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Comment by DanielBMarkham | Hacker News Reader

A month ago I was talking to another HNer about where to take a startup after launching in the valley.

There's a ton of great places: Seattle, Raleigh-Durham, Boston, L.A., DC beltway, etc. but I kept coming back to Austin. They've got so many things you would want: low cost of living, low regulatory burden, friendly community, lots of parks and open spaces, great nightlife, ease of travel, and so on.

When I look at the bay area, I wish them the best. They're still hands-down the best place to find money. But not so much in my mind of places to actually live. If I had a break-even startup and just wanted to live somewhere that I was surrounded by great talent doing cool things? I'd choose Austin in a heartbeat.

Although it's a close race, in my mind over the last few years Austin has moved to #2 in the startup world stateside. And it continues to improve.

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I find that Seattle has most of those benefits (no income tax, better regulation, state and city with balanced budgets, lower cost of living) but also the benefits of living in a socially liberal state (gay marriage, access to family planning, sane regulation of pot).

Austin however wins on weather, unless you like to stay buried in your cave programming, like me. ;)

in 2011 it broke 100f 30 days in a row in Austin. 2012 was a bit of a ball buster too, this year is predicted to break records (though it hasn't been too bad so far).

I assure you Austin does not win on weather.

I think this is highly dependent on the individual. I despise the heat, and definitely prefer Seattle's weather to Austin's. But I know plenty of people who are the opposite.

Is 100f 30 days in a row worse than 7 months in a row of mostly overcast and rain? Not so assured.

Oh god yes. I looooooooove rain and cloudy days, but hate heat and sunlight. No Texas for me, I think!!

I assume places in Austin at least come with AC.

It doesn't get anywhere close to 100f in Seattle but you'll still some solid stretches 85+F which, while absolutely peanuts in most places, is pretty brutal for someone used to AC. It is one thing to be brutally hot during the day when you are outside, and an entirely different thing to be rather hot at 3am when you are trying to sleep.

Growing up in Austin it was a shock to learn there were places where you would not have AC.

I moved from the Dallas area to the Seattle area and I've had AC everywhere I've lived (except the first place). Sure I've had to install it in one case, but it's not that expensive compared to the benefit if you're used to AC.

Also, I think Seattle wins on weather too, but I lived in the southern heat for a very long time so maybe my perspective is warped.

There is only so far A/C goes. 100F is likely to still be 85F except in new construction.

At least you'd have some pleasant contrast. Walking into your apartment in the summer to be met with air at least as warm as outside is not very cool.

Temperature contrast is vastly underrated, and almost impossible to get in Seattle either way (never gets cold enough in the winter to be that different than a comfortable indoors temperature either).

These do wonders: http://www.amazon.com/Chill-Its-6602-Cooling-Towel-Blue/dp/B...

(I live in Atlanta, 95% humidity, 90 degrees, way too often)

2011 was just a really bad year, a record 90 days over 100 (previous record was 67). But the heat's not the only thing to consider. Austin averages 300 days of sunshine each year, while Seattle has only 58.

Yeah but 242 of those days are too hot to do anything. So it's kind of a wash you know?

EDIT TO ADD:

Look I'm not saying that Seattle's weather is perfect, nor that there is a perfect location, but whatever Austin is doing with its weather, it sure as hell aint winning.

That's not true. I love the warm weather - and absolutely dread overcast/rainy. I don't have Seasonal Affective Disorder, but to say that the sun doesn't brighten my day would be wrong.

It's all relative.

Seattle is closer to Hawaii. I've found Seattle to have acceptable sun by spending a few weeks out of the year vacationing to Hawaii or California. Summer in Seattle is so much better than Summer in Texas; it's the rainy winter that you have to break up.

omg. only 58 days of sunshine!? I think I need to move to this place for at least part of my life.

It doesn't sound correct though.

I lived in the Seattle area for many many years, and it got plenty of sun, summer and winter, and most of the non-sunny weather was best described as "mild." Moreover, on sunny days, it's not oppressively hot most of the time. The area's rep for bad weather is pretty undeserved (yeah I know the joke "shhh, don't tell, some Californians might hear!").

I don't like Seattle for cultural reasons, but the climate is very nice.

I've been saying this for the last 2-3 years now. I'm taking my startup to Austin for sure (after we get cracking here in London/Barcelona). So many reasons to go there that I've lost count.

They're still hands-down the best place to find money.

Yet there are so many VCs in TX! From what I've been told, many VCs in TX only deal with TX companies. I think there is some law about owning a large plot of land that allows for many VCs there to hide their earnings there well.

Anyway, we'll be looking for Rails and front-end UX guys in about 1 year time in the Austin area. So any of you ambitious people looking to join a startup, and want to be part of a tech+athletic (triathlon+endurance athletics) culture, feel free to get in touch with me now just to get the ball rolling. I know things can always change over a year, but happy to start the convos going now. My company is http://www.competehub.com

Do keep in mind that if you move to TX, your children will learn creationism IN SCHOOL. Also, they will likely learn about a white-washed version of slavery. This is a really big deal to me, and it should be a big deal to more liberals who move out there.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bryan-monroe/how-texas-school-...

I attended high school in TX and can verify that in biology class I had absolutely no exposure to creationism. For what it's worth, the Texas Legislature recently signed a bill vastly decreasing the number of high-stakes standardized tests required to graduate high school, which I hope is a sign of improvements to come for the public school system here.

Sorry, but that's nonsense. Don't believe everything read on Huff-post.

Edit: And since it's sure to come up, our sex education isn't abstinence-only, either.

Another benefit to Austin: No state income tax.

My understanding, at least in the case of Texas, is that the lack of a state income tax is largely offset by significantly higher property taxes.

Actually, it largely offset by just fucking it's citizens out of basic services.

What do you mean by basic services? We have roads in Austin, We have a city-owned electric company. We have hospitals. We have police and fire departments. The idea that Texas is some lawless place without services for anyone is just wrong. They might not have full salary pensions for retired government workers (the horror!), but Texas has provided plenty for its citizens.

There are lot of 3rd world countries in which I'd rather be a poor person than Texas.

Your governor believes many (if not most) Federal assistance programs are unconstitutional. He believes in drug testing for the unemployed.

Again, what basic services are not provided? I'm now genuinely curious about what you consider a basic service that is not provided by Texas. Believing in drug testing for the unemployed does not mean that Texas does not provide basic services. What 3rd world countries would you rather be a poor person in?

Which ones? My guess is you've never been outside of the US or its satellite allies.

Like what?

Higher percentage-wise yes, but not by its affect your paycheck. My property tax is half of what I paid in MA, and it's for a house double the size and half the price - in a suburb of Austin, with a shorter commute to downtown that I had to Boston. My paycheck hasn't suffered in any way to make that trade, either.

On average an individual's tax burden will still end up being less in Texas.

That's how it should be. That's actually a progressive way of doing things. People who can afford pay higher taxes do.

Property taxes actually wind up being regressive a lot of the time. Having 2x or 10x income usually translates to a house that's less than 2x or 10x in value.

While you're partially right in terms of house property value, high property taxes encourage efficient use of land. They prevent wealthy landowners from just sitting on valuable land.

One other thing I forgot to mention is that the ultra-wealthy typically earn most of their money from investments, not income. This is why Mitt Romney pays a net lower tax rate than you or I and another reason why even progressive income taxes are fairly regressive.

State taxes often treat investment and wage income the same; particularly in California.

Formerly 15% + 0% (if you lived in WA) capital gains one year is now 20% + 3.8% + 14.3% (if you moved to California in 2013). That's a pretty big difference for the same gain.

That's not necessarily regressive, if a billionaire buys the same house someone making $70,000/yr doesn't make it regressive. It's not linearly progressive (ie 1:1 ratio of taxes to taxable amount), but is still progressive. Current income taxes (federal at least) are more regressive even though quantity of money might still be higher for higher income individuals.

I could be completely wrong, tax stuff confuse the hell out of me...

If the ratio of taxes to income isn't rising with income or at least keeping constant (which is what I think you're referring to as "linear"), your marginal tax rate is declining as income rises. I think you maybe mean it's staying constant with consumption, but that's kind of the problem - people with higher incomes tend to consume a smaller portion of their overall income, so taxes based on consumption are usually regressive.

That's pretty much the definition of regressive when it comes to taxes - people making more are being taxed less, proportionally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_tax

"Land Value Taxes" are the solution to this. Taxes on the unimproved value of land, deterring people from holding huge amounts of land idly. Provide a way to donate land to environmental trust if you want it to be empty, or give rebates for certain pro-civic activities (i.e. a 100 year no-build promise on your land would reduce your taxes substantially)

How, exactly, do, real estate taxes (flat ad valorem, right?) do that better than progressive taxes on income?

I could see how taxing standard of living rather than a high income could be a good thing.

> I could see how taxing standard of living rather than a high income could be a good thing.

That certainly seems like an argument that could be made, but I don't see that ownership of real property alone is a better proxy for "standard of living" than income is, so I don't see how any such argument would be relevant to the claim made with regard to property taxes. (Consumption -- as is the focus of sales and use taxes -- is probably a better proxy for "standard of living" than real estate ownership is and might be better than income, but I still don't think flat consumption taxes are more progressive against standard of living than progressive income taxes are.)

Most state income taxes that I know of are flat.

> Most state income taxes that I know of are flat.

Of 43 states with individual income taxes, 7 have flat individual income taxes. [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_income_tax

My guess would be that most people working at a start up would be renting and thus would avoid the property tax.

Well, obviously renting doesn't "avoid" property tax -- the owner just passes the cost of the tax on to the renters. That said, the cost of housing in Austin is probably still considerably less than, say, the Bay Area or NYC.

Yet another reason for living in your van (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5794592)

No state income tax for Seattle either.

I live in Houston rather than Austin, but I can say that in Houston the lack of state income tax is easily made up for by the extremely high property taxes.

I moved to Austin from Raleigh and got a 7.5% raise because there isn't a state income tax.

However: property taxes are significantly higher here (about $2-3 per $100 value, depending on location.) And you'll pay full sales tax on vehicle purchases (NC has a 3% highway-use tax only).

Austin is great. Except for the traffic.

Cost of living has continued to skyrocket, and all the newly arrived are destroying the once great character of Austin. It's already too late.

Said just about everyone who's ever lived anywhere at any point in time.

Minorities and artists, and the poor are getting priced out of the city and abandoning the "Live Music Capital of the World" for friendlier and cheaper climes. But don't let the facts get in the way of your snark.

That's literally been said about every big cultural city in the world.

Berlin, nyc, sf, Toronto...

Gentrification in Austin is not at all unique.

Who's avoiding facts? The facts are that this happens constantly. Places change, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.. which is always a matter of individual perspective.

The only constant is that expecting conditions to never change in any material way remains a very poor bet.

The facts are that the cultural character of the city, "live music" is getting pushed out by the same people touting that as a reason to move here. They move here from SFC and NYC and then set about trying to change all the things that supposedly drew them here.

Whatever, y'all are right, and I shouldn't have expressed my view that the things y'all think are here are not in fact here.

The worst people to ever move to a location are the ones that get there after you :) When you move there, you're of course strengthening the character of the place, but the riff-raff after you spoil it.

But, unlike the unaffordable areas, texas isn't restrictive with it's land use, which is strongly co-related to housing affordability. Just look at the chart on page 18 here:

http://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf

You sound like a lot of people I knew from Seattle back in the 90s... Funny.

For the kiddies too young to remember: After the S&L crisis, there was an exodus from SoCal to <anywhere else>.

Still cheap when compared to San Francisco.

long time locals are probably feeling the crunch just as badly as long time SF locals though

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