Houston Strategies

"Techstars isn’t the only entity scaling back in Austin, either. In November, unicorn Cart announced that it was moving its headquarters back to Houston after relocating to Austin in late 2021. The company, which describes itself as an e-commerce-as-a-service business, reached a $1.2 billion valuation in June after raising a $60 million Series C round of funding. 

Mitch Goulding, director of communications at Cart, told TechCrunch via email that the company had originally relocated its headquarters to Austin “with the explicit goal of attracting more software talent.” But as the company continues to scale (it claims to have seen its revenue climb by 9x since the end of 2021), it decided it needs to “augment other areas of the company,” including HR, finance, accounting and legal.

“We feel the move to Houston will unlock a deeper talent pool in these areas based on its position as a hub for major business,” Goulding said. 

It’s also a matter of cost and convenience. 

“Costs in Austin are high relative to Houston’s affordability, [and] Houston is also more accessible,” Goulding said. “It is typically easier and cheaper for employees flying in. It also tends to be easier for employees who drive in from across the state.”

• NYT: What It Means to Be a Texan Is Changing in Surprising Ways (no-paywall archive link)

"In Houston, Black-owned businesses have been thriving, with the city now rivaling Atlanta as a destination for Black families and young people.

“Everyone is coming to Houston,” said Victoria Walsh, 30, who moved from New Orleans for a restaurant job in 2018. “There’s a whole lot of jobs, a whole lot of new concepts, a new pop-up each week.”...

The city of Houston has long had thriving Black communities, but in recent years, the new arrivals have driven a kind of renaissance that is fueled, in large part, by who they are: middle-class Black people from other states with good jobs and business ideas. ...

“When you look at other cities, they’re not as diverse as Houston,” he said. “They don’t have as many opportunities.”

• Financial Times Foreign Investment Rankings: Houston takes top spot in FT-Nikkei rankings by moving beyond oil - The Texan city has become a hub for green energy innovation by building on its hydrocarbon past

"Now, Houston’s transformation to an international hub for a growing number of multinational corporations — backed by one of the nation’s busiest international airports and global shipping ports — has helped propel the city to the top of the second annual FT-Nikkei Investing in America rankings. ...

That reputation has drawn in businesses both big and small. The Houston area is home to 26 Fortune 500 companies, making it the third-ranking metro area in the country. ...

The transition to green energy is helped by the knowhow that made it a centre for oil and gas. Houston boasts unrivalled technical expertise in energy, including manufacturing, engineering, trading markets, and complex industrial project management. It also has a robust energy infrastructure and the nation’s biggest port by tonnage. ...

“Increasingly, people working in the energy transition space are saying, you know, actually where the action is, is here,” says Tudor. “It’s not really San Francisco. It’s not really Boston. It’s Houston, Texas.”