Austin is not a "bit player" in the tech scene. Incredible growth is happening outside of the California bubble. Texas, the entire east coast...

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.

All the startups are moving to other markets. The problem long term is that all these startups provide the training for people that eventually join those other companies. Eventually unicorns will show up in other markets that don't have the insanity of the Bay Area. When that happens these companies won't be able to attract talent and risk becoming a shadow of their former selves along with the city.

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.

I don’t understand the obsession with Austin. It’s actually quite a small player in the tech industry.

Its cachet is overblown in most respects. My friends living there joke about it being due to the requirement to drive through the rest of Texas to get there.

The best startups and investment out here tend to be second-tier compared to the Bay Area. It's improving but still small and far from SF-level success. That said, second tier is great compared to everywhere outside of the Bay Area and NYC.

I'd recommend not moving to Central Texas, by the way. Water availability is going to be a huge issue as the population continues to increase. Cities aren't feeling it yet but the small towns on the fringes definitely are - and the issue will continue to spread.

Yea I'm not moving there, but I'm pretty sure they'll figure out the water issue as they always do.

My point was more that there's probably 8-10 metro areas that fall into the "second-tier", but Austin somehow gets pretty consistently thrown out as some alternative to the valley.

But the numbers play out a bit differently. In terms of VC investments, Austin is yes..second-tier (really 3rd, b/c NYC, LA, and Boston make a case for being the 2nd and everyone else is well behind them)..right there with Miami, Chicago, DC, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Dallas, etc. In other words...it's just a regular city that has an ok tech scene.

Not to say that VC money is the only metric by which we should judge, but it's a pretty decent barometer.

The small towns are feeling it because farmers get priority and use deep wells to suck their local aquifer dry, leaving the townies with mud.

Salesforce's tower is mostly going to be rented to other tenants. The company will largely maintain distributed office space in the Financial District.