What's it like as a place to start a startup, especially compared to the SF Bay Ares?
Austin has a great quality of life and you can definitely create a successful startup here, but there is just simply less opportunity to "run in" to national stage movers and shakers. In SV there are constantly talks by CEOs of brand name startups at casual groups. In austin you would typically have to go to something very formal to get the same caliber of talk.
For example, the talks at SXSW are great and attract CEOs of great startups. But you can get those same talks in the bay area throughout the year.