As a Rice graduate, I can say that not all of us went to Google or Facebook. I stayed in Houston, for instance, despite options to go more or less wherever I wanted. High wage, low cost of living. My apartment is so much nicer than what many of my friends in SF or Mountain View are living in despite higher salaries.
The problem is I had to aggressively seek out smaller companies and start-ups here to find my current job. I can say with utmost confidence that there are some incredibly talented CS graduates coming out of Rice, completely on par with Stanford or other top schools. It is so bizarre to me that the few startups that we do have in Houston often make little to no effort at all to recruit from Rice.
There is more to life than work. Like being able to live.
Which makes it good for a start-up; if they need to fire someone, they can without cause.
> Low wages and poor health care systems.
Cost of living is a lot lower compared to New York or Silicon Valley and Houston has the best medical center in the world.
> There is more to life than work. Like being able to live.
Houston has a lot of great opportunities (being the fourth largest city in the United States). I like to consider the IMAX factor. Houston has the most IMAX theaters of any city in the United States.
Disclosure: I grew up in Houston and currently live right outside of Houston. I do hate the traffic however, though according to a recent report [0], it's not even in the U.S.'s top ten, but Austin is.
[0] http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/05/07/top-10-u-s-cities-with-t...
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1. The "pro-business" attitude is anti-startups.
For example in California non-compete's are pretty much unenforceable. No company even bothers to ask for them ( http://www.californialaborlawattorney.com/non-competition-cl... ) :
"In a few states, they are generally not legal. For example, in California, a non-compete agreement is enforceable only if someone sells a business and agrees not to compete with the new owner. That aside, California employers cannot restrict the livelihood of their current or former employees."
Eric Reis (Lean Startup) ( http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/business-brains/-8216non-com... ):
"Eric Ries, creator of the Lean Startup methodology and the author of the entrepreneurship blog Startup Lessons Learned, says that Silicon Valley’s celebrated entrepreneurial culture isn’t necessarily a result of the research universities and venture capital dollars in the area, since similar resources are available elsewhere.
Instead, he gave a lot of credit to California’s legal system in a recent interview. While the state may have more than its share of budget issues and crushing tax burdens, the entrepreneurial spirit is allowed to flourish without teams of lawyers putting a damper on things:
“[California has] the kind of legal framework that makes that doable. For example, one important difference is in California no matter what kind of employment agreement you sign, most forms of non-compete and really onerous trade secret agreements are non-enforceable in California. So if you’re working on a cool new idea in your own time without using any company resources, your employer can’t lay claim to that same invention, and therefore you’re free to incubate something on the side and then go pursue it as a company."
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2. Low wages and poor health care systems
> Cost of living is a lot lower compared to New York or Silicon Valley and Houston has the best medical center in the world.
Yes and your kids will go to shitty schools. The medical center is great if you can afford it -- but we are talking about a startup right - low wages, lots of equity.
25% of Texans are uninsured ( http://www.texmed.org/Template.aspx?id=5519 )
I would also point out that Thailand has even lower wages and a good health care system.
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There are reasons why businesses continue to stay in "high-wage" "high-cost" places like New York and California: High-value employees are there.
As a final point, the recent joke of a tour by Rick Perry to "lure" California businesses to Texas ( Read more: http://business.time.com/2013/04/24/why-is-texas-governor-ri... )
The short-term costs of relocating and the uncertainty a move brings to a business often outweigh any potential long-term benefits from setting up in a more pro-business environment. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, even with California’s history of high taxes and heavy regulation, only 2% of job losses between 1992 and 2006 were due to businesses leaving the state.
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> I grew up in Houston and currently live right outside of Houston. I do hate the traffic
I live in Silicon Valley and I use Caltrain and Light Rail a lot ( Free Wifi ). Los Angeles is building a massive rail network as fast as they can ( http://www.metro.net/interactives/metrorail_timeline/ )
Traffic? You can keep it.
