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- Dropbox CEO Drew Houston is moving to Austin, according to a report from The Information.
- Houston’s departure from Silicon Valley is the latest in a string of high-profile moves during the pandemic.
- Investor Keith Rabois is moving to Miami, Palantir cofounder and venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale is also moving to Austin, Brex’s cofounders are decamping for Los Angeles, and Palantir is moving the company headquarters to Denver.
- The pandemic has shifted how many tech companies value in-office work, leading to an exodus from the Bay Area and a migration toward more affordable cities.
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Drew Houston is planning to move to Austin full-time, the latest high-profile departure from Silicon Valley.
Houston, who’s the founder and CEO of cloud storage company Dropbox, purchased a house in Austin that will eventually become his full-time residence, according to The Information’s Cory Weinberg, Kate Clark, and Zoë Bernard.
A spokesperson for Dropbox did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment on Houston’s plans.
Houston’s move to Austin would put him in good company — the city has become home to several Silicon Valley expats: Douglas Merritt, the CEO of software company Splunk, is also moving to Austin, The Information reported. Joe Lonsdale, the cofounder of Palantir who currently runs venture capital firm 8VC, already lives in Austin with his family and confirmed earlier this month that he is moving his firm there as well.
In addition to the new arrivals, Dell founder Michael Dell has long been based in the Austin region, and Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk will be spending more time there as Tesla builds a new Cybertruck factory in Austin.
Austin isn't the only city seeing an influx of Silicon Valley's elite. Los Angeles appears to be another destination for tech executives, with Brex founders Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi moving to Los Angeles, which is also home to venture capitalist Peter Thiel.
And in August, Palantir moved its headquarters from Palo Alto to Denver after its CEO, Alex Karp, described Silicon Valley as a "monoculture." While the company still has a Bay Area office, Denver is Palantir's official hub, a move that had been in the works for a while.
Startup investor Keith Rabois seems to have had similar motivations for leaving Silicon Valley. Rabois recently announced that he's "moving imminently" to Miami, telling Fortune that "San Francisco is just so massively improperly run and managed" that "it's impossible to stay here." Rabois also cited Florida's lack of a state income tax and Miami's "interesting mix of New Yorkers, Latin Americans, and Europeans" as factors in his decision to move there.
"It's very clear right now, people are shifting their preferences pretty massively," Rabois told Fortune.
California has some of the highest taxes in the nation and is one of the most expensive cities for homebuyers. Its median rental price is 2.5 times the national average, making it the most expensive city in the US for renting a two-bedroom apartment.
While the tech industry had typically required its employees to live within commuting distance in years past — Facebook even used to give a bonus the closer employees lived to the office — the pandemic has shifted how many companies value in-office work. Now, companies like Twitter, Square, and Slack have said employees make work remotely on a permanent basis, while others, like Facebook, are allowing employees to relocate with manager approval. The result has been an exodus from the Bay Area and a migration toward more affordable locations throughout the US.