back to article HPE to move HQ from Silicon Valley to Texas, says Lone Star State is 'attractive' for recruitment, retaining staff

HPE on Tuesday announced plans to relocate its corporate headquarters from San Jose, California, to Houston, Texas. It also reported $7.2bn in revenues for its fourth quarter of its fiscal 2020, flat year-on-year though above Wall Sreet's expectations. Its net earnings for the period were $157m, down 67 per cent year-on-year …

  1. Jim Mitchell
    Mushroom

    Houston? I've lived in Houston, I don't want to go back. Also, does this mean HPE is now Compaq II?

    Icon is for the summer weather, you'll have to imagine the humidity yourself.

    1. Imhotep

      I was hit by a train while on a trestle over a bayou outside of Houston. Knocked 40 feet in to the water below. But on the other hand some great Tex Mex there. So I'd say it's a wash.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Houston...

      Where mosquito is the city's bird.

      Still better than Cali.

      1. ckm5

        Re: Houston...

        Nope, sorry. Weather, property taxes, hurricanes. No thanks. Good riddance, you can have HPE.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Boffin

          Re: Houston...

          Sorry,

          Been to Houston. Bro did his Residency there.

          Yeah its not my favorite, but it beats watching out for piles of human feces, needles and bums demanding spare change while their buddies are lighting up a joint.

          Then the high cost of living, taxes, smog, and the never ending smugness that is SFO.

          Where 1 million dollars buys you a tear down...

          I'll take the weather in TX over that.

          At least I can get a CCW permit and head down to the range for fun.

          (Target practice is the new golf in states where you can shoot. ) Of course that assumes ammo prices will drop after this election thing ends.

    3. J27

      To be fair, no one wants to work for HPE either. That's why they have to move somewhere the rent is cheaper.

      1. ckm5

        This.

        HPE has huge problems recruiting here in CA as they can't really afford to pay people a living wage. It's a result of them being a barely profitable company. Good riddance, I say. HP hasn't been the same since they sold off their testing business.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Barely profitable?

          You mean like FB which just got sued for gaming the H1B system AGAIN?

    4. J. Cook Silver badge

      ... 90 percent humidity and 90 degree temperatures?

      Now arizona, the joke about it being a dry heat is largely truth, except in late July and August, where we get 30-40 percent humidity, and it becomes miserable.

      1. Woodnag

        Hurricane Houston? No thanks

        From Pikiwedia:

        "Hurricane Harvey was a devastating Category 4 hurricane that made landfall on Texas and Louisiana in August 2017, causing catastrophic flooding and many deaths. It is tied with 2005's Hurricane Katrina as the costliest tropical cyclone on record, inflicting $125 billion (2017 USD) in damage, primarily from catastrophic rainfall-triggered flooding in the Houston metropolitan area and Southeast Texas."

        1. Lost_Signal

          Re: Hurricane Houston? No thanks

          1. Harvey was a 800-year storm.

          2. Their campus is wayyyyy North of Houston (Spring), north of The Woodlands. They were spared the worst of the flooding (unlike the old Compaq campus off 249).

      2. itsborken

        Who spends time outside in late July/August with 115 degree temps? It's bearable if you get up at 5:30am for exercise. It still is nothing compared to PA/Houston TX humidity.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          I used to "live" in Houston and was tripping in Las Vegas once when they had their hottest day ever at the time which was 117F and quite frankly that was way more comfortable than Houston's 95-99F + humidity.

  2. The Count Is Dead
    Mushroom

    Texans are gonna love this

    All these Silly Valley liberal types bringing their politics to Texas. This is gonna end well.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Texans are gonna love this

      don't worry, Tesla will be next to quit CA. That will put some pressure on the State to allow Tesla sales outlets in the state.

      That shiny, shiny new factory will make the old plant in Fremont seem like it was built 100 years ago.

      Perhaps they can fix their quality issues at the same time (CA laws on paint aren't helping)

      1. ckm5

        Re: Texans are gonna love this

        The Fremont factory was built 100 years ago..... It's predecessor was the Chevy Oakland assembly plant, built in 1915...

      2. ThePhantom

        Re: Texans are gonna love this

        Which state? Tesla has plenty of dealers in CA. But yeah, CA paint laws are definitely an issue -- I can't even buy real paint thinner here.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Boffin

        Re: Texans are gonna love this

        Huh?

        Remind me where Tesla built their battery plant?

        Not Cali.

        Look where their competitors are building.

        Free clue... Closed existing car plants.

        Why? Infrastructure is already in place.

        Workers are also in place or can relocate back.

        California?

        Meh. Back in the mid 90's could have moved there.

        Passed. Not worth dealing with the smugness and idiots in SFO.

        Not to mention girls were all playing mind games. Had more fun on East Coast and Mid West.

    2. J27

      Re: Texans are gonna love this

      Texas is rapidly turning blue, internal and external immigration make this virtually guaranteed. This is the biggest issue for the Republicans moving forward, they lose Texas they cannot win a Presidential election.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Texans are gonna love this

        "This is the biggest issue for the Republicans moving forward, they lose Texas they cannot win a Presidential election."

        I'd suggest trying and change your political system to something that doesn't involve people getting a tattoo of a political party at birth and using that to cast a vote.

        That's not democracy, thats some sort of tribal nonsense like some tin pot third world country.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Texans are gonna love this

          I'd suggest trying and change your political system to something that doesn't involve people getting a tattoo of a political party at birth and using that to cast a vote.

          Problem is, it's not a tattoo; for many American whites, it's their actual skin. Trump won white voters across almost all demographics.

          1. rcxb Silver badge

            Re: Texans are gonna love this

            Trump had a modest lead in white voters. A rather weak correlation with party and race, there.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Texans are gonna love this

        Statistically speaking the people moving from California tend to be more likely to vote Republican/more conservative, so the narrative that California transplants are going to make it "more blue" is kind of a myth. Now it might make things "More moderate republican" you could argue, but that's a different thing.

        1. DS999 Silver badge

          Re: Texans are gonna love this

          Well regardless of whether it is migration from California or from other states, it is undeniable that Texas has gone from a solid republican state to a swing state in 2024 and probably a democrat state by 2028. Just look at the last four presidential elections and see the gap narrowing multiple points each time and follow the trend lines.

          Of course, around the same time it seems just as likely that Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania will turn red, as Biden won them by fairly narrow margins (after Trump won them by even narrower margins in 2016) and along with Georgia and Arizona turning blue and Florida going from a "state democrats always think they can win but rarely do" to a solidly red state it probably won't make a whole lot of difference as far the electoral college.

          1. rcxb Silver badge

            Re: Texans are gonna love this

            The population of the US is moving south and west. Northern states like WI, MI and PA will continue to decline in importance. California, Texas, etc., continue growing and will have larger shares of the National vote.

            Several states have a National Popular Vote law on the books. One big state, or a few small ones ratifying the law, and the Electoral College will be moot:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Texans are gonna love this

              Having a larger share of the national vote doesn't correlate to a large share of the Electoral College.

            2. DS999 Silver badge

              National popular vote is a terrible idea

              Let's leave aside the "politicians will only visit big cities and only address big city problems" because that's where the easiest to reach voters are concern.

              Imagine if instead of having relatively close results in a few states, like we had both this year and 2016, we had a close popular vote with less than say 100,000 votes separating the two candidates nationwide. Let's even ignore a dictator wannabe like Trump making false allegations of fraud everywhere, and assume both candidates believe in democracy and the basic fairness of elections. That's still a small enough margin that the one behind will want recounts in a LOT of states, and you could potentially see a lot of lawsuits since different states count in different ways (i.e. some allow mail in ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by election day, others require those ballots to be received by election day) and may have different standards for ID, signature match, different equipment used and on and on.

              At least the current system limits it to one state (like Florida in 2000) or a handful of states (though actually 2016 was a lot closer and it is only Trump's inability to admit he's a loser since anyone else would have conceded within a few days)

              Sure, you can argue states like Alaska and Wyoming have too much power compared to California and Texas in the current system. Alaska and Wyoming might as well not exist as distinct states as far as their say in a popular vote presidential election.

              1. rcxb Silver badge

                Re: National popular vote is a terrible idea

                Let's leave aside the "politicians will only visit big cities and only address big city problems" because that's where the easiest to reach voters are concern.

                The current situation is that presidential candidates utterly ignore all non-swing states, and heap obscene amounts of attention on a few swing states and even specific counties and cities, which is infinitely worse.

                Alaska and Wyoming might as well not exist as distinct states as far as their say in a popular vote presidential election.

                Quite the contrary. Alaska and Wyoming don't matter because they're not swing states. If they were, their combined 6 votes could swing a close election.

                the one behind will want recounts in a LOT of states

                If the loser feels like paying for a large number of recounts, have at it.

                The likelihood of a close election is drastically reduced with a nation-wide popular vote.

                1. DS999 Silver badge

                  Re: National popular vote is a terrible idea

                  The current situation is that presidential candidates utterly ignore all non-swing states, and heap obscene amounts of attention on a few swing states and even specific counties and cities, which is infinitely worse.

                  But those change over time. Ohio, Iowa and Florida have recently been seen as swing states, and Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Georgia were not. Now that's flipped, and Texas will probably be a swing state in the next election. As people move around and demographics change, so does which states are swing states.

                  Those states have various demographics, and both urban and rural components, so candidates can't for instance stop caring about farmers because they represent only 2% of the US population. With a popular vote they will only care about big cities, and big city problems and those of their suburbs. Anyone who lives somewhere with a population of less than 50,000 will be ignored as totally irrelevant. And that will never change, regardless of any demographic changes.

      3. Blackjack Silver badge

        Re: Texans are gonna love this

        When you have the soon to be former president acting like he has been doing, and the elected president is an old white man... why wouldn't Texas become a Blue State?

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Texans are gonna love this

        Turning Blue?

        Did you see the last election?

        Blue policies are failed polices.

    3. ckm5

      Re: Texans are gonna love this

      Pretty much all the cities in Texas are blue. Houston has had a gay mayor and Austin is almost as liberal as San Francisco.

      Just like at the national level, it's pretty much only gerrymandering and an electoral system that favors rural voters that keeps Republicans in power....

  3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Isn't that the part of Texas with the particularly patent-friendly court?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No. That is Marshall, Texas.

  4. luis river

    Sleeping with me enemy

    Both DEll Tech.and now HPE in texas, great Michael Dell visionary on not moving to Silicon Valley, Dell and HPE is viewed for ever copied one to other corporate strategies, and now shall be by stolen employees !!!

    1. J27

      Re: Sleeping with me enemy

      Dell is a hardware integrator, it's more of a sales operation than a tech company, particularly now that basically everyone doing that is outsourcing all their production. HPE does real tech stuff like software and technology research, in addition to slapping other people's tech into boxes like Dell.

      1. Loyal1

        Re: Sleeping with me enemy

        I have worked for them both in their storage businesses. They are both pale shadows of their former selves. HPE is just further down the slippery slope than Dell at this time.

        Bill and Dave must be spinning out there watching the succession of thieves and idiots screwing their business over.

  5. DrStrangeLug

    There's some low corperate taxes there as well

    I visited three years ago and was chatting to a ncie retired gentleman who was doing part time Uber driving . He said that there's a lot growth in startups and tech companies moving because the taxes are lower than in California.

    But the entire states demographics have been shifting for a while now and a lot of people think it's not a case of if Texas turns Democrat but when.

    1. ckm5

      Re: There's some low corperate taxes there as well

      The downside is huge property taxes. I know several people who move out of Texas because of this.

  6. disgruntled yank

    Gone with the Hurricane Conditions

    Will this do the wonders for HPE's corporate culture that moving to Chicago did for Boeing's?

    Philip Sheridan, sent to the Rio Grande as a message to Napoleon III after the US Civil War, is said to have told his troops that if he owned Hell and Texas, he'd live in Hell and rent out Texas. (A borrowing from some French general of the Bourbon days, I think.) There wasn't air conditioning in that day, but I wonder how many high-priced engineers at HPE hold roughly that attitude and can be shed.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Gone with the Hurricane Conditions

      This is america, corporations don't pay corporate taxes

      There is no personal income tax in Tx, which might be a factor for the executives making the decision

    2. Lost_Signal

      Re: Gone with the Hurricane Conditions

      Houston's a 61 today and partly cloudy. The hot months out of the year we:

      1. Live in Air Conditioning

      2. wear as little as possible when outside (or go to the large shaded parks, or do water activities).

      3. We go out to bars/restaurants later. Patio bars are everywhere and in some extreme cases like Midtown they will outright air condition the outdoors. (As well as deploy giant fans, shade tarps and misters).

      We have very mild winters as a pro.

  7. Jason Hindle

    Texas doesn't surprise me

    Houston OTOH caused the involuntary raising of an eyebrow.

    1. Scene it all

      Re: Texas doesn't surprise me

      Yes, lets move our HQ to the biggest hurricane target in the US.

      1. J27

        Re: Texas doesn't surprise me

        I didn't realize Houston was in the Florida Keys.

        1. Woodnag

          Re: Texas doesn't surprise me

          Another big hurricane, and the Keys could be blown to Houston :(

      2. esherrill

        Re: Texas doesn't surprise me

        Spring Texas is pretty far north of Houston, probably far enough inland for anything but a Cat 5 hurricane to be shrugged off. Relo to Galveston or Baytown, on the other hand, would be insane.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    HPE have history in TX...

    HPES had the ES part in a massive campus in Houston - the former Ross Perot EDS site in Houston.

    1. esherrill

      Re: HPE have history in TX...

      I think you're thinking of Dallas (Plano/Frisco area)

    2. O RLY

      Re: HPE have history in TX...

      HP's Houston history included the large Compaq campus/HQ in northwest Houston, not many miles from Spring.

  9. itsborken

    A clever way to turn over the older workforce

    Hi senior workers. You don't want to relocate to TX? That's OK, there are plenty of new grads from Austin to take your place (at reduced labor costs). Why fight age discrimination in court? Bailout of CA and let the workers write their own redundancies.

    1. ckm5

      Re: A clever way to turn over the older workforce

      Anyone with 1/2 a brain is not working for HPE anyway - like someone said upthread, no one in Silicon Valley wants to work for them, so they pretty much had to move.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A clever way to turn over the older workforce

      Anyone who graduated from Austin isn't moving to Houston unless they have family there.

  10. bleedinglibertarian

    dont want to anger the libs

    but don't want to be around the cali fruits either.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: dont want to anger the libs

      I think the lady doth protest too much. Sure you do, sugar. I'm betting you're a total fruitarian. ;-)

  11. This post has been deleted by its author

  12. rodderz

    Texas is a so called "right to work state" thus employers don't have to give you a reason or notice to boot you out the door. This gets inconvenient things like workers rights and compensation out of the way and HP is able to avoid lawsuits like what is happening at IBM, increasing the bonus pool for the corporate filth at the top.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Texas Workforce Commission has plenty of teeth. While we don't have a mini-WARN act like California, if you abuse employees the TWC will "Make You Pay" (I've seen it a lot).

      Federal labor laws still exist In Texas (So WARN act notices are still required for someone as large as HPE doing layoffs), and notice has to be filed. Most large companies don't randomly fire people (without extreme cause, like you somehow end up inventing racially charged sexual harassment or something), and instead dump you with a package at the yearly RIF (Which again requires a WARN notice under federal law).

      I'll counter this with:

      1. Do you want to work somewhere that wants to fire you but is being restrained by state law. That sounds like a terrrrrible place to work.

      2. Do you think California companies don't do layoffs? I've seen plenty of people get caught in a RIF.

      3. Your Plan B on losing your job should be strong networking, and a short list of future employers always updated, not "NANANANA, YOU CAN"T FIRE ME I HAVE A LAW!".

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Of course!

    Who wants to live in a state run by Democrats. The entire country is migrating to Republican lead states. California is a shithole.

    1. boris9k3

      Re: Of course!

      YUP!!!!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Of course!

      So why would they move to a state which is going to be run by Democrats?

  14. boris9k3
    Headmaster

    CA is a horrible place to be now... run even if to the humid land of Houston

    1. Notas Badoff

      Texas is #1 !

      Horrible place to be... ha. Texas now leads Cal. in all the notorious categories, like Covid cases, deaths, stupidity. Even though Cal. got hit badly looonng before Texas.

      After he created the conditions under which 30 deaths per day became 300+ deaths per day, the governor actually relented and permitted local officials to establish local restrictions. Again. After he had earlier outlawed sanity in favor of "personal responsibility".

      I don't recognize this country anymore. I do recognize Texas, though. They treat cows very nicely.

  15. luis river

    total surprise

    My surprise and I think that of many, HPE's headquarters in a year leaves Palo Alto, San Jose and goes to Houston, but what few know is that three years ago the company sold the vast, spectacular and well-located headquarters of EDS (owned by HP) in Houston. Let them explain it to me !!!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: total surprise

      EDS never had an HQ in Houston. That's why few people know that. Do you drive a car?

      1. luis river

        Re: total surprise

        Well said ! EDS HQ was located between Dallas/Houston. TX.

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