1. Businesses moving out of California, especially NorCal. Sergey Brin already said two years ago that he would not have started Google in NorCal today. He was right. There's a lot more interest in other locations, such as Austin.
2. Remote work, and fully remote virtual offices.
Personally I know a bunch of people who declined offers in the SFBay to avoid the pincer squeeze of impossible housing costs + highest tax rate in the nation. A friend of mine did the math and realized that downtown Manhattan (!) was more affordable for him than the Bay.
This stupid rule will not be the last straw. I do think it will deter companies from starting large complexes in MTV specifically, and SF if it passes this same rule.
It is however a sign of the arrogance and greed of municipalities, and their mistaken belief that they can just keep squeezing big tech indefinitely.
So cities have to raise funding somehow.
(This is also a problem with the way America funds schools. The US needs to figure out how to distribute tax dollars more equally - or at least figure out how to keep most of the country out of poverty while still building infrastructure that keeps city housing costs down.)
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-02-05/think-car...
Google is expanding their Mountain View and building a massive new headquarters
https://sf.curbed.com/2017/3/8/14858200/google-headquarters-...
Google is also expanding into San Jose
Apple just recently completed their spaceship campus
Facebook is massively expanding their Menlo Park footprint https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2018/03/15/fac...
In addition, they signed the largest lease ever in SF https://sf.curbed.com/2018/5/14/17353094/facebook-park-tower...
Salesforce recently opened their new 60 story tower in downtown SF http://www.salesforcetower.com/
And I haven't even touched upon continued expansion of Uber, Lyft (which opened a new autonomous division in Palo Alto), Airbnb etc.
Austin is a bit player in the tech scene. The only other alternative right now is Seattle.
Many talented people don't want to relocate for work, and companies are realizing that. Distributed offices are becoming more and more of a thing.
At one time Armonk, NY and Maynard, MA were the center of tech too.
It's will be a long slow death by a thousand cuts.
2. Been hearing that for thirty years, too.
Now, that’s not to say that there isn’t a breaking point, I just don’t think we’re there yet. CA might be willing to amputate a leg or a wing, but there’s too much gold in the goose to kill it all at once.
That's like saying "I was reading about government deficit 10 years ago, and look at it, it's still growing and we're still here and the deficit is even larger!".
It's a growing problem. California grows less attractive as more of these exploitative measures and taxes pile up, and the impact is noticeable. No NorCal location was in the shortlist for Amazon's 2nd HQ, for instance.
> Been hearing that for thirty years, too.
You've been hearing about fully remote virtual teams thirty years ago, before the internet really existed?
Maybe as some future prediction?
Which, I hear, is quickly catching up to Bay Area in terms of cost of living.
https://www.tripsavvy.com/austins-cost-of-living-255111
Now let's do SF!:
> As usual, the result is grim for San Francisco, since, according to CAR, a house in San Francisco now runs over $1.5 million on average.
https://sf.curbed.com/2018/2/15/17016992/affordable-homes-me...
That's almost x4 times more. Austin has some headroom still.
Moreover, don't forget taxes! California state tax for an engineer will be about 10% of gross. 0% in Austin. Quite a difference.
