Austin Power

When Ezinne and Oji Udezue were looking to relocate from New York in 2017, they approached the decision like any good MBA would: they made a spreadsheet.

Both Nigerian-born product managers, they were looking for a rising tech hub with talent from a solid engineering school, venture capital, and a critical mass of startups. “There were really only six major tech hubs we considered,” says Oji, BCEMBA 11: San Francisco, L.A., Seattle, Atlanta, Boston—and Austin. 

Originally the dark horse on their list, the Texas capital rose in their estimation after a few visits, as much for the vibrancy of its tech ecosystem as for its rollicking live music scene. 

“Austin has such an aggregation of talent,” says Ezinne, BCEMBA 12, “along with a cost of living and a lifestyle that made it very compelling.” 

Eight years later, Oji has worked remotely in Austin for the likes of Twitter, Calendly, and Typeform as chief product officer. Ezinne began working at Austin-based Bazaarvoice, then Santa
Barbara-based Procore, and was most recently the chief product officer for locally headquartered WP Engine. Together, they wrote the book Building Rocketships (Damn Gravity Media, 2025) about building high-growth product-based companies. 

Remote work haven

The Udezues are part of a growing influx of professionals who have flocked to Austin in recent years for its irresistible combination of lifestyle and economy. The self-proclaimed live music capital of the world, Austin has long had a reputation as a blue city in a red state, and as Texas’ oddball mecca of counterculture—stickers still implore “Keep Austin Weird” on cars and lampposts around the city. Anchored by the University of Texas at Austin and Dell Computing—founded here in the 1980s—it’s always been a respectable computing center as well. 

More recently Austin, aka the Silicon Hills, has exploded as a technology hub with the growing presence of companies like Tesla, Google, and Apple as well as numerous startups sprouting like bluebonnets. 

Over the last two decades, the Greater Austin metropolitan area has nearly doubled in size to 2.5 million and, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, was the fastest growing metro area from 2020 to 2022. Many Haas graduates have been part of the migration of some 100,000 people a year relocating from California to Texas since 2020, many finding their way to Austin. In fact, Haas has more than 250 alumni living in Austin, and Texas is among the top three locations outside the Bay Area for alumni (along with New York and Washington state).

“A lot of people migrated here from the Bay Area to work remotely during the pandemic,” says Nitin Agrawal, MBA 12, cofounder and CEO of Interstride, a platform to help universities engage and support international students. “When there was a return to the office, many people moved back—but some like me, who had their own business or were freelance, realized the lifestyle the city could offer and decided to stay.”  

When I need somebody else, even if they’re in my industry, we’re friends first and then there’s the business. People in Austin really want to help each other—if you reach out, they will respond.” 

Chris Loughlin,

BCEMBA 04

Originally from Nepal, Agrawal is Haas’ Regional Rep in Austin and holds quarterly meet-and-greets in local establishments. The small-city feel of Austin has been a plus for him. 

“In New York or the Bay Area, it can take weeks to get a meeting,” he says. “Here, you can meet someone tomorrow for a drink or coffee and be anywhere in the city in 20 minutes—but it still has all the amenities of a big city.”

Big welcomes, big energy

Kathleen and Chris Loughlin, both BCEMBA 04, moved to Austin a decade ago after living in London, San Francisco, and New York—in part to be closer to Kathleen’s family cattle ranch. 

“The biggest welcome you’ll get in America is in Texas,” says Chris. The former CEO of Travelzoo, he’s now a managing partner at Pixiu Investments and CEO of medical startup BrainCheck. “Literally when you are moving into your house, neighbors will turn up with cakes—that’s never happened to me anywhere else.” 

Kathleen compares the energy of the city to living in San Francisco in 1999 or 2000 during the height of the dot-com boom. 

“Back then, every bar you went into, every conversation you were having, someone was pitching an idea for a new company. Austin seems to have almost as much energy right now,” she says. 

Low cost and convenience 

Austin’s lower cost of living was a major draw for Paul Dyson, MBA 02, who’s been working with S&P Global as a public utilities analyst since graduating from Haas and moved to an Austin suburb in 2021. 

“We like having no income tax in Texas, and it doesn’t feel as cramped in terms of space as California did,” he says. 

That his house has a pool has been a bonus. “The summers are brutally hot,” he admits. “But you get a break between October and May when it’s very pleasant.”  

While Austin prices have risen considerably in the past few years, it’s still much cheaper than the Bay Area, says Sara (Yamamoto) Yamase, BS 10, MBA 17. She found it less expensive to commute four times a month from Austin to the Bay Area during her last year in the evening and weekend MBA program and now lives in a suburb full of families with young kids. 

“We wanted room for a family and to actually be able to afford to buy a house,” says Yamase, a partner at Bonn, Germany-based consultancy Simon-Kucher & Partners. 

And Austin’s position in the center of the country makes it convenient for meetings or flights to either coast or for international meetings. “The Central Time Zone is very helpful; I can meet at 7 a.m. or 9 a.m. instead of 5 a.m. or 7 a.m. Pacific Time,” she says. 

The lifestyle of Austin is also a major plus, Yamase says. In addition to the vaunted live music scene, anchored by Austin City Limits music festival and South by Southwest media extravaganza, “Austin is filthy with good restaurants,” she says, adding that some cater to young families with outdoor playgrounds. 

SF, but with swagger

Malissa Ford, EMBA 17, has been a fan of Austin ever since she would drive up to the city on weekends while in flight school in San Antonio 20 years ago. Over the years, she continued returning to see friends. 

“It was always such a fun party town—I had just never seen music in a city like this,” Ford says. 

The music sets the tone for a more overarching countercultural vibe, says Ford, who was working for Amazon when she came to Austin during the pandemic. When the company wanted her to move back to Seattle, she left that job to stay in Texas. She now works as a program manager for global health and environmental consultancy ERM. 

“Everyone is accepted here. You can do your own thing,” she says. “It’s kind of like San Francisco or Berkeley that way but with a Texas swagger.”

Everyone is accepted here. You can do your own thing. It’s kind of like San Francisco or Berkeley that way but with a Texas swagger.”

Malissa Ford,

EMBA 17

A growth market

The most obvious difference between the tech ecosystems of the Bay Area and Austin is size. “The Bay Area is just orders of magnitude larger,” says Yamase. When she first arrived in Austin, she was struck by the dumbbell-shaped curve of companies. 

“There were a lot of smaller startups in the tens of millions and then the massive Dells in the billions, but there were not a lot of companies in the hundreds of millions,” she says. That’s changed somewhat as smaller companies have grown and others from the coasts have sited offices in the city.  

The center of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Austin is Capital Factory, a downtown incubator that hosts pitch meetings and networking sessions. Austin has sprouted some homegrown venture capital firms, most notably LiveOak Ventures and Silverton Partners, which both focus on early-stage investments. Several prominent VCs from the Bay Area, however, have also set up satellite offices in Austin, making capital readily available. 

The investing ecosystem feels highly collaborative and highly interconnected, especially within climate tech. Going to a handful of events, I’ve gotten to know the majority of players here.” 

Emma Leavy,

MBA 22

Emma Leavy, MBA 22, a principal with Gratitude Railroad, a social impact investor, moved to Austin after graduating to immerse herself in the tech ecosystem here, especially climate tech. 

“Texas is a hotbed of innovation in terms of renewable energy—it’s got one of the cleanest grids of any state with a high proportion of electricity being generated by wind and solar,” says Leavy, who invests nationally for Gratitude Railroad but appreciates the intimacy of the blossoming Austin tech culture. 

“The investing ecosystem feels highly collaborative and highly interconnected, especially within climate tech,” she says. “Going to a handful of events, I’ve gotten to know the majority of players here.” 

That feeling of mutual collaboration extends to companies—and even competitors as well. “When I need somebody else, even if they’re in my industry, we’re friends first and then there’s the business,” says Chris Loughlin. “People in Austin really want to help each other—if you reach out, they will respond.” 

Work/life balance

The downside to the smaller community is the slower pace, which took some getting used to for Oji and Ezinne Udezue when they first arrived in Austin eight years ago. 

“The West Coast has a frenetic pace with limitless ambition,” says Oji. “You can build incredible things fast.” The downside is widespread burnout. “People’s lives get completely unbalanced. We have so many friends who left Microsoft to become a plumber or a carpenter,” he says. 

In the time the Udezues have been there, they’ve seen the pace of ambition in Austin ratchet up, but there’s still a sense that a healthy lifestyle and an exciting business life can go hand in hand. 

“It’s beginning to have this happy velocity; it’s all about this idea of balance and pacing yourself and your ambitions,” says Ezinne. 

Many communities

Austin has changed in other ways for the better in recent years, with the expansion of Dell Seton Medical Center at the University of Texas into a world-class healthcare system and the continuing development of the downtown greenbelt connecting Lady Bird Lake with a network of parks to beautify the heart of the city. Kathleen and Chris Loughlin have played their own part in developing the city’s cultural amenities, including the burgeoning arts scene. 

“When we first moved here 10 years ago, it felt like the whole city revolved around the university and the music scene and that’s it,” Kathleen says. 

As an active investor in the arts, Kathleen is helping change that dynamic. She recently won a Tony for co-producing the Broadway musical The Outsiders and served as the board president of The Contemporary Austin art museum.

For his part, Chris helped Austin FC, a Major League Soccer team, get established in Austin a few years ago through his work at Pixiu Investments. Before that, Austin was the nation’s only major city without a professional sports team.

New arts and entertainment aren’t the only changes the Loughlins have noticed—Austin has become more diverse in recent years as well. “You can hear multiple languages when you walk down the street now,” says Kathleen, “and that’s made our food scene better too. It’s no longer just tacos and BBQ; there’s more visibility of diverse cultures.” 

For newcomers, the relative youth and energy of the city offer multiple ways to plug in at any level. For example, Austin has active social sports leagues, says Ford. “Pickleball is the big one, but there’s also kickball, volleyball—they’re great ways to meet people and make friends.” 

Chris got involved in the Young Presidents’ Organization, a global leadership community for CEOs, while Agrawal became active in the Entrepreneurs’ Organization. 

“Find one of these pockets of like-minded people, and you can find an instant community,” Agrawal says. 

One such community is the Haas Alumni Network, which has seen active participation by Agrawal, Dyson, and Leavy, among others. “I’m really connected to my class, and it’s been a joy to get to know Haas people from different classes,” Leavy says. “I’ve found it so energizing, because there’s a spirit of sharing and helping and collaborating.” 

That energy seems to extend beyond the Haas network to encompass the spirit of Austin as a whole. “It’s always thrilling to live in a place that’s growing and where new energy and ideas are respected,” Kathleen Loughlin says. “Austin’s a growth market here whether you are growing a family or a business—we just feel very lucky we chose it.”