[bsder]

> 3. Vibrant tech and VC community - not at the same level as SV but a not-too-distant second-or-third.

Uh, no.

Austin has a lousy VC community. There are countless articles about it.

And, as for tech, for software it's mainly only Tivoli alums--and a lot of the best ones decamped for greener (read: better salary not in Austin) pastures. IBM as a technical presence has been gone forever (the Advanced Workstation Division was quite amazing and IBM Somerset was one of the PowerPC development arenas). Apple just came in so hasn't spun anybody out yet.

[hn_throwaway_99]

Totally disagree. In software you have vibrant alumni communities from Trilogy, Indeed, HomeAway/VRBO, etc., not to mention tech giants that have large engineering outposts in Austin, e.g. Google, PayPal.