As recent as a few years ago, many felt Texas had a promising chance to advance their career ambitions in tech. Gov. Greg Abbott courted Californians by promising “less government” and “smarter regulations,” and in 2021, Houston ranked No. 2 for growing tech markets during the pandemic. However, the policies Abbott has pushed have led some to think Texas is now among the worst states to live and work.
But old Austin attitudes have clashed with the enterprising mindset of bosses in the tech industry. Founder and angel investor Mike Chang lamented to Insider that “Austin is where ambition goes to die.”
Chang also shared his disappointment over a talent disparity between San Francisco and Austin, and other reports tend to agree. CBRE’s list of the top tech talent markets put Austin outside the top five while San Francisco enjoyed the No. 1 spot. A major reason for that is tech talent being almost 12 percent of total employment in the San Francisco Bay Area, whereas the average is 5.6 percent in other cities.
This was inevitable, so many of these California carpetbaggers moved in the fall and I saw multiple articles about the phenomenon with a consistent sentiment from the people who moved here - “The weather is just like LA! It’s so mild and nice, it’s like we didn’t even move!”. They didn’t know what Texas summer held in store for them.
I hated Austin summers so damn much when i lived there. Not as bad as Houston summers, but still really damn bad
Damn. I lived there 20 years ago too, so I can’t imagine how much worse it is now
Hottest summer in Houston on record, for the past two months it very rarely dropped under 80F at night and the highs broke records too. Didn’t quite make it to 110F at my house but it’s been fucked since July.
edit: ah shit I’m wrong, got to 110.7F here. It’s 111F we didn’t quite hit. So hot my memory’s going.
I couldn’t handle that. Fortunately made it out. Living in the desert and it is so nice to have no humidity. Even 110 here is better than 95 in Houston
I’d like to spend some time in the desert, it seems relatively nice if dry heat doesn’t bother you
It is! And the other half the year is nice dry, cool weather. Too bad, it’ll ground zero for the water wars
Once I finish my bus conversion I’ll be out there at least part of the year
Not knowing that Austin, Texas is in the south and will therefore be pretty hot in the summer is the type of thing I judge people for. Is the distorted sense of geography from always flying places instead of driving, so you always just magically arrive somewhere without having to actually know where you are?
I guess maybe LA people can be forgiven since their weather doesn’t do the wild swings most everybody else in the US experiences? I mean, I’m not gonna forgive them, but we could.