership of long guns in Canada and the pistol packing, assault rifle mentality in much of the US.
When it comes to who is safest and why, turn to the data, not anecdotes. The numbers are at anyone’s fingertips.
Don’t forget to break down the numbers by race to get the actual story.
Money always, even with a lag, goes where it is treated best. Foreign investors in U.S. assets, which are denominated in Greenbacks, are waking up to the fact that the alleged safe-haven of the States for their investment funds ain’t what it used to be with a rapidly declining Dollar. They get less of their local currencies when they repatriate funds upon sale of their Dollar investments.
But I digress. The low or no-tax States are going to see more and more migration of companies, employees, and executives as we go forward. California, as an example, has been a something-for-everyone State that has never seen a spending program it did not like. The threat of even higher taxes on the Plebes in an already ridiculous tax rate State has caused the exit door to get jammed. Are we at risk of having citizens frozen in place for 3 year minimum residencies??? Me hopes not, but many Stay-at-Home orders may eventually be challenged in the courts.
Have to love what Texas has done over the years to attract businesses and employees. New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and California should take a few notes, but these States are already such fiscal basket-cases that the Debt Trap has already swallowed them up. Default is their only way out at this point. Many a pensioner in same may end up having to get a part-time job at Home Depot to make ends meet.
“They get less of their local currencies when they repatriate funds upon sale of their Dollar investments.” So the local currencies have become stronger? Is that a bad thing for them? This can get confusing. If the dollar becomes weaker, their exports become more expensive (in dollar terms), correct? And their economies are often built by a mercantile point of view i.e. reliance on export income. Will US exports become cheaper? Kind of a conundrum.
If the Dollar has depreciated vs. the Euro, then it takes fewer Euro’s to buy the Dollar. When selling the Dollar for Euro’s after a period of devaluation, one gets fewer Euro’s back because One Dollar equals fewer Euro’s, the Euro has appreciated vs. the Dollar, each Euro buys more Dollars (takes more Dollars to buy a Euro). Remember as a Euroland resident, you buy bread in Euro’s, not Dollars.
Fine on the purchase side, but the longer you hold a depreciating currency’s assets, the more you lose on the sale and repatriation of funds into local currency from Currency Devaluation. Ask any Corporate Treasurer with international operations how this affects their bottom line month after month.
A devaluing currency is not a plus for any country, esp. if the devaluation is happening rapidly, as in the current case of the Greenback. This is called Currency Risk in valuing an asset for purchase. The more volatile a currency is, the more foreign investors tend to avoid it because of this added risk. One more level of uncertainty in a very uncertain world where confidence in governments and corporations to do the right things is rapidly deteriorating.
Devaluations are great for attempting to devalue the interest payments
and eventual principal repayment in later years on U.S. Treasuries owed to foreign investors, but the flip side of a country running record Trade Deficits like the U.S. is the surge in imported costs (more Dollars to buy a Euro) or consumer inflation which lowers the standard of living for a country. We import a heck of a lot more than we export, Wolf has the numbers.
For the first time in many decades, there is now Currency Risk in buying U.S. assets. If devaluation was a positive thing, then Argentina, Zimbabwe and Venezuela would be very rich countries. Not a good thing. These countries are on the perpetual brink of default on their obligations.
Re: king techsodiusans who run afoul with the gold state, the path is clear, sanction and extradite, surely this their fate.
It probably should be “Texodus”.
I’m not a TX person at all, hate the heat. If I were a billionaire type it would be Jackson WY. I hear they are also filling up also, along with the NV side of Tahoe.
Prices in Washoe Valley way up. Still close enough to run over to SF if needed, and no state income tax.
I think lots of Californiacs keep a 2nd home there to claim as a primary residence.
“I think lots of Californiacs keep a 2nd home there to claim as a primary residence.”
Nothing like hypocrisy to make the liberal posing endurable.
Someone please publish a map showing where all the Californians, Technocrats, and Lefty wingnut exodusters are migrating to, down to granular detail (at least zip code level).
Those are the places to avoid living unless you want to reside in a little New California.
Good word-“exodusters”. What’s next, the Exodust Bowl?
“to reside in a little New California.”
This weird dynamic is actually a “thing” both politically and, more weirdly, economically.
A surprising number of CA economic refugees *insist* on living in downtown Austin…which is two (or maybe three) times as expensive as what can be had with a 15 minute drive away.
And those are spreadsheet driven *businesses* (although Oracle has shown good sense in moving to the countryside SE of downtown).
It is almost like a certain kind of person/business is *compelled* to spend much more than they have to.
Wolf Street is one of the reasons I cancelled the WSJ.
The main reason is they became NeverTrumpers.
There’s always the Enquirer that loves him. Or did. Paid off a few of the babes to kill their stories. ( I think T stiffed Pecker on the promised reimbursement but it might be Cohen who got stuck. )
They also ran a bunch of Never Hillary covers, photoshopped to make her look at death’s door.
There are investment ideas in the ad section.
Don’t really think Hillary needs any help looking ghastly Shes probably my least favorite woman in politics right up there with Feinstein and Pelosi
I like young women in politics too!
That’s why I’m rooting for Ivanka 2024 with Dad as Veep.
I’ve read dozens of accounts about how great it is that Texas doesn’t have an income tax. What they all fail to mention is that Texas has very onerous property taxes and an 8.25% sales tax. A typical 2020 property tax bill was nearly $11,000 on a property valued at about $475,000. Putting that property tax against a $170,000 annual income, that works out to 6.5%, slightly higher than California’s effective income tax rate on that same income. And in Texas, property values are assessed every year and they are rising fast, so that tax bill keeps rising as well.
Except in California you get the 9% sales tax, the 9% income tax AND the property tax because that “$475,000” property in TX costs like $1.2M in CA and comes with a $20K/year tax bill.
House insurance is also very expensive due to the tornados, hail storms, and hurricanes, and lately, earthquakes.
Baloney, I just paid $900 for my house insurance on the north side of Houston. The home is 20 years old, all brick and hardiplank, one story, 2,000 square feet. Valuation is $242,000. The neighborhood is middle class, mostly retired professionals. Check out The Woodlands, Texas area.
Now, if you live on the Gulf, your insurance is significantly higher. Same as anywhere else on the water with the potential for storm damage. But we are 50 miles inland.
BTW, our house in Thousand Oaks, Ca, where we moved from, would be valued at $1.5 Mil. Crazy.
All you folks on the way to Texas, can you please stop by Oregon on the way and pick up some of the Texans that are clogging the roads here. I cam not sure why I am still seeing so many Texas plates here. I figured they would have all headed back to the land of heat and bugs by now for the boom.
LOL. My two best friends here in the Bay Area are from Texas, though they’ve been here long enough and no longer speak Texan unless they want to. I know them from college in Texas. Lots of Texans here.
Oregon is not “on the way” to Texas. Most of those folks with Texas plates are on vacation. LOL
I am SHOCKED!!! Well….not really.
Wolf, I’m still waiting for your post here where you announce YOUR California exit!!
This wait will likely require lots of patience :-]
If it happens it won’t be to Texas. The guy swims in SF Bay! It would be too hot and…I’ll leave it at that.
As a retired lifelong Bay Area resident, I am insulated from the ups and downs of the job market and always happy to see changes that might relieve some of the overcrowding around here. My concern is for the multitude of “little people” who will get trampled by a big business out migration.
The Great Move, under way. is linked to post-internet searching dynamics which are related to census-linked data, linked to internet search algorithms, which, like the recent election, offer an inaccurate glimpse of realty, e.g., people believe they have the ability to see future trends.
This empowering technology-based crystal ball gazing has become deeply rooted after being seeded during The Dotcom Bubble, then as roots grew during the GFC, the tree roots, like mycelium, spread further and wider and have now been fertilized with the explosive nutrients of The Great Pandemic — laying the groundwork for a massive migration of people that think they’re heading to some new Valhalla, aka, The Texas Miracle.
If anything, Texas represents the next phase of our polarized economy and national ideology, i.e., some places will explode with growth, while other places crash, some industries will boom, others will crash, some home prices, in various places will see great appreciation, while other places morph into ghost towns. Texas offers great bait, with theoretical lower cost of living, offset by lower wages.
I think the polarizing, unbalanced world we live in will lay bare all extremes and create new dynamics of supply and demand and as people chase old census data,, they’ll become part of the instability ahead.
+1 This is filled with good insights. Get ready for the Texican Revolution. Fifty years and the map will look plenty different.
MC, you forgot to mention our great barbecue and fresh Gulf shrimp here in Texas.
Texmex and BBQ can be tasty, but sadly, Texas has never been able to produce palatable vino, to pair with any food. I looked into that once and dug into soil issues and varietals, but found the climate there to be far too harsh. Places that grow wine are generally nice environments. I know some people give it the old college try there– and use their experiments to lure-in tourists, but the wine gods have no use for that state or oil-producing region. However, BBQ is another matter!
never been otherwise than what you describe MC,,,
have only to look at the txexodus into what is now USA from old Europe from early 17th century until stopped by the racist immigration laws of the early 20th,,, those laws, like all race based considerations of all and any kind are based on faulty science; in fact, there is no such thing as ”race” within the human species..
WE THE PEEDONs can at least have some hopium, maybe not much based on rational analysis of the current situation, but some to be sure, that sooner and later ALL progress will be based on merit and actual accomplishment(s) helping us,,, etc.
Macy’s and Oracle are old tech and old retail. No doubt SF became too expensive, too crowded and too difficult to get around. In a DB poll of investors, a collapse in the Tech bubble was the no 4 biggest risks to the markets. How would that happen? Move out the old, make room for the new. Ellison is going to sit on his own private tropical island, telling his people hunkered down in Texas to work harder? WFH is proving the wealth disparity gap is larger than we knew.
20 years ago if people were told what the future of 2020’s would usher in 99.9% of people would laugh at best.
20 years from now we might no longer be 50 United states.
Mad Max was set in the year 2021.
“a collapse in the Tech bubble was the no 4 biggest risks to the markets. How would that happen? ”
When your stock is selling at 80 to infinity times PE, one slip while tap dancing on the razor’s edge and…that’s all she wrote.
I recently put a conservation easement on my families ranch in Montana that was homesteaded by my Great Grandfather. That way Elon or Larry or someone of that ilk can’t ever try to live there and ruin that part of the state.
Easements are not an impediment. You buy and honor the easement. That’s probably why you bought in the first place.
SoCal is doing just fine. Housing is in high demand and home prices are moving up swiftly. Many former New Yorkers are picking up homes near the ocean.
Vegas is a wasteland and Phoenix is not far behind. The smoke over Denver is not smog. The big cities in Oregon and Wa are under seige. Miami is a cultural political and climate mess. Where are you gonna go?
Flee into the backwater, sleepy, rugged, untamed hinterland, affectionately called ‘flyover country’ by elite snobs who travel in style by corporate private jet from the Left to the East coasts.
I’m not suggesting living in a trailer in rough redneck neighborhoods, or to buy a van and live down by the river… plenty of suburban/exurban area with high quality of life values, minus urban ills and political strife.
Yeah – it’s a real hellhole here on this quiet half acre plot with a salmon creek less than an hour from downtown Seattle. Definitely avoid.
I have hiked many trails in the Cascades, and have enjoyed living on the Eastside, on the incline, not the plateau. :>)) Easy access to the Hwy 90 Greenway, as well as worsening slog into Seattle.
In addition to Cali and Oregonia wildfire smoke that Washingtonians must shelter in place to avoid, expect more unhealthy air from homegrown wildfires east of the Cascades. Not sure I would be buying in the ersatz Bavarian town of Leavenworth, Wenatchee, or other tinderbox areas. The impact of climate change must unfortunately be a consideration of where to locate. It is indeed a beautiful state. May it ever remain so.
LOL, Colorado can be smoky, yes, please stay away, terrible place to live…
“Where are you gonna go?”
One of other other 240 major metros?
Or (gasp) one of the 900 plus Micropolitan areas?
It is a very big country.
There must be something about over paying for real estate that leads to nearsightedness.
It’s called Sunk Costs Fallacy.
If you’ had your spyware long enough to provide a solid profile you can always – “Alexa! Where should I move to?
So basically people traded houses at higher price points.
Softbank will be proud.
Wherever they move to, they will transform the landscape. Your local politicians, businessmen, builders and realtors will fall all over themselves giving these people whatever they want. New money will trample community values every time, and some of these people have dynastic wealth. It is the dark side of being business friendly.
Well said.
Rumpled-double-check.
may we all find a better day.
The problem for California is that people like Musk can leave without paying much tax. There is no exit tax when you leave a state. A person can build $100 billion of stock market wealth in a state, but the state cannot tax it unless the stock is sold at a gain while a person is resident in that state.
Isn’t this just another example of how U.S. systems cater to the wealthy class? The system is rigged to tax every penny earned by the wage earner, while massive capital gains of the billionaire class can escape tax altogether.
I guess setting up a charitable fund is now too much trouble or, more likely, it has attracted too much bad press.
(Look for “How Tech Billionaires Hack Their Taxes With a Philanthropic Loophole” on the web.)
This.
Say on Pay – board members who support the CEO pay package lose their stipend if the package is voted down by shareholders.
“massive capital gains of the billionaire class can escape tax altogether.”
That is going to come as news to the Feds or Hawaii.
There are ways around the CG tax (like dying…not a sexy option) but they are nowhere near as advantageous or common as you imply.
And you are ignoring the decades of income taxes that Oracle’s CEO and the CA employees of the company he built have paid to CA.
It is far, far, far from the case that CA has gotten nothing from Oracle.
Seems to be a lot of contradictory thinking in the comments. Are we work from anywhere (then what does it matter where the boss’s/headquarters move), or are companies locations important?
I personally think people are mistaking the chicken for the egg. Companies are in the bay area because that’s where the creative workforce wants to be. Seems to me the company will have an empty po. box in new location, while the work force works from a dynamic and interesting city with lots to offer. Who pays the most in taxes, the companies or the employees?
“Companies are in the bay area because that’s where the creative workforce wants to be.”
Nope.
That Richard Floridian mythos of metrosexual appeal is belied by the fact companies recruit employees…not the other way around.
The high cost Mega Metro glamour wears off very fast in the actual living.
You end up going to the beach or Broadway much less than you think you will…but the high dollar mortgage/rent is due every damn month whether you do or not.
Gotta love it when Wolf’s reactionary comment section is like “Keep them damned CA commies out of our great state of TEXAS!”. My dudes you are not getting anything but the most rapacious, worst offenders of tech/finance late-stage capitalism. Enjoy!
If you want things to remain the “same”, then you need to get involved.
Very few want to be on a town board or planning committee.
City arrivals don’t understand/know how many freedoms they gave up to state & local governments. Worse, are the ones who want to bring that hoa mentality with them to the country.
The neighborhoods with those HOAs are often full of Trump supporters. I think the issue for them and these techillionaires is taxes. They don’t care if the deep state controls every aspect of their life, (and especially the unwashed masses at the gate) at least when they pay an HOA fee they get something. They want government to stay out of their wallet.
No hoa’s out here. No zoning either. Imagine their surprise when they build that mansion only to watch the neighbor set a double wide.
Or that farm field they built next to has manure spread on it.
Then they show up demanding zoning, ban this, ban that, and deer season in WI totally freaks them out.
They will bring the HOA with them, as long as the muni governments are laisse faire. Should create some interesting conflicts. Like is it okay to drive a PU through your HOA with a gun in your gunrack? (probably not, kids playing)
“From La Jolla to Crescent City” – sums it up nicely. Geologically the youngest face on the planet (the West coast in general). Beauty that will not fade in our lifetime.
The comments about California becoming less crowded are funny. For every well educated tech worker leaving ten poorly educated illegals will take their place with all the sanctuary cities, generous benefits for illegals and and a new federal government that will encourage even more illegal immigration. On a percentage basis California already has one of highest poverty rates in the country (already absolutely but expected as most populous state)
So CA will get more and more crowded yet poorer and poorer. GDP per capita will
Keep falling (is already below Texas). The left wing CA government will keep focusing on identity politics and green utopia, so stopping the building of more power plants needed for an increasing population and already an increasing number of brownouts. The tax base will keep crumbling, meaning an increase of taxes, forcing more workers to leave, lowering GDP per capita further, meaning more taxes, into a loop.
The number willing to put up with it just because of good weather will become less and less, and those able to leave will increasingly do so. You’ll end up with the very rich and the very poor, all hollowed out in the middle.
That’s been the story of the golden state for the last 25 years. Got out a decade and a half ago after seeing the writing on the wall and don’t miss it a bit. In the rare instances when I go back people there seem withered and stressed to me.
“withered and stressed to me.”
Typical (or worse) for NYC too.
Having to make that ultra high dollar, post tax nut every single month, in the mere *hope* that someday it might pay off…grinds people down.
NYC is known for this, the West coast less so…but ask people doing a daily commute from Riverside or San B County to LA if CA is really all about the sun browned beach bunny lifestyle of myth.
Or walk the three blocks in San Diego between the wealthy Marina district and the decaying Gaslamp district or the three blocks to the Federal Courthouse jail complex.
Technology EXIt to Texas: TEXIT
While there is no exit tax for leaving a state that didn’t stop NY from going after the NYrs who fled to Fla to escape the high taxation. My parents got a tax bill 1 year after they left NY for Fla, and they paid the tax. A lot of Floridians who had moved from NY told them not to pay it. They had parties where they ripped up the tax bill in front of everyone and bragged about it.
NY started clamping down. If you visited a dentist in NY for one week they hit you with a bill for the 1 week stay.
Never geard of this!Taxed for what,nonresidence?I would not pay that Illegal tx either!What freaking country IS This?Regarding comment in flood of illegals in CA,I have kived in IL.,Nevada,and silicon valley and lived this reality.Sovereignty is important.Sensible immigration law is important.Enforcing laws such as Only Legal voters may vote is important.Defrauding states and cities out of goods and services because You feel entitled to be in America,feel it is acceptable to lie many times so you and family are better off rather than fighting for your own,native town/country is Illegal and should be punished.There are only somany resources and this country cannot just willynilly open the floodgates.Other countries have No qualms about their immigration,residency,voting laws.
Surprising that companies didn’t acknowledge the feasibility of remote work years ago — could have saved billions. Texas seems like a good choice, lots of universities and tech knowledge there, and wages are low.
I’m in San Diego. Starting and running a business in CA 100% sucks vs. many parts of the US. Regulation overhead is high, employee protections are high, Taxes are high, Costs for everything is higher … however … at least for San Diego. Location, location, location. Weather and Ocean. Hard to replace in TX.
I am in San Diego as well and I don’t like it. I am stuck here for few more years. I have lived in many places in USA and San Diego is my least favorite :-(
Did the Austin thing about 10 years ago. BBQ Texas ribs…
If your moving to Texas don’t bite off too much cookie. The property taxes are much higher. So, a 500K home in Travis county is going to cost about 15K a year in tax — you might afford it but do you belong in it? It can work with income but your screwed bad if you have no income. If your not from Texas don’t expect the locals to hire you. ( especially if you have a California school on your resume ) Only move there if the job is secured prior is my recommendation.
Also, everyone has a big house in Texas — its about the acres of land and the mineral rights. imo. Respect the local culture. All that cash is going to cause a lot of angst. Especially when people get driven out of their city because of tech swarm inflation.
I give us another 30 years as a united political entity before SOMETHING happens and we fracture. Our ossified outlook towards constitutional amendments, our wealth-worship as a culture, and our general willful blindness to the worsening of the climate crisis will be our downfall. Nobody wants to change, but the world doesn’t give a *#$@ what we want. So many people whining about illegals, but proposing nothing about immigration reform. Lots of complaining about wealth inequality, but no concerted effort to address it. The way things are going, the United States will either undergo a massive political and ideological adjustment in 50 years, or simply discorporate like a bunch of angry old men who all blame each other for the failures of the whole.
As for the economics during that period?
*#&$ if I know. Economics is witchcraft more than anything.
This is a direct result of the 2017 tax red stat cut/blue state raise, which eliminated SALT deductions.
It was planned all along.
Jonas-so well-said.
may we all find a better day.
I live in a small apartment building in Sunnyvale; it has only 20 apartments and seeing a vacant apartment was rare in this building. Now, 6 of the a apartments are empty; 3 of them have been vacant for the last 4 months. No takers.
I doubt that this trend to work from home will take off. I can tell you that it is hard to work with little persons running around demanding your attention and furious if you do not drop everything to play with them. Who wants to only be working after the children have gone to bed?
Even persons without children will have unreasonable, selfish spouses (like my ex-wife) who think that the sun and the moon rise only to satisfy their needs and keep demanding a “minute” of your attention, when your work is coming due. Even locking oneself in a dedicated, room to work only works partially. Having a partner ignore a spouse, because of work, only increases marital tensions.
This pandemic quasi-quarantine-time slowly will cure us of any desire to work at home for a long while. Supervision is also key to getting good work out of employees. It would take a lot of, always-on, internet video calls to achieve that.
I know that some employees actually resent video cameras monitoring their workspace. Thus, on reflection, I do not think that having workers mostly work from home, without supervision, is a long term trend. It is practical only if there are no deadlines and employees are working on projects for specified times of period.