Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has announced that moves its headquarters to Houston in Texas. This wouldn’t be great news if it weren’t for the fact that this company literally pioneered and key in the creation of Silicon Valley that we know now. In 1939 Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started the company in a garage in Palo Alto, California.
This move is not an isolated case. Silicon Valley has become very expensive, and workers cannot always afford a home despite high wages. In fact, the two main reasons for this decision are: save on costs and “retain and recruit talent”. Office costs in Houston will be cheaper. HPE says that the long-term savings associated with this move will be invested in your business.
Regarding talent retention, workers will find places to live much more affordable. The Californian area was in 2019 the most expensive region to live in the entire United States, according to Joint Venture Silicon Valley. “The world has changed, and we are changing with it” they say from HPE. The company, like many others, has made telecommuting easier during these times of pandemic.
In February, the Silicon Valley Index report published by Cnet stated that, despite the fact that there are more jobs in the area, the rising house prices that don’t stop growing, leads to the number of people living in the region not increasing as much as jobs.
Specifically, 821,000 new jobs were created in the Bay Area since the economic crisis, but there are only 173,000 new housing units. In other words, many people travel many kilometers each day to go to work in Silicon Valley or that there are many people who share a house or flat despite working for large companies.
HPE is not what it used to be. In 2015, there was a big change in the original Palo Alto company – it split in two. On the one hand we have Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, dedicated to business products and services. On the other, HP Inc., which includes the business of PCs, printers and devices in general.
Houston, the fourth largest city in the United States, is currently the place where Hewlett-Packard Enterprises has the most workers within the United States. The company is building a new campus in the city. This HPE decision is not unique. Other companies like SignEasy, QuestionPro, and DZS (formerly Dasan Zhone Solutions) recently moved from Silicon Valley to Houston. For his part, Elon Musk said in May that Tesla could move from Palo Alto to Texas or Nevada. Dell, meanwhile, is based in Round Rock, near Austin, also in Texas.
Despite the great news, the firm is not leaving the California area entirely. Its mythical campus in San José will become Aruba business headquarters, owned by HPE. Additionally, the brand’s warehousing business, West Coast Territory sales team, and GreenLake activities will remain in San Jose.
