14 ms·

California, Love It and Leave It

30 points by fgimenez 6y ago

Lammy 6y ago
> Bad policy has made the state unlivable, so I moved my family and my venture-capital firm to Texas. If I may read between the lines of this very particularly-chosen wording, it sounds like this Palantir co-founder will probably still be here constantly for work or what have you. Some move, huh?
- mesozoic 6y ago
  Suppose he's just spending time where he can take advantage of the labor force to make him rich(er).
- mikhailfranco 6y ago
  Palantir moves its HQ from Palo Alto to Denver... https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/20/palantir-denver-hq-ipo-direct-listing/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/20/palantir-denver-hq-ipo-dir...
supercanuck 6y ago
People in Washington State and Oregon have been complaining about Californians for the dawn of time. One aspect of California migration largely ignored, is that the wealthy and educated are moving in and the low and middle class are moving out. https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/01/not-the-golden-state-anymore-middle-and-low-income-people-leaving-california/ https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/01/not-the-gol...
- Lammy 6y ago
  I just assume that's the point of the rising economic inequality, rising prices for everything, and near total lack of new housing construction, all since right around the time of the USA's civil rights acts and the supposed "end" of segregation. People will ask "WTF Happened In 1971?"[0] for days but somehow never ask "WTF happened in 1968?" [0] https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ e: unfortunately downvoting the bad news does not make the Bay Area any less-segregated http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?bayarea http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?bayarea
blkknightarms 6y ago
I just left CA after 42 years. Austin, apart from panhandling and corporate retail dominating commercial real estate, is awesome. Free tattoos line around the block for Friday the 13th on 6th st. was hilarious. People are much nicer and more social. Groceries are cheaper (HEB rocks). Traffic sorta sucks but it's nothing like LA or Bay Area commute. The weather is baller as long as it's not summer, in which case, vaca in Canada or Santa Cruz. Land outside of city limits is dirt cheap for whatever purpose, homestead or commercial. Property taxes are nearly 2%/yr in most of TX so there's a disincentive to owning expensive homes for most people. People in CA aren't dating or having kids like TX, middle states, and UT. The coasts are graveyards for all but the rich, retirees, and high-income visiting employees; everyone else is like a SF "gold rush miner" trying to hang-on to a delusion, spending most of their income on rent. Screw that; build a life somewhere sustainable such as on the outskirts of a burgeoning city. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Have you been to Buccees and Whataburger yet? Try both if you haven’t. Welcome!
  - blkknightarms 6y ago
    Thanks, I already did 20 years ago but I'm vegetarian. My mom's family is from north TX and my folks met in San Anton. Earth Burger in San Marcos is crazy good but 2-3x more expensive than regular fast food.
- hindsightbias 6y ago
  Sustainable? https://www.zillow.com/travis-county-tx/home-values/ https://www.zillow.com/travis-county-tx/home-values/ Enjoy that gold rush.
  - blkknightarms 6y ago
    What a horrible, drive-by comment. Why barf on someone else's birthday cake adapting to economic conditions? I suggest you try living in the Bay Area or LA, work an average job, and then talk about sustainability. There are plenty of satellite areas to live around Austin where houses are in the 300-400k range.
swang720 6y ago
"Politics in the state is in many ways closed off to different ideas. We grew weary of California’s intolerant far left, which would rather demonize opponents than discuss honest differences of opinion." I disagree with much in this article, but I do agree with this specific point. I've had many conversations in San Francisco that have turned me off from discussing politics. It's very difficult for some to accept that others can have more moderate viewpoints on certain issues. Just because one doesn't agree with another to the extent they do doesn't mean there isn't a middle ground.
- dkdk8283 6y ago
  > Just because one doesn't agree with another to the extent they do doesn't mean there isn't a middle ground. I found this culture sneaking into Silicon Valley companies, too. I recently left a SV company for one in the NE and the difference is astounding. I’m much happier and there is much less corporate activism.
  - throwawaysea 6y ago
    I am not sure it is a culture “sneaking” anywhere as much as openly and aggressively taking over. This is very true at least in Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Netflix. The intolerant far-left employees openly discuss personal politics on employee mailing lists and forums, unprofessionally spending paid company time on activism, strategizing on how they can control the company and use it to further their political agendas. They achieve their political ends by pressuring executives, pressuring HR, altering the company’s products, pushing policies (both internal and external) that support their views, etc. It is very hard to escape - you see it in mandatory “equity training”, in work conferences that invite far left speakers, and even in trivial things like where to get food for a team lunch (a vocal employee might demand that no money be spent on businesses whose owners don’t pass their purity test). Given how vocal and ruthless activist employees can be (due to the psychological safety of echo chambers), there is no room for any other view whatsoever. It is exhausting, unprofessional, and a big reason why claims of bias from big tech companies are real, not imagined.
    - 6y ago
cmdshiftf4 6y ago
I hope that Texans find some way to deal with the growing Californian infestation sooner rather than later.
myrandomcomment 6y ago
My wife and a I have Austin on the list of places to exit to after the kids finish high school in 2022. 6th street is amazing if you like live music (which we do). Santa Fe, NM is also on the list. The fact that I live in what is the worlds 5th larger economy with a power grid that looks like a 3rd world nation is a huge part of the reason to leave. $2m home where I need to spend another $100k to sort for the fact that PG&E mismanaged everything for the last 20 years, yet I have a $400 a month power bill... all LED lights, all low power everything.. State should just take control and setup CA wide power company who is managed to provide power to everyone all the time and focused on moving all line underground to prevent the fires.. but Newsom is more focused on seeing if he can power the state on the amount of human excrement now found on the streets of SF due to the housing issue for the homeless. We have such a rich state, but the common worker is just screwed by the house laws that keep us from building affordable housing. We that are the lucky valley elite drink our $5 coffees and fail to realize that the person serving us drives 3 hours a day to get to work because they cannot afford to live anywhere near by. I count myself very lucky for the success I have had but I sickened by the cost.
- Lammy 6y ago
  > provide power to everyone all the time I just wish it could be from a less environmentally-destructive source than natural gas. Sonoma County was actually going to be the site of the first commercially-viable nuclear generating station in the entire USA, at PG&E's Atomic Park on Bodega Head, but that never happened for now probably obvious environmental reasons. But now I have to pay an average of $0.262/kWh for natural-gas-driven PG&E electricity, and the Sierra Club who stopped Bodega Head have taken funding from the gas companies[0], so I'm left rather unsure what to think and what to advocate for :/ https://science.time.com/2012/02/02/exclusive-how-the-sierra-club-took-millions-from-the-natural-gas-industry-and-why-they-stopped/ https://science.time.com/2012/02/02/exclusive-how-the-sierra...
  - 205guy 6y ago
    > Atomic Park on Bodega Head, but that never happened for now probably obvious environmental reasons. I think you mean tectonic reasons. Bodega Head is on the San Andreas Fault, not far from the epicenter of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9. Wikipedia has a graphic of the San Andreas fault showing a %21 chance of rupture before 2032: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Andreas_Fault#/media/File:Eq-prob.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Andreas_Fault#/media/File:... From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodega_Head https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodega_Head: "During the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the promontory shifted approximately 15 ft (4.6 m)". I'm surprised this was ever considered for a nuclear generation facility.
rmk 6y ago
One thing that jumps out is that the whole Palantir triumvirate has decided to bail out of CA at the same time. I've seen this type of thing happen very often: company makes it big, there's a huge pot of money, founder has made plans about a year in advance and has already established domicile in a tax-free or low-tax jurisdiction, such as FL (very popular because of the lifestyle that is possible there) and TX. In this case, Joe Lonsdale is in TX, whereas his cofounders are also out of SV, with one in New Hampshire (Alex Karp) and another in LA (Peter Thiel, who also has citizenship in NZ). I wonder if the other founders of this company have also bailed. Even if most of what's written in the article is true, I feel that the motivations of this set are pretty clear: save tax money on what is clearly a huge payday.
mesozoic 6y ago
Don't go to Texas and vote for the same type of garbage policy makers and expect it to stay nice.
- ecf 6y ago
  People will vote how they want to.
voisin 6y ago
At the federal level, the US taxes based on US birthplace or acquired US citizenship regardless of where a person later chooses to locate. Why not do that at the state level?
- mikhailfranco 6y ago
  And indeed, why not at the city level too :) I cannot figure out why global taxation and the ensuing coercion (IRS,FBAR,FATCA,citizenship exit penalties) doesn't fall foul of some part of the US constitution, such as cruel and unusual punishment for not committing any crime other than earning some money some place else. FATCA also demands extra-territorial jurisdiction over foreign banks, which is outrageous. I am sure when the time comes, the IRS will try to enforce pan-galactic taxation... Elon will have to renounce before blast off to Mars.

30 points by fgimenez 6y ago

> Bad policy has made the state unlivable, so I moved my family and my venture-capital firm to Texas. If I may read between the lines of this very particularly-chosen wording, it sounds like this Palantir co-founder will probably still be here constantly for work or what have you. Some move, huh?

mesozoic 6y ago
Suppose he's just spending time where he can take advantage of the labor force to make him rich(er).
mikhailfranco 6y ago
Palantir moves its HQ from Palo Alto to Denver... https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/20/palantir-denver-hq-ipo-direct-listing/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/20/palantir-denver-hq-ipo-dir...

supercanuck 6y ago

People in Washington State and Oregon have been complaining about Californians for the dawn of time. One aspect of California migration largely ignored, is that the wealthy and educated are moving in and the low and middle class are moving out. https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/01/not-the-golden-state-anymore-middle-and-low-income-people-leaving-california/ https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/01/not-the-gol...

Lammy 6y ago
I just assume that's the point of the rising economic inequality, rising prices for everything, and near total lack of new housing construction, all since right around the time of the USA's civil rights acts and the supposed "end" of segregation. People will ask "WTF Happened In 1971?"[0] for days but somehow never ask "WTF happened in 1968?" [0] https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ e: unfortunately downvoting the bad news does not make the Bay Area any less-segregated http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?bayarea http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?bayarea

blkknightarms 6y ago

I just left CA after 42 years. Austin, apart from panhandling and corporate retail dominating commercial real estate, is awesome. Free tattoos line around the block for Friday the 13th on 6th st. was hilarious. People are much nicer and more social. Groceries are cheaper (HEB rocks). Traffic sorta sucks but it's nothing like LA or Bay Area commute. The weather is baller as long as it's not summer, in which case, vaca in Canada or Santa Cruz. Land outside of city limits is dirt cheap for whatever purpose, homestead or commercial. Property taxes are nearly 2%/yr in most of TX so there's a disincentive to owning expensive homes for most people. People in CA aren't dating or having kids like TX, middle states, and UT. The coasts are graveyards for all but the rich, retirees, and high-income visiting employees; everyone else is like a SF "gold rush miner" trying to hang-on to a delusion, spending most of their income on rent. Screw that; build a life somewhere sustainable such as on the outskirts of a burgeoning city. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Have you been to Buccees and Whataburger yet? Try both if you haven’t. Welcome!
- blkknightarms 6y ago
  Thanks, I already did 20 years ago but I'm vegetarian. My mom's family is from north TX and my folks met in San Anton. Earth Burger in San Marcos is crazy good but 2-3x more expensive than regular fast food.
hindsightbias 6y ago
Sustainable? https://www.zillow.com/travis-county-tx/home-values/ https://www.zillow.com/travis-county-tx/home-values/ Enjoy that gold rush.
- blkknightarms 6y ago
  What a horrible, drive-by comment. Why barf on someone else's birthday cake adapting to economic conditions? I suggest you try living in the Bay Area or LA, work an average job, and then talk about sustainability. There are plenty of satellite areas to live around Austin where houses are in the 300-400k range.

swang720 6y ago

"Politics in the state is in many ways closed off to different ideas. We grew weary of California’s intolerant far left, which would rather demonize opponents than discuss honest differences of opinion." I disagree with much in this article, but I do agree with this specific point. I've had many conversations in San Francisco that have turned me off from discussing politics. It's very difficult for some to accept that others can have more moderate viewpoints on certain issues. Just because one doesn't agree with another to the extent they do doesn't mean there isn't a middle ground.

dkdk8283 6y ago
> Just because one doesn't agree with another to the extent they do doesn't mean there isn't a middle ground. I found this culture sneaking into Silicon Valley companies, too. I recently left a SV company for one in the NE and the difference is astounding. I’m much happier and there is much less corporate activism.
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  I am not sure it is a culture “sneaking” anywhere as much as openly and aggressively taking over. This is very true at least in Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Netflix. The intolerant far-left employees openly discuss personal politics on employee mailing lists and forums, unprofessionally spending paid company time on activism, strategizing on how they can control the company and use it to further their political agendas. They achieve their political ends by pressuring executives, pressuring HR, altering the company’s products, pushing policies (both internal and external) that support their views, etc. It is very hard to escape - you see it in mandatory “equity training”, in work conferences that invite far left speakers, and even in trivial things like where to get food for a team lunch (a vocal employee might demand that no money be spent on businesses whose owners don’t pass their purity test). Given how vocal and ruthless activist employees can be (due to the psychological safety of echo chambers), there is no room for any other view whatsoever. It is exhausting, unprofessional, and a big reason why claims of bias from big tech companies are real, not imagined.
  - 6y ago

cmdshiftf4 6y ago

I hope that Texans find some way to deal with the growing Californian infestation sooner rather than later.

myrandomcomment 6y ago

My wife and a I have Austin on the list of places to exit to after the kids finish high school in 2022. 6th street is amazing if you like live music (which we do). Santa Fe, NM is also on the list. The fact that I live in what is the worlds 5th larger economy with a power grid that looks like a 3rd world nation is a huge part of the reason to leave. $2m home where I need to spend another $100k to sort for the fact that PG&E mismanaged everything for the last 20 years, yet I have a $400 a month power bill... all LED lights, all low power everything.. State should just take control and setup CA wide power company who is managed to provide power to everyone all the time and focused on moving all line underground to prevent the fires.. but Newsom is more focused on seeing if he can power the state on the amount of human excrement now found on the streets of SF due to the housing issue for the homeless. We have such a rich state, but the common worker is just screwed by the house laws that keep us from building affordable housing. We that are the lucky valley elite drink our $5 coffees and fail to realize that the person serving us drives 3 hours a day to get to work because they cannot afford to live anywhere near by. I count myself very lucky for the success I have had but I sickened by the cost.

Lammy 6y ago
> provide power to everyone all the time I just wish it could be from a less environmentally-destructive source than natural gas. Sonoma County was actually going to be the site of the first commercially-viable nuclear generating station in the entire USA, at PG&E's Atomic Park on Bodega Head, but that never happened for now probably obvious environmental reasons. But now I have to pay an average of $0.262/kWh for natural-gas-driven PG&E electricity, and the Sierra Club who stopped Bodega Head have taken funding from the gas companies[0], so I'm left rather unsure what to think and what to advocate for :/ https://science.time.com/2012/02/02/exclusive-how-the-sierra-club-took-millions-from-the-natural-gas-industry-and-why-they-stopped/ https://science.time.com/2012/02/02/exclusive-how-the-sierra...
- 205guy 6y ago
  > Atomic Park on Bodega Head, but that never happened for now probably obvious environmental reasons. I think you mean tectonic reasons. Bodega Head is on the San Andreas Fault, not far from the epicenter of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9. Wikipedia has a graphic of the San Andreas fault showing a %21 chance of rupture before 2032: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Andreas_Fault#/media/File:Eq-prob.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Andreas_Fault#/media/File:... From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodega_Head https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodega_Head: "During the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the promontory shifted approximately 15 ft (4.6 m)". I'm surprised this was ever considered for a nuclear generation facility.

rmk 6y ago

One thing that jumps out is that the whole Palantir triumvirate has decided to bail out of CA at the same time. I've seen this type of thing happen very often: company makes it big, there's a huge pot of money, founder has made plans about a year in advance and has already established domicile in a tax-free or low-tax jurisdiction, such as FL (very popular because of the lifestyle that is possible there) and TX. In this case, Joe Lonsdale is in TX, whereas his cofounders are also out of SV, with one in New Hampshire (Alex Karp) and another in LA (Peter Thiel, who also has citizenship in NZ). I wonder if the other founders of this company have also bailed. Even if most of what's written in the article is true, I feel that the motivations of this set are pretty clear: save tax money on what is clearly a huge payday.

mesozoic 6y ago

Don't go to Texas and vote for the same type of garbage policy makers and expect it to stay nice.

ecf 6y ago
People will vote how they want to.

voisin 6y ago

At the federal level, the US taxes based on US birthplace or acquired US citizenship regardless of where a person later chooses to locate. Why not do that at the state level?

mikhailfranco 6y ago
And indeed, why not at the city level too :) I cannot figure out why global taxation and the ensuing coercion (IRS,FBAR,FATCA,citizenship exit penalties) doesn't fall foul of some part of the US constitution, such as cruel and unusual punishment for not committing any crime other than earning some money some place else. FATCA also demands extra-territorial jurisdiction over foreign banks, which is outrageous. I am sure when the time comes, the IRS will try to enforce pan-galactic taxation... Elon will have to renounce before blast off to Mars.