from Hacker News

Oracle Moving HQ to Austin

by whatok on 12/11/20, 9:22 PM with 437 comments

  • by beagle3 on 12/11/20, 9:43 PM

    Likely irrelevant, but reminded me of this[0]: """Basically, we’re moving because of William Whyte‘s rule: virtually all corporate relocations involve a move to a location which is closer to the CEO’s home than the old location. Whyte discovered this principle after an extensive study of Fortune 500 companies that left New York City for the suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s"""

    Tesla will likely move its HQ to Texas following Musk's move (if it hasn't already), which would seem to be in line with Whyte's rule. However, it is likely both would have the same underlying reason (legal, financial, taxation or otherwise), rather than just "making it more conventient for musk".

    I wonder if Elison or Katz have also moved to Austin recently ......

    [0] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/03/28/finding-an-office-...

  • by whatok on 12/11/20, 9:22 PM

    Relevant text: Oracle is implementing a more flexible employee work location policy and has changed its Corporate Headquarters from Redwood City, California to Austin, Texas. We believe these moves best position Oracle for growth and provide our personnel with more flexibility about where and how they work. Depending on their role, this means that many of our employees can choose their office location as well as continue to work from home part time or all of the time. In addition, we will continue to support major hubs for Oracle around the world, including those in the United States such as Redwood City, Austin, Santa Monica, Seattle, Denver, Orlando and Burlington, among others, and we expect to add other locations over time. By implementing a more modern approach to work, we expect to further improve our employees’ quality of life and quality of output.

  • by orliesaurus on 12/11/20, 9:37 PM

    I live in Austin, Oracle has a huge campus here that looks as big as an airport building with terminals/gates and all the trimmings.

    It's a beautiful building that gentrified the whole area, for better or worse. I ate there a couple of times, it's nice inside too!

    I love biking/walking around the Oracle campus area because they made a bike path and the area is safer than it was before. That being said, I know a couple of people who work there and they don't like their job - it's thankless - but I think that's the same with all big companies where you're just another number.

    When the pandemic hit everyone started working from home and this mega-building was pretty much empty. I am not surprised they're gonna move their HQ here. That's because they got plenty of office space to fill amongst other reasons. Also with favorable taxes and lots of space to expand (if they ever need to) as they hire more and more people. Good thing for those who purchased homes near the campus! Their value will keep increasing as more "execs" move here after the pandemic settles.

  • by rainyMammoth on 12/11/20, 9:34 PM

    How long before all the Californians make Austin the exact same place they fled from?

  • by vzaliva on 12/11/20, 9:59 PM

    Some people lament the decline of Silicon Vally companies like Tesla and Oracle moving out. I argue it could be a good thing. These giant enterprises are not really a pinnacle of entrepreneurship and innovation anymore. Let them move elsewhere and keep the Bay Area nurturing new entrepreneurs and startups. It is huge cubicle farms vs. garages and coworking places kind of distinction.

  • by syntaxing on 12/11/20, 9:34 PM

    I'm super curious how this will WFH Covid-era will play out for the Bay Area. I think the question I haven't figured out is job mobility. Pre-covid, even if you lost your job here as an engineer, finding another company thats interesting with the right pay isn't too hard which is one of the best appeals of SV. I wonder how this will play out in terms of this dynamic.

  • by 1helloworld1 on 12/11/20, 9:36 PM

    Shouldn't the republican party be worried? If the trend continues and a lot of companies move from California to Texas bringing along a lot of liberal employees with them, won't that tip the already narrowing margin towards the democratic party?

  • by neildahlke on 12/11/20, 10:08 PM

    I wonder when HN gets to the stage that all the negativity is directed towards Austin instead of San Francisco, and when we see all the posts about how tech is ruining Austin.

  • by g42gregory on 12/11/20, 9:34 PM

    I think this is a major news for Silicon Valley. Schwab, HPE, now Oracle. I hope that this would give somebody in California Legislature a pause.

  • by vmception on 12/11/20, 10:06 PM

    If your town or city wants to be the next silicon valley

    Petition your state to change laws nullifying non-compete clauses

  • by dmode on 12/11/20, 9:56 PM

    Texas seems intent on grabbing all the deadwood valley companies. What's next ? I predict Cisco. Meanwhile, SF just had two IPOs worth $200bn

  • by christophilus on 12/11/20, 11:38 PM

    Devastating news. My thoughts and prayers go out to Austin.

  • by rossdavidh on 12/11/20, 11:55 PM

    Disclosure: I live in Austin, and long ago lived in South Bay area of SV.

    In general, I am skeptical that the pandemic will cause permanent changes, except insofar as it speeds up things that were happening anyway. But, in regards to an exodus from the very-highest-priced places to live, towards places where things are merely expensive, I wonder if this is going to be a lasting change. I had been seeing "SV/NYC is so expensive it's crazy, businesses will all leave if something doesn't get done" for so many years, I had more of less stopped waiting for it to actually occur. But this year, I wonder...

  • by outside1234 on 12/11/20, 11:02 PM

    At Microsoft they are starting to track your business travel days in other states and are going to WITHHOLD STATE TAXES (!!!) for the days that you spend in those states.

    Wonder if all of this is related.

  • by imbnwa on 12/12/20, 1:01 AM

    One thing that comes to mind in all this relocation commotion is that California isn't just a bureaucratic hassle but its actual physical environment is becoming a health hazard

  • by microtherion on 12/11/20, 11:12 PM

    I wonder whether that could lead to a measurable decline in 101 commute time if some of their office space remains empty. Subjectively it always felt to me like some of the most congested stretches of 101 were next to Oracle building clusters, but that may be selection bias talking.

  • by zeckalpha on 12/12/20, 6:14 AM

    Shorter commute to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court...

    > The filing of such cases in the Eastern District of Texas dropped after the 2017 Supreme Court decision in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC, which held that for the purpose of venue in patent infringement suits, a domestic corporation "resides" only in its state of incorporation. Meanwhile, the filing of such cases in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware increased.

  • by xyst on 12/11/20, 11:07 PM

    Just ship every aspect of your business from CA, NY, WA to TX. Zero income taxes to the state plus the city (Austin) will even give you millions of dollars in the form of tax breaks assuming you have an "in" with the city council.

    Plus you consider where the world is going in terms of reversing global warming (ie, not very well), LA, SF, NYC will be under water due to the rise in sea level. Planning long term stays in these low lying areas is simply not smart, unless you don't plan to stay in business past 2050.

  • by worker767424 on 12/11/20, 11:47 PM

    Not sure where Larry's going to moor his yacht in Austin.

  • by ilaksh on 12/11/20, 9:29 PM

    Is _this_ the point where everyone and their grandpa has finally figured out that Austin is cool, and therefore it is automatically not cool anymore?

    What's the next hip town?

  • by efleeus on 12/11/20, 9:56 PM

    Setting up their future as a patent troll as well.

  • by martyvis on 12/12/20, 12:12 PM

    Interesting that Oracle's move got a lot more attention here on HN than HPE's announcment it is moving it's HQ to Houston a few weeks ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25271263

  • by ta988 on 12/12/20, 5:47 AM

    Interesting to see companies starting to move to TX. And the state being one of the leaders on renewable energy growth for a few years now. Is it the new eldorado for companies? Dystopic thought but what if the companies push the TX secession efforts to get their own land.

  • by guyzero on 12/11/20, 10:21 PM

    eh, I'm not sure this really spells the end of anything - Bay Area growth has been extremely high for years, decades even. And yes, California has a huge problem with building homes & infrastructure, but even so, it's been growing at around 8.5% for a while. At the same time people have been leaving all along and it's inevitable that changes like this will happen. I honestly think that Oracle doesn't even benefit from being in the SF area anymore anyway, they sell maintenance contracts to fortune 500 companies, you can do that from anywhere. And no one is being forced to relocate, so anyone with school-age kids or an employed spouse is likely to stay anyway.

  • by strangattractor on 12/12/20, 2:33 AM

    When companies cease to grow because they no longer innovate their only option is to find other ways to increase profits. This usually means mining the low hanging fruit of reduced taxation. I doubt Larry will be moving to Texas.

  • by del_operator on 12/11/20, 11:49 PM

    If the Bay Area is Silicon Valley what is the hub nickname for Austin? I’m not aware of one.

  • by throwaway4good on 12/12/20, 7:22 AM

    I assume - together with TikTok - from this article in september:

    https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/22/tiktok-texas-trump/

    President Donald Trump said Saturday that he tentatively approved a deal between the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok and Oracle and Walmart that could bring the new joint venture’s headquarters to Texas. The deal, though, still faces much uncertainty.

    “All of the technology will be maintained here,” Trump said at a North Carolina rally. “They’re going to move probably to the great state of Texas.”

    ...

    If approved, the new entity, TikTok Global, would contribute $5 billion to an educational fund based in Texas, according to the Austin American-Statesman, though Walmart said in a press release the money would go to the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Trump had previously requested that there be a contribution to the U.S. government in exchange for helping to arrange the deal. Walmart did not respond to a request for comment.

  • by nova22033 on 12/12/20, 1:17 AM

    Congrats to all the lawyers in Austin...the job market is going to be great

  • by gigatexal on 12/12/20, 7:28 AM

    Good. Let the exodus continue.

  • by wolverine876 on 12/12/20, 5:34 AM

    As I pointed out regarding Musk's move, it's the companies with the strongest links with reactionary politics (and Trump): Thiel/Palantir, Musk, Ellison/Oracle. Does HPE somehow fit that mold?

    For the sake of their many stakeholders, I hope the CEOs are not overreacting to the reactionary idea bubble - that they are not taking too seriously what is political rhetoric - or acting for political purposes. Many people do not share their political views.

    It also matches the corporate outrage / take-my-ball-and-go strategy: If someone dares to regulate or tax a company - the outrage! - they say they are leaving. Think of Amazon in France and other places (IIRC Philadelphia passed a law requiring businesses to take cash and Amazon threatened to leave, then backed down). Think of Uber and Lyft in California. It's childish and I think if someone called them on it, it would be revealed for what it is. It's not clear to me how it's good for society that they don't have to contribute and pay their share.

    Finally, where will these companies recruit from? The University of Texas is pretty good, but not close to the level of Berkley and Stanford, two of the top ~6 schools in the world. Also, many more people want to live in the Bay Area than Austin in general, and IT professionals want to be in SV where the center of their industry is. Austin is nice but simply is not real competition.

  • by danishdev on 12/11/20, 9:39 PM

    Why is it so hard to realize that people want low taxes and light regulation? And that woke culture with it's free speech curtailment are a kind of 1984 environment where someone is watching your words constantly.

    California and NYC were great great states, and after decades of democrat governments, companies decide to move thousands of kilometers so they can leave these states in favor of Republican states.

    There's so many of individual decisions along these lines.

    YEt, I am not aware of anyone leaving a red state to live under the woke shackles.

  • by DataSceince123 on 12/11/20, 10:39 PM

    Its ridiculous how these companies took advantage of california, paid nearly no taxes, then left to texas leaving california in massive debt !

  • by birdyrooster on 12/11/20, 9:45 PM

    Average high/low temperatures in the summer for Austin are:

    June. 92° / 72°

    July. 96° / 74°

    August 96° / 74°

    Average high/low temperatures in the summer for Cupertino are:

    June. 75° / 55°

    July. 76° / 58°

    August 76° / 58°

    Austin will never, ever be like Silicon Valley because of this. The freedom you get from cooler weather is great from an energy utilization stand point and for allowing safer and more desirable conditions outdoors. Not to mention you have much more beautiful choices of nature in Northern California. Think about whenever you travel to Austin for conferences, it's oppressively hot and you basically travel from one air conditioned building to the next. Now imagine 10 years time of increased global warming. California will still be coastal to one of the coldest waters in the world at this latitude, which is a natural air conditioner. To me this spells the end of Oracle's supremacy in anything other than selling smaller and smaller volumes of mainframes. They've started focusing further and further on cost reduction.

    Edit: For those downvoting me, Texas is a wasteland of has-been tech companies that couldn't cut it when in competition with the west coast and the rest of the world. Oracle isn't going to change that.