Did you see the headlines? Oracle is cutting software prices by up to 10%. A Tesla car is now 7.5% less than a year ago and both HP Enterprises and Palantir have reduced their enterprise licences by up to 8%.1
It all comes as a result of these companies moving their headquarters from California to Texas (or in Palantir’s case to Colorado). The move means their tax liability is much less and other business costs are radically reduced.
According to Forbes, California;
is the most regulated state in the country.
has some of the highest taxes in the country.
has one of the worst legal environments.
Bottom line, ‘leaving’2 California is creating a financial windfall for these companies and they wanted to share it with their customers.
You can read more about these 4 companies here; Tesla | Oracle | Palantir | HPE - but they are just the tip of the iceberg. According to Forbes, it’s an exodus at biblical scale!
OK. Sorry. I made up that bit about discounted prices as a result of these moves. What will actually happen is that as a result of these gymnastics corporate profitability will increase and the beneficiaries - as always - will be the shareholders.
But there’s another story … People.
In parallel with all of this, COVID wreaked its havoc and as a result ‘remote work’ and ‘working at home’ narratives emerged that reveal the business world is changing and whilst not everyone is jumping on the new remote work revolution, there are sufficient cases to make you sit up and pay attention.
Except … despite announcement after mixed announcement from organizations like Meta, Twitter, Apple, Google, et al about working from home, it all seemed good, but what isn’t quite hitting the headlines is the small print because as always, the devil is in the detail.
If you are a corporation you can move states and make significant improvements to your bottom line. Why else would hundreds of companies be making the decision to move headquarters?
If you are ‘just’ a person … not so much. Let me explain.
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