re: Silicon Valley Tech Company chooses Louisiana for it's new HQ

Long time lurker on TD and CTO / Co-Founder of Gutsy here (yes, I know I'm outing myself and no, no pics of wife). A few things to know:

1. We got precisely $0 from the state or city for doing this... we're doing it because we've done it before and it worked great
2. The before was Twistlock, a cloud security company we started in 2015 and sold to Palo Alto Networks in 2019 for $500M. We ended up hiring 20 people in Baton Rouge and they helped customers around the world protect some important stuff: if you ever have used in-flight wifi, or bought something with a mobile app, or streamed a movie, Twistlock has probably helped protect that. It's even in the F-35.
3. When we started the BR office for Twistlock, we said we'd hire 5 people over 2 years and it ended up being 20. I'm conservative and humble - I'm not going to say we're going to do something I'm not very confident we will exceed.
4. The mean and median for salary is $150K - if you have cloud security skills, you have a rare skillset in high demand. Again, we've already done this with Twistlock so it's not some hope or wild claim.
5. We're a global company, structured just like we did with Twistlock. Our R&D is in Tel Aviv and we have people working remotely and in small offices in NYC, Portland, London, and BR. We're not going to have some huge factory with 10,000 developers in BR but we won't have that anywhere and that's just not how most successful tech startups work.
6. I love a good BR / LA self loathing thread as much as the next guy but this one is kind of silly. This is a real company, creating great jobs, without getting hand outs or making empty promises. I've lived in LA almost all my life and am well aware of our myriad problems. But nothing will get better if all the good people leave. Sure, we could have done the HQ in Portland or NYC or elsewhere but I know it works here and that we have great people in BR, and I'm proud of what we're doing.

Anyone doesn't like this, there's a Sonic near my house.

That is a gracious post, and I wish you well. As a financier and owner of several Tech startups, including a couple of Louisiana based ones, I think you are probably not being forthcoming when you say you have taken no handouts.

Generally, the handouts come as tax credits as you add Louisiana staff. Many of the tax credits we take advantage of are reductions in taxes, not just taxable income. I find it hard to believe you are not taking advantage of that, although it would not gainsay your statement about not having taken handouts.

Also, if you own five years in Louisiana you avoid state taxation on capital gains. This might not be useful to you if, as in your first venture, you don’t hold five years.

Again, good luck to a fellow Tiger fan, both in your venture and in the event anyone checks knuckles at Sonic.