Re:Ask HN: Is an Autonomy Fund a viable business model?
by michaelochurch on Friday April 19, 2013 @03:46PM
(#5578361)
Getting Austin to sign up for that would be a huge coup. I don't think you'd have any trouble getting great engineers to move out there, given how many strong tech companies are already there. That would be ideal. But I'd also want to talk to other municipalities and see what terms they'd have to offer.
It's definitely a job development play. These engineers are going to be founding companies that, if successful, are going to employ large numbers of people.
Re:Ask HN: Is an Autonomy Fund a viable business model?
by zwegner on Friday April 19, 2013 @06:48PM
(#5579069)
This sort of idea is really interesting to me, and the thought of it happening in Austin is quite tantalizing (I wouldn't have to move!).
I find it pretty hard to function in typical management structures, though I work better with teams/some sort of external visibility (my personal projects tend to gather dust too easily, though I'm working on improving this). The concept of an incubator-like environment for collaborating on ideas without the extreme focus on growth would be a perfect fit for people like me.
The key is to find a city on the cusp of making a serious decision to pursue becoming a tech hub. Google Fiber could be an incentive, or it might make them complacent, who knows? Maybe Provo? You can't really aim too small, small towns have serious conservative budgets and for good reason.
Austin would be nice, I'm not sure how insecure they feel about their status as a tech city compared to NYC and SF. What I can tell you for sure is that they are seriously affordable. You can trivially get a house for less than $200k in a decent neighborhood. That they're already competing for the tech city thing is a bonus.
Google Fiber in Austin could end up bringing in some fresh blood, even if it doesn't make that much of a difference on its own.
Austin has a $3.1 billion budget, which makes this more feasible for them than a sub-$1bn budget city. $25mm planning and development budget.
https://assets.austintexas.gov/budget/12-13/downloads/Vol_I_...
See here to see their job development efforts.
Anything involving as much money as this does is going to have be sold as a job development play. I don't know if that argument can be made yet or not, I'd need to discuss it.
Disclaimer: I'm headed to Austin as soon as I'm freed up in my consulting work to do a startup.