Houston's economic diversity Thread .. (Dallas, Austin: best cities, assess, medical)

[Jack Lance]

A San Fransisco based Tech company expands autonomous shipping with a new facility in Houston, the latest in a surge of autonomous tech companies doing the same, creating more cost-effective shipping solutions and additional economic diversity in the Greater Houston economy.

Autonomous trucking co. Embark expands into Houston

San Francisco-based Embark Technology Inc. (Nasdaq: EMBK), which develops autonomous technology for the trucking industry, on Dec. 9 announced an expansion into Houston, which includes a new facility.

Although specific details about the facility were not immediately available, Embark said in the announcement that it "plans to hire aggressively in the greater Houston area in 2022." The Houston Business Journal has reached out for more information about the facility and hiring plans.

Additionally, Embark said it launched a "new autonomous trucking lane between Houston and San Antonio." The company expects to begin hauling freight between the two cities as early as 2022, and it's targeting 2024 for the commercial launch of the Embark Driver.

Embark's expansion into Houston comes shortly after shipping companies also started testing autonomous trucks in Texas. Waymo — an autonomous driving technology development company under Google's parent company, California-based Alphabet Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOGL) — announced in November that it will start trial runs with Seattle-based UPS (NYSE: UPS) using the Waymo Via Class 8 trucks between Houston and the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

In September, Aurora Innovation Inc. (Nasdaq: AUR), an autonomous vehicle company, announced a pilot program with Memphis, Tennessee-based transportation and logistics giant FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) and Paccar (Nasdaq: PCAR), a Bellevue, Washington-based designer and maker of large semi-trucks. At the end of 2023, Aurora plans to launch its trucking business and haul loads autonomously between terminals without a safety driver.

FedEx previously announced a partnership with California-based robotics company Nuro to test autonomous vehicles around the Houston area. Specifically, Nuro has a long-term commitment from FedEx to use its autonomous bots for last-mile delivery. The pilot program in the Houston area, launched in April, marked the robotics company's expansion into the parcel logistics sector.

Houston's growing population, climate, geography and driverless vehicle-friendly local regulations made the market attractive to Nuro, the company told the Houston Business Journal in 2019.

https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/...utm_content=ho

[atmcclel]

Originally Posted by Jack Lance

This is certianly not good news but maybe not as bad as it would appear on the surface.

"Tariq will remain at the Houston office, along with the company's chief strategy officer and chief of staff. Cart's chief innovation officer, chief financial officer and head of marketing will be in the Austin office. Cart also has offices in Los Angeles, Europe and Asia. It plans to open offices in Amsterdam and Poland in the first quarter of 2022, Tariq said."

https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/...ustin.html

Having an office here is important but there is a certain cache for Seattle when people state, Amazon-headquartered in Seattle, feeds into a perception. Would've been nice for people to say, Cart.com-headquartered in Houston.

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Originally Posted by SanJac

Right. Tariq is a UH and Rice Grad... feels like his DNA is here in Houston. Also, I loved how the article ended with the paragraph on intentionally hiring a diverse and inclusive workforce. That's the Houston influence right there...

Originally Posted by Jack Lance

This is certianly not good news but maybe not as bad as it would appear on the surface.

"Tariq will remain at the Houston office, along with the company's chief strategy officer and chief of staff. Cart's chief innovation officer, chief financial officer and head of marketing will be in the Austin office. Cart also has offices in Los Angeles, Europe and Asia. It plans to open offices in Amsterdam and Poland in the first quarter of 2022, Tariq said."

https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/...ustin.html

Short term, it’s not major bad news. But long term, there’s a lot of opportunity cost that may bite us. I’ve been a fan of this company. Imo it’s the most impressive startup in Houston. They were going to roll out their headquarters in CityCentre but when they saw how great the tech talent in Austin is, they jumped to it.

[Jack Lance]

Originally Posted by ParaguaneroSwag

Short term, it’s not major bad news. But long term, there’s a lot of opportunity cost that may bite us. I’ve been a fan of this company. Imo it’s the most impressive startup in Houston. They were going to roll out their headquarters in CityCentre but when they saw how great the tech talent in Austin is, they jumped to it.

They've been in Austin for awhile whey have 150 employees already so they have been aware of the Austin talent pool for quite some time. It seems something else suddenly made them take this opportunity. The building in Austin happens to be owned by an old colleague of Tariqes and somehow RTIC is part of this sudden change in plans.

Lets see how this plays out..

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Originally Posted by Jack Lance

They've been in Austin for awhile whey have 150 employees already so they have been aware of the Austin talent pool for quite some time. It seems something else suddenly made them take this opportunity. The building in Austin happens to be owned by an old colleague of Tariqes and somehow RTIC is part of this sudden change in plans.

Lets see how this plays out..

All decisions made by the company have to go through RTIC because they own the biggest share of the company.

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Originally Posted by atmcclel

Cart.com moves global headquarters to Austin

Big loss for Houston. I really think they're going to be a future tech giant and could've served as flagship company for Houston's tech scene. Really wish the Ion or GHP folks could've made a case to keep them around.

https://www.cart.com/newsroom/cart-c...ters-to-austin

Speaking of this, there’s a rumor going around that HPE is thinking about changing its name in order to differentiate itself. If true, it would be interesting to see what they do.

[SanJac]

Originally Posted by ParaguaneroSwag

Speaking of this, there’s a rumor going around that HPE is thinking about changing its name in order to differentiate itself. If true, it would be interesting to see what they do.

That is interesting. I honestly don’t see it. HP is legendary in Silicon Valley, starting in a garage and all.

On Tariq…he was CEO of blinds.com and then sold them to THD. I can see him moving on from cart.com and starting something new. The guy is clearly an innovator. Let’s see what happens.

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Originally Posted by SanJac

That is interesting. I honestly don’t see it. HP is legendary in Silicon Valley, starting in a garage and all.

On Tariq…he was CEO of blinds.com and then sold them to THD. I can see him moving on from cart.com and starting something new. The guy is clearly an innovator. Let’s see what happens.

People seem to be forgetting Jim Jacobsen is Tariq's co-founder. He has quite an impressive set of startups as well, particularly the AlliantGroup and RTIC. AlliantGroup (taxing services) and RTIC etc (logistics) wouldn't work well in Austin for their services. He's consistently starting new businesses and I'm not sure why he's more under the radar as compared to Tariq. The details of what exactly is going on with Cart.com aren't clear, but for now it seems the Houston office will serve a bulk of the supply chain organization while the Austin office will be the IT hub.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by ParaguaneroSwag

All decisions made by the company have to go through RTIC because they own the biggest share of the company.

Is it possible that they're seeking more VC funding that's Austin-based? VCs are notorious for wanting their fundees close at hand and making them relocate to do so. This has long been one of Houston's obstacles for tech and biotech VC funding - our local VCs historically focused on energy (and mostly O&G at that), so tech and biotech companies had to look out of area for funding. Supposedly that's started to change - I certainly hope so.

Labor pool or local management talent might be another explanation, though you'd hope a metro the size of Houston wouldn't have that issue at this point.

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Originally Posted by LocalPlanner

Is it possible that they're seeking more VC funding that's Austin-based? VCs are notorious for wanting their fundees close at hand and making them relocate to do so. This has long been one of Houston's obstacles for tech and biotech VC funding - our local VCs historically focused on energy (and mostly O&G at that), so tech and biotech companies had to look out of area for funding. Supposedly that's started to change - I certainly hope so.

Labor pool or local management talent might be another explanation, though you'd hope a metro the size of Houston wouldn't have that issue at this point.

I doubt it because they have had ZERO trouble whatsoever securing funds. And the company is already backed by the wealthy individuals of Jacobsen and Tariq. By the way, is what you’re saying about VCs wanting their companies close at hand/forcing to relocate true? And if it was ever true, is it still the case? I ask because this doesn’t seem to be the case from what I have seen. Most start ups have the biggest bulk of VC funded externally. The Mercury Fund is the only major local contributor I can think of that Cart.com has secured from.

But to your second paragraph, labor pool management is the explanation Tariq gave just in different words. But it’s not lack of talent in Houston but because of how directly available the IT centric talent pool in Austin is. Yes, there’s pros and cons that come with having a talent pool that’s specific to one field. And Austin’s talent pool is notoriously specified within tech. Much worse than Houston has been anytime recently with energy/O&G. But the pros do exist where if a big company wants a quick talent tech specific booster, there’s no place to look better than Austin. That’s why Apple, Google, Facebook/Meta, etc all went to Austin instead of any where else in Texas. Microsoft is different because they work mostly with b2b. Houston has more tech workers than Austin by numbers but 1. It’s coexisting with talent of finance, medical, and of course engineering and energy. And 2. They’re spread between many companies from many fields in Houston as opposed to Austin. And this is the reason Tariq mentioned elaborated.

But that said, it could all be talk. Details haven’t been given yet on any major changes that will occur just yet.