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TIL the push for downtown Austin offices is missing the point
Last week I was at a tech meetup on South Congress and heard the same old line about needing more shiny downtown towers to 'compete with Silicon Valley'. Look, three years ago my team moved from a high rise on 2nd Street to a converted warehouse off East 5th. Our productivity jumped 30% in the first month. The constant pressure to pay $50 a square foot for a 'prestige address' feels like a tax on creativity. Most of our best work happens during walks along the river or at the picnic tables outside Radio Coffee. The obsession with central business districts is a 2010s mindset. Austin's strength is its scattered, weird pockets of innovation, not trying to copy San Francisco's skyline. Has anyone else built a solid company outside the downtown core and faced pushback from investors over location?
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lilyp372mo ago
Our investors in Dallas never even visit the office, they just see the cheaper rent on the spreadsheet and get nervous.
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miles_hall2mo ago
Honestly that sounds like a pretty sweet setup, but is the pushback really about the office location itself? More often it's about signaling to clients or big money partners who still expect that downtown zip code. The rent is insane, sure, but for some businesses that address is part of the sales pitch. Maybe the investors are worried about that, not your team's picnic table productivity.
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