2y ago

'Where ambition goes to die': These tech workers flocked to Austin during the pandemic. Now they're desperate to get out.

www.businessinsider.com

'Where ambition goes to die': These tech workers flocked to Austin during the pandemic. Now they're desperate to get out.::Drawn by the promise of an emerging tech hub, some tech workers who flocked to Austin found a middling tech scene, subpar culture, and scorching heat.

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2y ago

Tech workers flocked to Austin. Now they're desperate to get out

www.businessinsider.com /tech-workers-moved-to-austin-regrets-2023-8

71 comments

The traffic argument is so infuriating. When will American journalism, and Americans at large, realize the very simple truth: no large city in the US will ever exist without traffic, without a fundamental shift from our car-centric culture and development to transit-oriented?
- Yeah, I hear you, but what if we add another 7 lane highway that cuts right through the center? I think that would solve the issue
  -random US city response, probably
  
  random US city response, probably
  Not random. You just described Houston, Texas.
  
  not just any rando city, literally Austin https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/2/27/a-75-billion-boondoggle-advances-in-austin
  
  what if we add another 7 lane highway that cuts right through the center?
  That's hard to do now since we've run out of affluent African-American neighborhoods to build them through.
- It is not possible to explain the horribleness that is Austin road planning and the complete and utter lack of available transit. Exhibit 1 https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/2/27/a-75-billion-boondoggle-advances-in-austin
  Just consider what it must mean for an average Californian to say traffic is bad. These aren't people coming from rural Montana complaining about city traffic.
  
  Even that headline image is Jesus Christ. Temporally closed ramp onto a packed full outer road from a freeway that's sitting squarely in the E rating. (Can't move without major effort)
  
  City Beautiful also has a good video on the shitshow that is I-35. TX DOT must have a little shrine to Robert Moses in their lobby.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcUx5r_ksk8
- To be fair, Austin has to be not far behind LA as some of the worst. Everything in Texas is made for cars only basically.
- It's not all or nothing. Most people are willing to deal with a 30 or 40 minute commute If they're not already working from home. The reason people point out LA in Austin is because they are significantly worse than other cities like Atlanta Philly and Baltimore.
  
  significantly worse than other cities like Atlanta Philly and Baltimore
  Wait. Atlanta resident here. There are cities worse than us?
- There's traffic in NYC and Chicago. As long as there are roads people will drive. There will always be traffic. Public transit only affects how bad the traffic will be and limit growth of the city.
  
  You are so close to understanding ... as long as there are roads ... there will be traffic ...
  The solution isn't build more roads and enable car culture more, the solution is to stop catering to cars and build less roads. Instead build more public transit. Literally stop catering to cars, make cars less viable as a transportation method by limiting how much space is available to them. Cities can work just fine without cars.
- I think there's something to be said for places like Houston vs Chicago though. In Chicago I can easily find and take public transit to get around. You don't necessarily need a car.
  In Houston however you pretty much need it. It'll take you at least half an hour to get anywhere, no matter how close it may be geographically
  
  And in NYC a car is a liability.
- There are differences between cities though. It makes. A difference how they developed, what their geography is, and how concentrated their growth phase was. Austin is a place you can’t take a shit without driving to a bathroom. It’s not laid out for public transportation even if they could fund it. It is massively spread out with pockets of hills and rocks all over. The weather is hostile to walking and biking anyway.
  I have many friends in Austin and visit often. People there obsess about traffic, working overtime to tune their day around finding low traffic windows and such. It’s not like that where I live, and I don’t live in some Amsterdam style utopia.
I will never understand why anyone trusted Texas, how blind can you be
"Where ambition goes to die" has been an unofficial motto here in Austin for decades. We're too busy enjoying our lives to be bothered overworking ourselves. Guys like this dude have been trying hard to ruin the vibe recently, and he's welcome to return from whence he came so we can keep chilling
- Lived there for a decade. Moved to NC this past July. Getting out of the state was the best thing I could have done.
  
  Cool
- He is right about it being scorching hot tho. It’s starting to feel like I’m living in Palm Springs.
  
  This...this is new
The majority of my friends leaving Austin have done so because of state politics. It's hard to feel safe when you're queer in Texas.
- That’s exactly what those politics are there to do. Texas is not as deeply red as its reputation. Might suggest, and it has been experiencing an influx of people. They are afraid of losing the balance of power in the voters. They are actively trying to get blue voters to leave / not come. And they think gay voters will be liberals, plus hating gays makes their base feel good. This is the what and why of what’s happening. As a somewhat older LGBT person, I know what it’s like not to feel safe because that used to be virtually everywhere.
  
  In terms of political strategy it's remarkably short sighted. By preserving their supermajority in Texas and Florida, Republicans assure that they will win both states in the electoral college... Which is the base case. There's no net improvement.
  But to accomplish that, they've pissed off people who now have strong incentive to vote against Republicans and driven them away to other states -- including swing states. Diehard Republicans from other states are increasingly moving to Texas and Florida however, which further reduces their voter base in swing states. A voter base that is getting smaller by the day due to aging vs their opponent's base that's getting larger by the day, and a base that had preventable deaths from COVID had they not believed in conspiracy theories.
  They're just shooting themselves in the foot to own tech workers and turn them against Republicans. This is one reason why I think Republicans couldn't win in 2022, and only managed to barely take the House and lose a Senate seat. The factors are piling up against them, to the point that they have a mixed election result, when the economy was rough and inflation was high and Democrats had a trifecta.
  Fingers crossed, I think the crows are finally coming home to roost.
- Yup. I know three separate people who basically got the fuck out the moment the abortion bill was passed.
I’ve never lived in Austin but it was very underwhelming to visit. It’s hard to fathom why people would choose to live there over CA. Just look at the quality of life metrics. And it’s not even affordable to live there.
Good BBQ though.
- It's the world's largest strip mall.
  
  Perfectly sums up my experience there.
  
  I thought that was Wall Drug in North Dakota?
- Food - that’s it IMO
  And music maybe
This is the best summary I could come up with:
During the pandemic, Austin became a hot spot for remote workers and coastal tech employees who were in search of more space, favorable tax laws, and a lower cost of living.
Once you peel back the boldface names who moved to the city and the corporate announcements about flashy new headquarters, the reality of day-to-day living and working in Austin's tech scene leaves a lot to be desired, according to those Insider spoke with.
"If I was a 22-year-old founder starting something I'd go to Silicon Valley because it's going to increase your odds of success," Gurley said, adding that it is easy for people to get distracted in Austin because they might be having too much fun and not focusing on building their businesses.
He listed off a few of his displeasures with Austin, including a bad public-transportation system that led to awful traffic, subpar museums, and general overcrowding that makes it hard for any spontaneous activities — they must be booked far in advance, he said.
Sheharyar Bokhari, a senior economist with Redfin, previously told Insider that Austin is experiencing whiplash after several years of robust buyer demand and price growth.
Stuck in Austin until interest rates or coastal housing prices fall, Chang has spent the summer scrolling through Instagram, envying the friends he left behind in California.
The original article contains 1,672 words, the summary contains 220 words. Saved 87%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
- Actual headline: "One guy regrets moving to Austin."
  
  Journalism I guess. Would you say that he 'slammed' Austin?
  
  Insider spoke to six workers in tech who recently left Austin or are trying to relocate ...
- Doesn't like Austin because it's too fun? Sorry but poor excuse to not like a cool city. Very few activities need a reservation or to plan ahead.
- Does being in Silicon Valley actually increase a startup founders chance for success? Start a fully remote company.
  
  A friend of mine in that area gets a ton of networking done in person, visiting mixers held by Google and Meta, etc. It hasn't worked for her mostly because she's... kinda bad at good ideas, but damn she's good at getting free tech interns and knowing a guy who knows a guy with endless wealth who will at least hear your pitch deck.
  I'd say that would tip the scales for a tech startup over a remote one, although location alone isn't going to earn you those tech innovation bucks.
  
  Silicon Valley is where all the VCs are. They make a lot of their funding decisions based on whether they like hanging around with a founder or not. You're more likely to get money out of them if you're fun to drink beers with than if you have a great business plan.
- This is just ridiculous. One guy doesn't like Austin, so it's a terrible place? As someone who has lived in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona, and Texas, I can tell you I've liked Texas the best, and I much prefer Austin and Dallas to pretty much any other city I've been to.
I moved to Austin in 2000 and I've been a tech CEO in Austin since 2006 and VC since 2012. I've worked or done business in just about every tech hub in the US, so I have a fairly good perspective on Austin and how it compares to the rest of the nation. All I can say to that guy and many others that decided to come to Austin without any contacts, no idea of what they were doing, where to go, where to live, who to talk to, and with a huge superiority complex is -- "Bye Felicia".
EDIT: To clarify, I'm talking about the hustlers that moved in expecting to be showered with VC money just because they exist, not the workers. Also, one of the main culprits of the Austin overhype was Business Insider.
- Nothing wrong with that at all. That's not who I'm referring to. A bunch of mid-tier hustlers decided to move to Austin all at once, assuming that they could just show up with a dumb idea with a cringe name and that they would be showered with VC money. If you are young, just graduated college, and are trying to build a solid network that will last you a lifetime, Austin is a great choice. As with anything long lasting, it's not done overnight. A lot of these guys were looking for get rich quick cons and that doesn't do well in Austin.
  Austin is a wonderful town to eat, drink, fuck, work hard, and make true friends. Not so good for snakes.
Their idea of a “tech worker” is an angel investor
Pay walled article.
- Try this: https://archive.ph/Mxx54
- Nothing for me. Maybe region-specific?
  
  None for me either. They might be one of the sites that let you see a certain amount of articles before nagging you. Usually private browsing gets around that.
Austin is a nice city. With all due respect, and as someone who grew up in Texas but now lives in NYC, it is exactly this kind of condescension that makes a lot of Texans dislike people from the coasts.
- as someone who grew up in Texas but now lives in NYC, it is exactly this kind of condescension that makes a lot of Texans dislike people from the coasts.
  That's fine with me. I've lived in Michigan, Tennessee, Kansas, and California. There are lots of good people in each of the first three as well as lots of small minds. The Bay Area feels right to me.
  I remember seeing a FB post from someone in Kansas saying that they felt that anyone who couldn't be happy there didn't really try. You can't imagine my rage at that statement: blaming me for my depression when I didn't fit in during my school years. What a joke. No, I can't be happy in that environment long-term.
  The Bay Area would have offered me so much more opportunity for happiness as a teen, such that it's practically stupid. I feel schadenfreude at Texas getting reminded that it isn't hot shit.
  I feel terribly for the people who were deceived and have regrets about their situation. Still, they did it to themselves. For all the negatives on the west coast, it's a paradise to me in terms of opportunities for work and recreation and finding similarly-minded people and making friends.
  
  Fair enough. I think it’s okay if you’ve experienced a place, given it a shot, decided it wasn’t for you, and moved away.
  One thing I’ve noticed in NYC however, is how many people have an uninformed and strong default opinion that anywhere besides the west or east coast in unlivable, and that bothers me.
  Your comment is reasonable, but a lot of the comments to this post reflect that same caustic attitude and it saddens me.

71 comments