[bossabreezes]

I think everyone understands that Austin has been big in tech for a long time. I think the confusion is why this is the case. Why did Austin become big in the scene even in the early days of the computer? It's definitely an outlier, and I would say its the only significant tech hub off of the coasts.

I think because it's the state capital of a very populous Texas also plays a part into its success to draw from itself and its own talent pool, but would guess that the university there might have been some sort of pioneer in the industry. Nothing other than that makes huge sense, considering no other tech hub is in any way related to being in proximity of an Oil Industry based city.

Also, Austin was never a large city where tech started to incubate- it seems like it was an expansion location for most companies rather than the place that hatched the actual innovation. The major innovation has almost always come from SF and the Bay Area, and even though there is some difficulty there now, I don't see that changing long term.

My personal opinion is that Austin now provides a pool of talent in the industry at a critical mass to attract companies to move ops there, because it's a cheap alternative to San Francisco, The Bay or New York. This potentially means it could be replicated anywhere (ops), but traditional innovation cores are likely to remain the hotbeds of new ideas.