California Exodus

Another tech startup trades West Coast for booming Austin scene

Austin skyline downtown Lady Bird Town Lake

Yet another burgeoning tech biz is relocating from LA to Austin.

The corporate exodus from the West Coast to Austin continues, with tech startup Markaaz recently relocating its headquarters from Los Angeles to the Capital City.

Markaaz plans to hire as many as 70 people by the end of this year and aims to expand the Austin workforce to about 150 by the end of 2022, according to Opportunity Austin, the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce’s economic development initiative. Jobs advertised on the Markaaz website include software engineer and content manager.

The move by Markaaz is among several recent corporate relocations from the West Coast to Austin. They include software giant Oracle, real estate investment marketplace CrowdStreet, and e-commerce platform City Shoppe.

“To accommodate our growing organization, we needed to find a city for our corporate headquarters that aligned to our long-term business needs and core values,” Hany Fam, founder and CEO of Markaaz, says in an April 8 news release from Opportunity Austin. “Our core value of ‘do good’ — which emphasizes people who care about their impact on the world, the environment, society, the economy, and the communities we live in — aligned with the heart and soul of the Austin community.”

Markaaz, a platform for connecting small businesses with suppliers and business partners, made the move to Austin in March. The new headquarters is at the Foundry I mixed-use project, located at 310 Comal St. in East Austin.

Fam is former CEO of global insurance giant AXA and a former high-level executive at Mastercard.

technology

Self-driving Roller Coaster

More self-driving cars expected to roll out in Austin for 2025

Photo courtesy of Waymo via KVUE

Various brands offering self-driving cars are on-and-off in Austin.

Expect to see more self-driving rideshare vehicles, also known as robotaxis, on Austin roads next year.

Robotaxi company Waymo, which you may have already seen on Austin's roads, is partnering with Uber. At some point next year, customers will be able to use the Uber app to call a self-driving ride.

Austin-based company Avride is in the testing phase and plans to roll out its robotaxis next year.

Currently, Volkswagen ADMT and Amazon's Zoox are in the testing phase in Austin, while Hyundai's Motional is in the mapping phase.

Last year, robotaxi company Cruise paused operations in Austin after the California Department of Motor Vehicles revoked the company's permits to operate driverless vehicles in the state. And last week, General Motors said it would no longer fund the company because of the time and resources needed.

This way of getting around has come with its safety concerns and issues. The city is tracking those concerns. According to the Transportation Department, the problems span from blocking the roads and parking in front of people's homes for weeks with lights beaming through their windows, to actual wrecks.

Since July 2023, robotaxis have been involved in 75 incidents. Only 21 of those incidents happened in 2024. It's important to note that Cruise has not been operating in Austin this year.

Since July 2023, driverless rideshare vehicles have been involved in 22 near collisions, eight collisions and seven instances where driverless taxis ignored directions from the Austin Police Department (APD).

According to the data, at least four of those Austin police incidents happened in recent months. The issues varied from driving through police checkpoints, to malfunctioning and getting stuck at an APD road closure near pedestrians, causing safety concerns.

A Waymo spokesperson said their vehicles have gesture recognition capabilities, which they've been training APD officers on using.

As the report shows, sometimes it does not work and Waymo said it is working to improve that. The spokesperson said that as of just last week, Waymo's First Responder Program has been independently verified by TÜV SÜD, making Waymo the first autonomous vehicle (AV) company to receive third-party validation for our emergency response protocols. They also said the data to date indicates the Waymo Driver is already reducing traffic injuries and fatalities in the places where the company currently operates.

Read the full story and watch the video at KVUE.com.

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