It is becoming extremely difficult to find an affordable place to live in California. For that reason, many are migrating out of the state and heading southeast to the warm welcoming state of Texas. This The Dallas Morning News article highlights the ways that the state is embracing both the people and the innovation and technology that they are bringing with them.
The problem with comparing innovation between Texas and Silicon Valley is that everybody in Silicon Valley is moving to Texas.
Well, maybe not everybody, but more Californians move to Dallas-Fort Worth each year than residents of any other state, according to NerdWallet. And that isn’t even counting migration outside of North Texas.
In fact, according to data from the American Community Survey, between 2007 and 2016, a net of 1 million residents, or 2.5% of the state’s population, left California for another state due to an increased cost of living and scarcity of affordable housing. California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office cites Texas as the most popular destination, which attracted more than a quarter of them. Among the arrivals are a good many “founderati,” the glamorous people involved in growing startups.
I like to think I beat the reverse California tech rush. In 2011, I left the coasts to become professor of innovation at the University of Texas at Austin.
I got to Texas after 23 years as a student and early-career engineer in Boston, and then another 23 years as a scientist, engineer and entrepreneur prospering in Silicon Valley.
