Texas named a best state for remote work

work from home, y'all

A new list Texas at No. 6 among the best states for people seeking remote jobs. Photo vie Getty Images

Economic development boosters regularly tout Texas as a business-friendly state. Now, they can add another positive attribute: Texas ranks as one of the top remote-work-friendly states in the U.S.

A new list from the CareerCloud career platform puts Texas at No. 6 among the best states for people seeking remote jobs. Utah leads the ranking, followed by Colorado, the District of Columbia, Washington, and Virginia.

Helping lift Texas toward the top of the ranking is its No. 3 spot among the states projected to see the most growth (26 percent) in remote-friendly jobs from 2018 to 2028. Utah ranks first (41.7 percent) and Colorado ranks second (30.8 percent).

CareerCloud judged states on two other factors: broadband internet access, with Texas holding the No. 23 spot, and employment per 1,000 remote-friendly jobs, with Texas at No. 24.

These are the 14 jobs that CareerCloud deemed remote-friendly:

  • Accountant
  • Actuary
  • Computer network architect
  • Computer systems manager
  • Computer systems analyst
  • Database administrator
  • Information security analyst
  • Management analyst
  • Market research analyst
  • Marketing manager
  • Mathematician
  • Software developer
  • Statistician
  • Web developer

A list published last year by TheStreet, an investment website, backs up Texas' position in the CareerCloud ranking. The Street names nine places in Texas among the 30 best U.S. cities for remote work during the pandemic: El Paso, Plano, Garland, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth, Arlington, and Dallas. Houston didn't make the cut.

By contrast, not a single city in Texas appears on a list published by Money Crashers, a personal finance website, of the 20 best places in the U.S. to live and work remotely in 2021. Likewise, Livability.com leaves Texas cities off its list of the country's top 10 remote-ready cities for 2021.

A March 21 post authored by Tory Gattis, editor of the Houston Strategies blog and founding senior fellow at the Center for Opportunity Urbanism, makes the case for and against Houston as a remote-work hub.

Gattis lays out these factors in favor of Houston as a remote-friendly place:

  • Most affordable global city in the U.S., offering big-city amenities at a reasonable cost
  • Lots of Houston ex-pats who might come home to be closer to family and friends
  • Strong community culture for such a large, diverse city
  • Healthy immigrant ecosystem

According to Gattis, these are some of the unfavorable factors for Houston as a remote-friendly spot:

  • Not a classic "lifestyle" destination like Austin, Denver, or Miami
  • Big-city problems like traffic and crime
  • Climate susceptible to hurricanes, flooding, heat, and humidity

"Overall," Gattis writes, "I'd say we're likely to come out fairly well — not as good as the popular lifestyle cities, but much better than the unaffordable superstar cities like SF and NYC."

Could tapping into 401k investment be a gamechanger for Houston startup funding? Photo via Getty Images

Expert: New 401k investment options would spur Houston venture capital and innovation

guest column

With fossil fuels facing an uncertain future, Houston is wisely pushing to further develop its innovation economy with initiatives like Houston Exponential and Rice Management Company's Ion, as well as the No. 1 ranked entrepreneurship programs at the University of Houston (undergraduate) and Rice (graduate).

Venture capital is both the critical fuel and limiting factor to expanding Houston's innovation ecosystem, but the vast majority of venture capital in this country is focused outside of Houston in places like Silicon Valley and Austin. How can we increase the local pool of venture capital focused on Houston?

A recent federal guidance provides the answer with a new option for adding dramatically to Houston's venture capital resources. On June 3rd 2020, the Department of Labor issued an information letter allowing 401k funds to invest in private equity, including venture capital. Houston has hundreds of thousands of employees contributing to 401k retirement plans, including those working at our 41 Fortune 1000 companies as well as other major employers like the Texas Medical Center hospitals. If even a small fraction of their savings could be channeled into Houston-focused venture capital funds (or funds of funds like the HX Venture Fund), it could add hundreds of millions of dollars to Houston's startup ecosystem.

How would this work? While federal guidance does not allow direct private equity investments in 401k plans, it does allow private equity to be part of the mix in target date, target risk, or balanced funds offered. Imagine the creation of a "Houston Balanced Fund" focused on a portfolio of equities and bonds from Houston companies, local government bonds, and a 15 percent allocation to Houston-focused venture capital (the maximum allowed for illiquid assets). The fund would be a bet on a prosperous long-term future for Houston — something I think many Houstonians would enthusiastically add to their retirement portfolios. Once created, it could be added to the investment options in 401k employer plans all over the city.

As an example of the power of this model: if 100,000 employees — only 3 percent of 3 million jobs in the Houston metro — invested just $10,000 of their 401k portfolios into a Houston Balanced Fund with 15 percent allocated to venture capital, it would inject an additional $150 million dollars into the local venture capital pool to spur new innovations and companies that can be the future of Houston's economy — a 20 percent increase to the $715 million of venture capital invested in Houston in 2020. This new venture capital could be leveraged even more by focusing it on early-stage Houston startups that might have trouble attracting the attention of national VC firms. As they mature to Series B rounds and beyond, they should have no trouble bringing in capital from outside the region.

This is an opportunity for Houston to do something no other city has done — to be innovative with not just new ventures and technologies, but with how they're financed. We can be proactive pioneers fueling Houston's 21st-century innovation ecosystem.

------

Tory Gattis writes the Houston Strategies blog and is a Founding Senior Fellow with the Urban Reform Institute – A Center for Opportunity Urbanism.
Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Amazon to expand Prime Air drone delivery to almost 500 U.S. cities

In the air

https://sanantonio.culturemap.com/news/city-life/prime-air-expands-service-texas/By the end of the year, more Texans may be able to get ultrafast deliveries through Amazon’s Prime Air drone delivery service. On Wednesday, August 19, the company announced plans to majorly expand drone delivery to nearly 500 cities in the U.S., a sixfold increase from its current footprint.

Although Amazon did not reveal the cities it is targeting for the expansion, it almost certainly will include Texas. The state, which ranks among the biggest states for ecommerce activity, is currently home to four of the nation’s 11 Prime Air sites, including the Houston suburb of Richmond, as well as San Antonio, Waco, and Richardson (near Dallas).

For drone deliveries, the company tends to target areas unencumbered by skyscrapers and major airports. Each facility covers a delivery area of approximately 175 square miles.

Prime Air deliveries must be five pounds or less and fit into a large shoebox. Still, Amazon says more than 60 percent of its most ordered items are eligible. The list includes groceries, cosmetics, medications, clothing, and small electronics like Apple AirPods and Ring doorbells. More fragile items — like eggs — are not available through the service.

Orders arrive as quickly as 30 minutes, with most packages dropped around 60 minutes after checkout. Prime members will enjoy free delivery on orders $50 or more and a $2.99 fee for orders under $50. Non-members pay $4.99.

Amazon drone delivery Photo courtesy of Amazon

According to Amazon, customers should have little worries about orders being damaged or drones being entangled in trees. Shoppers see and confirm their delivery point when placing their first drone delivery order and can select a new area at any time.

Amazon also sends a notification to customers if there is no safe delivery space and does not fly at night or under severe weather conditions. The retail giant says noise is minimal with sound levels similar to idling delivery trucks.

Georgia, Ohio, Illinois, Idaho, and New York are the first states on the expansion plan. All future sites will be subject to regulatory hurdles like zoning changes, but the company is confident it will be serving tens of millions of new customers by year-end.

---

This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Telsa targets Houston area for new $10 billion manufacturing plant

Project Sun City

Electric vehicle and clean energy company Tesla is considering building a new $10.1 billion solar cell manufacturing facility in Fort Bend County, according to documents filed with the Texas Comptroller’s Office.

If approved, the plant, called Project Sun City, would be located on a 3,050-acre site off FM 762 and FM 1994 in Richmond, Texas. Tesla aims to finish construction in 2028, with the plant being operational by early 2029.

The plant will manufacture photovoltaic (PV) solar cells and modules that can convert sunlight into electricity. PV Magazine reports that the facility is "the largest single manufacturing investment Tesla has proposed on paper."

Advisory and consulting firm Kroll submitted the documents to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts and noted if an agreement regarding tax incentives isn't reached, the project will exit Texas.

Tesla has requested credits under the Jobs, Energy, Technology, and Innovation (JETI) Act. The incentive program aims to attract large, capital-intensive economic development projects by lowering the property taxes an entity must pay over 10 years if it meets requirements related to job creation and investment. For example, pharmaceutical giant Bristol Myers Squibb Co. recently announced that its forthcoming $2.3 billion Houston-area manufacturing site is a qualified project under the JETI program.

Kroll predicts that the facility would create 9,712 new full-time jobs, over 1,100 construction jobs and billions of dollars in future property tax revenue, the documents show. Additionally, it says the project will spur $1.1 billion in local business expenditures and that Texas would increase its GDP by approximately $107 billion as a result of the project activities.

Tesla opened its $200 million Megafactory in Brookshire, Texas, last year. The company is continuing its goal to deploy 100 gigawatts of solar manufacturing in the U.S before the end of 2028. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 100 gigawatts is equal to about 8 percent of the country's power grid capacity.

---

This article originally appeared on EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

Tech giant Apple opens Advanced Manufacturing Center at massive Houston facility

up and running

Cupertino, California-based Apple Inc. unveiled its Advanced Manufacturing Center in the Houston area last week, marking the completion of the second of three facilities the tech giant plans to launch in the city by the end of this year.

The 20,000-square-foot training center will welcome small- and medium-sized businesses for free training and educational sessions to "help accelerate smart manufacturing across America," according to a release from Apple. Apple opened a similar Apple Manufacturing Academy in Detroit last year.

The AMC is part of Apple's 500,000-square-foot site in northwest Harris County. It also features a massive manufacturing site for Apple’s advanced AI servers and Mac mini. The facility was originally slated to open in 2026, but Apple began producing its advanced AI servers ahead of schedule in 2025.

The company said it plans to begin manufacturing its Mac mini at the site this year. The move will bring production of the compact desktop computer to the U.S. for the first time.

“In less than nine months, we have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into this Houston facility. We stood up a factory, started production, and shipped the first advanced AI servers off the line. Today, we’re thrilled to open our new Advanced Manufacturing Center, a place where businesses, workers, and students can learn the same innovative processes that we use to make Apple’s most groundbreaking products. And we’re pleased to begin Mac mini production later this year,” Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said in the news release. “We believe in American workers and American ingenuity, and we are moving at an incredible pace because we want to build more than great products. We want to build the future of American manufacturing.”

Apple's Advanced Manufacturing Center. Photos courtesy Apple

Apple's Houston expansion is part of a $600 billion commitment the company made to the U.S. in 2025.

The company originally announced plans in February 2025 to open a 250,000-square-foot Houston factory, but doubled the facility's planned size about a year later. Apple has reported that the factory will employ thousands of workers.

“Houston is grateful to Apple for this significant investment in our city. The Advanced Manufacturing Center will create local jobs and will continue improving the quality of life of Houston residents," Houston Mayor John Whitmire added in the release. "The AMC also recognizes our city as a growing technology hub and solidifies Houston’s leadership in the manufacturing sector of the United States.”

The opening comes on the heels of New Jersey-based pharmaceutical giant Bristol Myers Squibb Co. officially naming Houston home of its new $2.3 billion, state-of-the-art manufacturing site. Read more here.

View All Listings