The Silicone Hills

Aerial view of downtown Austin. Photo courtesy of Katherine Alex Beaven.

the silicone

hills How Technology has Influenced the Austin Community

By: Jackson McNelis

You walk into the lobby and wait for the elevator. You walk into the office and sit down at your desk and get to work. You slap on a pair of headphones and start playing music, the sound blasts away as you stare at a screen working constantly. You turn around and look out the window at the vast city spreading out in front of you for miles as far as the eye can see and think about the beautiful city you live in. Austin is the capital of Texas and is growing at an incredible rate. Its population has exploded and large companies and corporations have relocated to Austin, such as Samsung factories, the VRBO headquarters, a Google office and the Tesla headquarters. There are also lots of new successful startups. Austin is also home to many important representatives of these companies such as Jeff Hurst and John Andrew Entwistle. A lot of these companies have taken a large blow from COVID, however, in 2022 many of them are also having large comebacks as Austin still continues to grow. Jeff Hurst is the COO (Chief Operating Officer) of Expedia and manages its brands such as hotels. com, Travelocity, Hotwire and VRBO, which is located in Austin. He explained that the reason Austin grew so rapidly is that it’s cheap to move to and the quality of life is higher here than in other tech cities like Seattle and San Francisco. “The main cause is it’s a desirable place to live, it’s cheaper than Seattle and San Francisco,” Hurst said. “So people can raise a family here, people can afford to buy a home here. And because of that, you’re seeing companies accommodate that the company can save money, and Welcome to Our Tech Talk | 27

the employee can have a higher quality of life, just by relocating.” Hurst explained how VRBO is involved with the Austin community. They hold several events and have a hand in large staple events important to Austin culture. They take pride in their involvement in the community and plan to continue these events for years to come. “We do a handful of things,” Hurst said. “We always participate in South by Southwest, and are hosting an event for historically black colleges and universities called Battle of the Brains. We are active in several different charities. In the past [we] have been active in Habitat for Humanity and active with Mobile Loaves and Fishes. We have a big presence with Austin City Limits, and always sponsor a stage there.” Hurst also made a statement on his opinion of the large movement of people from California to Austin. He is involved in this movement and while a lot of native Austinites and Texans do not approve of this movement, he thinks it’s a good thing and embraces it.

“Well, I’m kind of one of them,” Hurst said. “I grew up in Texas, but I lived in California for 10 years. Emerson [my daughter] was born in California. I mean, overall, I think it’s great. I think the more diversity of opinion in Austin, and mobility, the better. It’s good for the tech industry, because one of our challenges in Austin has been that there were typically smaller younger startups and more junior resources here, but not as much in terms of executive talent.”

Many long-time citizens of Austin believe that a large movement of people from around the country, specifically California, will cause Austin to lose its culture and uniqueness. Hurst explains why this movement is not a bad thing and argues that even with the flow of new people, Austin will keep its culture and will stay weird. “There are pros and cons,” Hurst said. “It’s kind of like what’s your definition of what makes Austin Austin. I don’t think we’re going to lose the status as a place for great live music, if anything it might expand a little bit because we’re adding so many music venues. I’m kind of familiar with the pattern of when I got here in 1997. There was a movement of Keep Austin Weird because they were worried it was changing too much. The movements kind of stayed the same the whole time. And along the way, everyone still thought Austin was kind of weird. And so I don’t know that there’s a lot of consistency to what it really means.” John Andrew Entwistle has started several startups including his newest startup, Wander. He is the current CEO of Wander and has received 27 million dollars in funds and investments. He explained how creating Wander during the pandemic has affected how Wander functions and how they work asynchronously. “So Wander is a very interesting company in the sense of that we do most of our tasks asynchronously,” Entwistle said. “We try and spend as little time in meetings as possible. When collaboration is necessary … [it] happens asynchronously, meaning that you use tools like email and slack and otherwise to be able to get your work done without much interaction. You will wake up in the morning, and you’ll likely have your set of tasks or things that you want to work on. And you’ll have complete freedom throughout the day to work on them.” Entwistle also explained how Austin is an amazing place for startups and companies to work in. Hurst and John Entwistle shared a few ideas about cheap housing and quality of life but he also explained how Austin is optimal from a business perspective. “What people realize is that companies are just groups of people,” Entwistle said. “ And so you need to locate your company in a place that is very friendly to the people living there. If you want very friendly policies that

John Andrew Entwistle, CEO of Wander, stands in front of a mountain. Photo by John Andrew Entwistle. Jeff Hurt is the Chief Operating Officer of Expedia. Photo courtesy of VRBO.

allow people to live their lives, the way that they want to live them… The other thing you’re looking for is to have a very business-friendly state. So you’re looking to have as few regulations and taxes to the actual business as possible. The Texas government has worked hard to ensure that Texas is a business-friendly state. And I think that what you’re really starting to see now with all these startups … and these larger companies like Tesla” Jeff Hurst and John Andrew Entwistle both believe that in the next few years Austin will improve and continue to grow. Austin is still a music capital and that doesn’t seem to be changing. Thanks to companies like VRBO and Wander Austin is becoming and increasingly better place to live.

The audience watches a concert on the VRBO ACL stage. Photo courtesy of VRBO. Wander’s property in Port Orford, Oregon. Photo courtesy of Wander.