Should Apple abandon California and land their new ‘Mothership’ campus in Texas instead?

“Steve Jobs would have immediately fired anyone for suggesting such sacrilege, but current Apple CEO Tim Cook may have have other ideas,” Mark Reschke writes for T-GAAP. “As the state of California continues on a path toward bankruptcy, the California legislature is desperate to increase revenues. Their plan has been to raise taxes, which has driven California companies to change locations in search of friendlier business environments. In addition, having a world campus located along a major fault line is no bonus either, nor is the traffic, nor the amazingly high salaries tech companies must pay to obtain — and retain — great talent in silicon valley.”

“Texas sits on the other end of the spectrum from California. The Government is stable and flush with cash, tax rates are much lower, and the cost of living is relatively cheap when compared to California,” Reschke writes. “Apple’s operating costs in Texas would run tens of millions less than continuing to operate a its headquarters in Cupertino. And that is not a one time cost savings but would occur year after year.”

Reschke writes, “Watch how the Spaceship campus in Cupertino progresses (or perhaps does not progress) and at the same time how Apple’ Austin campus continues to grow. Over the next few years Apple’s direction may be more than just an opportunistic idea.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Well, the thought of Austinite Michael Dell being unable to move 3 feet without bumping into an Apple employee is rather delicious.

Related articles:
Steve Jobs’ ‘Mothership’ Apple campus costs have ballooned from under $3 billion to nearly $5 billion – April 4, 2013
Apple breaks ground on 39-acre, 1-million-square-foot Austin, Texas campus – December 19, 2012
Travis County approves tax incentives for Apple’s Austin campus expansion – May 2, 2012
Austin city council unanimously approves $8.6 million dollars in incentives for Apple Inc. – March 23, 2012
Texas Governor Rick Perry announces Apple to invest $304 million, create 3,600 new jobs in Austin – March 9, 2012
Apple eliminates 174 positions from Elk Grove, California; transfers work to Austin, Texas – May 1, 2008

164 Comments

  1. Right. Move the smart people in the coolest city in the world to the capital of dumb. Only a true idiot would propose such a lunatic move. And I live in the capital of dumb.

        1. Not really “surrounded” – closer to “flanked to the east.” To be fair, many of the residents of Texas truly believe what they have been told by the politicians in power. Gullible is, perhaps, a more appropriate description than dumb.

        1. I’ve never been to Austin. But one talented musician friend visited a couple years back and found it had changed into a nouveau riche attitude city that was vehement about keeping the rabble out of town, such as street musicians. Then a couple days ago I saw a Texan visiting town who had on a t-shirt that said ‘Keep Austin Weird’. Therefore, I’m left to assume the city is now ruled by ‘establishment’ oriented people, as opposed to creative people. Apple wouldn’t like it there.

        2. I’ve traveled to Austin dozens of times and you would be surprised how hospitable and creative the city is in reality as opposed to the negative caricature from the left.

          Legend has it Janis Joplin played her first public gig at a local eatery back in the 1960s.

        3. Austin has a great reputation if only from the perennial ‘Austin City Limits’ concerts on PBS in the USA. But the inference from what I observed above is that there have been controversial changes going on.

        4. Doesn’t take much to sway that small brain, does it?

          Nevermind SXSW, UT, 6th St or the likes, you saw someone with a T-shirt!

          BTW, you DO know the prevailing political views of the people who run Austin, right?

          Big assignment.
          Don’t hurt yourself…..

        5. If only?

          Certainly PBS validation delivers comfort to all the blue state denizens.

          That said, ALL points of view are well represented in Austin.

    1. I don’t agree with your “attitude,” but I do agree that Apple’s HQ needs to be where the “talent” wants to live. Apple can put their tech support call center and server farms in less expensive locations, but Apple’s creative and engineering brainpower needs to be located where that talent wants to live, even if it cost more… Silicon Valley is THE place where such talent is concentrated (at least for now).

    2. Wow, anyone who thinks Austin isn’t cool has never been to Austin. Anyone who thinks people aren’t educated (high-tech wise) have never been to Austin (or the hill country, in general). Anyone who thinks Texas is the capital of dumb and thinks that Cupertino is the coolest city in the world have either 1) Never been to either city, or 2) lives in Cupertino and has an axe to grind.

      Just for the record, I live in Southern California. Heck, I’d follow Apple to Austin in an instant to escape the lunacy that is California Government.

      1. Austin is definitely a pretty cool place, but the rest of Texas leaves a lot to be desired. Would Apple’s creative team want to go to a state where they’re trying to rewrite the textbooks to take all actual history and science out of them, and with California on the verge of possibly getting marriage equality again will the LGBT employees want to move to a state where their marriages be considered a legal fiction?

        1. Justme writes: “…state where they’re trying to rewrite the textbooks to take all actual history and science out of them”

          Why is it that Lefties have to wander away from the truth so often? Why can’t you just have an honest debate about the viability of Apple staying in an unfriendly business environment rather than demagoguing an issue ?

          ONe would hope that you know that your assertion quoted above is pure BS. Texas is trying to restore sanity to their textbooks by pushing back against the Leftist revisionism that is poisoning K-12 teaching materials nationwide just as it has already ruined higher ed – where very little unbiased education is actually happening.

          Including a valid scientific theory such as Intelligent Design (in which Newton, Einstein, Keppler, and many other fathers of science believed) along side Darwinian evolutionism and abiogenesis is an effort to restore critical thinking to the classrooms of Texas.

          And your comment about “history”? That’s a laugh. Leftists have been REMOVING bios of historical figures like Washington and Lincoln from textbooks for the last 20 years and those same textbooks barely cover the Constitution anymore. American history is all but expunged from the modern high school textbook and you’re complaining about Texas “removing” history? Rubbish!

          And as for “science”, textbooks are replete with so-called green curricula and AGW propaganda. These are anti-science faith-based belief systems, not true science and are more than just a waste of valuable classroom teaching time, they actually teach children WRONG.

          “…verge of possibly getting marriage equality again”

          Again, what’s the point in proving you’re ignorant about reality?

          When, in the past, has marriage meant anything other than what the dictionary says it means in California? When did Californians approve of same-sex “marriage” in the past?

          If so-called LGBT employees at Apple want to work for someone else in order to feel better about themselves – that’s their choice. Americans do this all the time. Heck, there are conservatives who work for Apple and they put up with Lib clap-trap from their co-workers all day long. Others choose to work for companies where the work-place environment is not so hostile to non-Leftist belief systems.

          Bottom line, clearly Apple would be more profitable in some other state than California but in a way, I’d like them to stay and make a stand against the idiocy of the political oligarchs that run the state. They should threaten the Democrats with leaving in order to shake some sense into the Marxists in Sacramento. Apple has the clout and if they want to compete against Samsung, they need to let Brown and the rest of the idiot political class there know that they are killing the goose and one day, not even the Hollywood studios will want to stay.

        2. I’m not going to address all the assertions you make in your comment except for this one “so hostile to non-Leftist belief systems.” You said this in response to LGBT people being worried about their legal marriages being not honored by Texas and a more hostile environment generally.

          In other words, you are equating the experiences of a group of people who have historically been assaulted, given inferior legal status and even killed (!) with a conservative being surrounded by people who think their opinions are dumb. Seriously? You don’t see the difference between someone being told they can’t get away with attacking people and people being told they have no right to live?

          There is a difference between freedom from harassment and legalized oppression versus being told your opinions are wrong. Furthermore, one of those sides says “I want to be allowed to live my life” while the other says “I want to be allowed to tell other people how they can/can’t live their lives.” Those two desires are NOT the same. One is a desire to control others, while the other is a desire to NOT be controlled.

          Stop trying to say “I’m being persecuted because people don’t want me to be allowed to persecute people!” That’s nonsense.

        3. “Including a valid scientific theory such as Intelligent Design”!
          Show me the scientific evidence (factual, reproducible, and peer-reviewed) for “Intelligent Design”!
          ID is a postulate invented by those who desperately try to reconcile their 2000+ years-old collections of myths and lore with the irrefutable evidence of natural history.
          Neither Newton, nor Kepler, nor Einstein believed in ID, since it was not yet invented when they lived. Besides, anybody standing up against literal interpretation of the bible would have been burnt alive in the times of Kepler (who barely escaped heresy charges) and Newton. Think of Galilei who was tried and convicted of heresy for proposing that the Earth circles the Sun.

        4. Man in the Mountain vs. Mount Rushmore. When you look at one, you think: Cool natural formation. When you look at the other, you think: Wow, an incredible artist did that.

          Why? It’s a type of mathematics called specified complexity. When applied to living systems, the equations point toward intelligence. That right there (rigorous mathematical treatment) makes Intelligent Design already far more scientific than the Hypothesis of Evolution (it’s not even a theory in the strict scientific definition), which is basically nothing more than a bunch of “just so” stories stitched together by looking at some old bones.

        5. Well, major fail in your “arguments.” First, anyone promoting Intelligent Design has already lost the science argument. So much so I’m surprised anyone would still try. The original writer is correct, Texas IS trying to force religious dogma onto the entire state.

          Rights should not be “up for approval,” and it was wrong to do so in California. Rights are inherent, even if governments too often take too long in recognizing them. Gay people have the right to the recognition of their relationships, just as women had the right to vote. When women got that right, it did not change the definition of voting, any more than gay people having their right to marry the person of their choice is changing the definition of marriage.

          You clearly have no idea what a marxist is, you do not have any idea of the value of living in California, and get all of your views directly or indirectly from people like Rush Limbaugh (who calls himself an “entertainer”). You can talk a lot, obviously, but you’re very uninformed at best.

        6. Wrong. Intelligent Design is far more scientific than the Hypothesis of Evolution, in that it is constantly observed as a result of human activity, and has received mathematical treatment. The hypothesis of evolution, on the other hand, has only received on serious mathematical treatment, to my knowledge, which demonstrated that the earth is too young by about 30 billion years for currently observed life to have evolved (google Haldane’s dilemma).

          Additionally, we can and have reproduced intelligent design many times in both living and non-living systems, but have not yet once re-created an evolutionary pathway in the laboratory. So don’t sit here and tell me the hypothesis of evolution is scientific while ID is not. Doing so only demonstrates to me you don’t have a clue as to what real science is.

    3. All the so called “smart” people that are building a multi-billion dollar structure (and going to work) within a few miles of 6 MAJOR fault lines, in a state that is more communist than American, with more and more restrictive laws and increasing taxes, etc. No thanks.

  2. I don’t know that Austin is ready for that much power….yet.
    Still too many influentials around the bay area.

    I would much rather see Apple shift their manufacturing to that area.

    1. Because, because, Obama says it is wasteful to go to Vegas…

      Except, that is, when he is doing fund raising right during, uh, well, you know, one of those unfortunate ‘Katrina’ like incidents which we will forever forget, right?

        1. Only someone who’s never worked in the media would claim the media has a liberal bias. I spent 34 years in daily newspapers and I can assure there is no “Liberal bias” by newspaper owners. Their only concern is making as much money as possible. And newsrooms run the gamut from the liberal left to reactionary right. Talk of “liberal bias” indicates more about far right orientation of the complainant than the leanings on the media.

        2. @peter-

          34 years at one newspaper, or more, qualifies you to speak for hundreds of newspapers and thousands of employees?

          You are correct stating ‘newspaper owners’ are in business to make a profit.

          But you are totally incorrect implying ‘liberal bias’ only applies to ‘owners’ and guilty of creating a deceptive false narrative that newsroom staff biases are evenly split 50-50.

          Breaking News: The overwhelming majority of newspapers in the U.S. lean left and statistics back the fact.

          For decades surveys have shown newsroom employees decidedly 75-90% plus are registered Democrats. Likewise, overwhelmingly, election editorials endorsed the same party.

          Journalism trade groups, seminars, college professors, media watchdogs, et al have discussed this disparity for many years and whether or not it is good for the credibility of the industry.

          “There’s another old saying, Senator: Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.”

          -Fletcher
          The Outlaw Josey Wales, 1976

        3. Two words: Gosnell Trial.

          There’s only one reason the national media didn’t cover this story: it might turn public opinion against the holy sacrament of the left: Abortion.

  3. The same Texas that has one of the worst educational systems in the country? The same Texas that teaches the planet is 6,000 years old, the end times are near and eliminated Thomas Jefferson from textbooks? The Texas whose governor has threatened to secede from the Union? The Texas where it’s okay to kill workers but not regulate dangerous industries? No thank you. Not unless Apple’s TV product is going to be renamed “Red Neck TV.”

    1. If you had an actual education, you would know most of that crap you listed is nonsense.

      And before you start listing school rankings, be sure to check which districts have the lowest scores and highest illegals.
      There is a direct correlation.

      We were taught evolution in my small, rural hometown over 30 years ago.

      Thomas Jefferson was not eliminated from out textbooks, unless the libs finally struck his letter concerning the Wall of Separation of Church and State, which the left erroneously labels as Constitutional.

      Also, you might want to learn the difference between a ‘threat’ and a ‘bluff’, and that dangerous industry? West? That was not an industry but a farmer’s supply outlet. Terrible tragedy. Feel better?

      RED Neck TV. That’s a good one. Reminds me of how red your momma’s neck looked after I was finally able to pull her face out of my lap….

        1. No wonder you don’t like Texas. You don’t understand what we are saying or understand the humor.

          Next time you’re there, best grab your boyfriend and point your Prius north….

      1. Reminds me of how red your momma’s neck looked after I was finally able to pull her face out of my lap….

        I think that sums up TowerTone’s debate skills. Big mouth, little brain. Just a consistent observation on my part. 😛

        1. Towertone reminds me of one of my uncles, who was a SP brakeman, then a REA messenger, then a trucker. He also reminds me of the Wichita Lineman but without the compassion. The IQ was present, but was principally employed in the construction of sarcastic putdowns, as if the goal in life was to publicly validate oneself as having made the correct political and moral choices in life despite the objections of the snarling wife on the kitchen.

        2. I have to admit I have a particularly keen interest in yanking his rusty chain as he is such a good Limbaugh surrogate, with all that entails. I’m working on my master plan for rounding up all the psychopathic and putting them to work as gardeners where they can go maniacal killing weeds and Japanese beetles. 😉

        3. Your project is a grand one, to say the least. Please keep in mind, though, that Rush is the shepherd and his followers are perforce sheep, many lacking the divine fire in the mind needed to adequately articulate the master’s precepts. Still, they can be usefully employed as shock troops for diversionary skirmishes, and can reliably influence Internet polls and write-in campaigns, proving their worth. Their value in combating rose scale, though, is untested.

    2. You are speaking out your @$$. based on this index
      “http://www.statemaster.com/graph/edu_bes_edu_ind-education-best-educated-index” Texas rates 24 out of 50, not great but California (wonderful glorious California) ranks 46… 46 out of 50. Governor Good Hair didn’t threaten to secede, he just mentioned the fact the Texas is the only state that can legally secede. Many in Texas wouldn’t mind doing just that. The text book stuff isn’t mandatory and Thomas Jefferson is safe and sound in the schools. Teachers don’t teach that the Earth is 6000 years old just that they can’t teach anything that would challenge that religious belief. Religion is a PATA on many levels. Texans aren’t all “Red Necks” Just like all Californians aren’t “Queers” or shallow “Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton” types. Texas is a very large, diverse state with people from all over the world. I live in the most ethnically diverse county in the country. Fort Bend county Texas. It is SW of Houston which is the Nation most diverse Metropolitan area in the country. so to put it plainly, It would benefit Apple and it’s employees to relocate to Texas. Their money, both the companies and the employees will go a much longer way here.

      1. The earth is 4.54 billion years old. A few people believe, wrongly, that it’s 6,000 or 7,000 years old and teachers can’t correct that completely wrong fact? That’s not education, that’s catering to a religion, which is constitutionally prohibited by that pesky separation of church and state thing. (Which coincidentally is why Texans don’t like Jefferson. Many Texans want their church, at least Christian churches, to run their state.)

        1. Wow Jack, thanks for the demagoguery.

          You say how old the earth is as if you know anything about it – which your next statement proves you do not. Not even mainstream young earth creationists claim that the earth is 6-7 thousand years old. Their claim is that LIFE has been around that long. They do so because all the evidence points to it and away from uniformitarian thinking.

          If you know anything about the theory of abiogenesis, then you know that those who don’t accept Intelligent Design believe that life arose from a chemical process. This process has been calculated to have taken no less than 11.5 billion years (and several probability experts working OUTSIDE of the cesspool of biological evolutionary theorists have calculated that it would take a magnitude order longer than even that.).

          So if abiogenesis takes at least 11.5 billion years to go from chemicals to amino acids to protein molecules to RNA to DNA to the first cell to man, and the earth is only “4.5 Billion” years old, then how does that work exactly?

          Let me guess, you also believe in Panspermia too. You must think that life was seeded here from another planet and THAT is a more scientific conclusion than an intelligent designer of life here on earth?

          You have more faith than even the most devout fundamentalist.

        2. Jack, let’s straighten you out on one key fact: The Constitution says NOTHING about the separation of Church and State.

          The Constitution states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”

          All the Constitution says is that Congress can create no laws “respecting” any religion or prohibiting the free exercise of any religion. The “separation of Church and State” is a creation of the Supreme Court. As a result, it can be overturned by a Supreme Court decision any time the Supreme Court decides to do so.

          There are quite a number of legal scholars who believe that if the right case was brought to the Supreme Court, the separation of church and state case could very well be overturned.

    1. If we keep moving down the Socialist, totalitarian, all-powerful seize your self-protection devices, tax you to death path, it is going to be very easy for Texas to become the fastest growing new country in the world.

      Unfortunately, if you don’t get to Texas in time, the socialists may restrict your right to travel and you will have to sneak into Texas & become an illegal immigrant!

  4. Sure, just load up the moving vans and go to Texas.

    So how does Apple get its thousands of employees to move? Where would they live? If they didn’t want to move, how does Apple replace their knowledge quickly?

    Stupid analysts.

  5. Sure, go to Texas…

    You’ll find plenty of BIG things there. And we can expect a 10 pound iPad with a truck mount in the next product release.

    BTW, the only thing that’s green in Texas is money.

  6. Yeah, check the facts. California isn’t heading into bankruptcy. Mothership stays. Texas Gov. Perry’s desperation can go somewhere else. Try something other than prostituting your own state.

      1. That’s one city which hasn’t managed its own pension plan well, not the state of California, and not the city where Apple is located. Therefore, not relevant.

  7. Ever notice the shape and design of that Campus? Once built, Apple has the option to move without notice. Gather all your employees, Lift-off, and land anywhere Tim Cook decides. It is called a Spaceship- is there another option?

    1. Next stop, Alpha Centauri. Hope the locals aren’t as belligerent and twisted as the previous lot. Pearls before swine, I expect. Blarrgh, order all personnel to put blasters on incinerate, in case we run into more of the same on the next sorry planet.

      1. Federal Funding is mostly from Blue States. The old Confederacy gets back more than they pay in- same for the empty plains that load Congress with Republicans.

        1. You might want to double-check (or actually, finally look at) what districts in the South get the most ‘funding’.

          They are mostly poor, high in minorities, and run by Democrats.

          Go figure……

        2. I watch about 3 hours of Fox News a week (Bret Baier). I watch much more ABC and CBS. There is your first mistake.

          Second, your article has nothing to do with my point. There are poor people in all states. My point is that much of the federal aid goes to heavily Democratic controlled areas in the South. Do you assume just because a state is ‘red’ in Presidential elections it is run by Republicans? Until recently, Arkansas had mostly Democrats representing it on the federal level and a small number of Republicans on the local. It still has a Democrat governor (who I voted for), but it almost always votes Republican in the Presidential elections. Since 2008, it has swung to mostly Republican for Congress.

          Now if you want to go into a discussion on WHY most of the poor and minorities vote Democrat (but a lower percent of poor Whites) then fine, have at it.

        3. Every Southern state is currently cursed with a RepubliCON assembly in whole or part because poor white southerners living in trailers think of themselves as RepubliCONs ever since the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts.

          These are the geniuses that are on Medicare and Social Security that stood up at town hall meetings ranting about how they didn’t want government provided health insurance.

        4. Your name really does a disservice to intelligent people.

          Most Southern states remained in Democrat control well into the mid 1980’s, 20 years after a Southern President enacted those laws with Republican support.

          That is all very easy to research.
          Just hard on your skewed thinking.

          Maybe you should change your handle to ‘Moron Devolved’
          You know, truth in advertising and all…..

        5. Federal funding comes from all the states, that’s the point…it’s OUR money that the federal government uses to extort and blackmail states into policies the states would never approve. Spare me your Dukes Of Hazzard Economic Theories, according to my calendar the Civil War ended in 1865.

        6. The hypocritical attitude of the south is astonishing. Sates like Mississippi get back better than $2.50 per dollar sent to Washington and then elect RepibliCONs that rant about welfare, waste and pulling oneself up by the bootstrap.

          States like California get back more than 1/3rd less than they send in from a huge base- about 10% of the US population and get ragged on by the welfare states of the south.

          As to the Civil War, I have lived in the North, South & West and it is the South that still hasn’t gotten over the ass whipping the Rebels got.

  8. Who is their right mind would move from California to Texas? Our state is so much more beautiful than that backwater, scrub brush, cowpie of a state of Texas. Not to mention they have the fattest people on the planet. No wonder that state needs to be so big, so you can fit everybody. And 90% of Apple employees wouldn’t go, no way in hell.

    1. Because it’s a business.

      You see, the Oracle hears all, knows much, and can complete your sentences for you.

      The one thing the Oracle regrets is the baleful effect of unremitting anonymous, visceral, divisive political screeds. People unfulfilled in certain ways have learned to compensate through the ad hoc therapy afforded by forums like this. In so doing, however, they risk traumatizing or enraging others who are unaware of involuntary participation in a therapy program for someone they’ve never met. Apparently, they ignore or minimise these risks by dehumanizing others, easily done when staring at a forest of letters and word, on a computer screen, rather than into the eyes of someone with equal intellect but different ideas.

        1. ‘Yo Mama’ is Black slang.
          I’m using Texas bar/construction slang in a good-humored ‘up the ante’ argument.
          It generally leads to who can make the worst comebacks….or a fight.

  9. I’m not sure why any worldwide major corporation would continue to have a large number of employees in California.

    California is a great state, however, its one of the most difficult and expensive states to have employees. With a super majority of democrats in Sacramento we will like see more stories like this from other companies.

    1. Time for The True Northern California discuss again about separating it self from crazy Sacramento, the bay area, all the rest of the crazies down south. Lots of companies have already left California and more are leaving everyday. People are also leaving to save on taxes. We will be stuck with all the liberal socialist idiots and/or pot heads. God help us.

  10. Interesting and tempting, Apple.

    All the denigrating clinches and stereotypes aside — Austin is a sunny college town with an educated workforce, hip Sixth Street historic/entertainment district, authentic Tex-Mex and southern cuisine, favorable tax rates, lower cost of living compared to Infinite Loop burbs and the state is business friendly.

    “Freedom!”
    -William Wallace, Braveheart

    🙂

      1. Yeah, I forgot Austin City Limits music, and on and on …

        Thanks for the recommendation.

        To date, the best Bar-be-que I remember was in a smoky converted garage eatery just outside of downtown San Antonio.

        Not exactly the best neighborhood, but the lunchtime crowd of Lexus, Mercedes and Jag chariots did not seem to mind.

        While in Austin, a must stop is Threadgills.

  11. If Apple was smart, it would move it’s headquarters somewhere overseas where it could use its giant cash hoard to pay for it. In fact, they should buy an island nation somewhere in the Caribbean (Antigua? St, Kitt’s?), kick out all the natives (with nice relocation packages – they could all immigrate to the states to work the fields), tear down all the third world crap-ness, push it into the ocean to create new artificial habitats, terraform the place into an ecological paradise with solar and wind power, and the smartest people in the world would line up to work for them.

    So how much am I kidding?

  12. Bad move, in my opinion. Only because it would give Texas major bragging rights. Nobody needs more of what they already do to bloody excess, excuse the hell out of me.

  13. And risk loosing all the talent? I don’t think that would be smart at all. Not that Texas would be a bad place to live, but to move everyone would be impossable. The people who work there are what make the company. Besides is Apple really willing to move the new spaceship?

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