HPE announces it will relocate its headquarters from San Jose, CA, to Houston, TX, that it's constructing a new campus there, and no layoffs come with the move
the last time I visited—were preserved just as they'd left them, and were wonderful.) https://www.cnbc.com/... Thanks: @mattrosoff
CNBCJessica Bursztynsky
Context & Ripple Effects
HPE has been unwinding its Bay Area real estate for years: back in 2017 it sold its Palo Alto headquarters and shifted the corporate center to Santa Clara and San Jose. The move to Houston extends that retreat out of California entirely, and it lands days before Oracle announced its own headquarters relocation from Redwood City to Austin with a flexible work-location policy — a near-simultaneous pair of Texas moves by legacy enterprise IT firms.
The no-layoffs pledge matters against HPE's own recent record: months earlier the company laid out a cost program targeting at least $1B in gross savings by 2022, built on job cuts and 25% temporary pay cuts for top executives. HPE is deliberately separating the headquarters decision from headcount decisions.
First-order effects
HPE employees face a relocation-or-stay choice as the corporate center shifts to a new Houston campus, while San Jose loses an enterprise HQ it gained only in 2017.
Second-order effects
HPE's move hands Texas a second marquee enterprise-tech headquarters win within the same week as Oracle's Austin relocation, sharpening the Bay Area-vs-Texas contest for corporate campuses and the tax and real-estate revenue attached to them.
Third-order effects
If the HPE-Oracle pattern holds, headquarters location becomes a detachable real-estate decision rather than a proxy for where work happens or how many people are employed — HPE's own later ~2,500-person cost cut announced alongside strong Q1 revenue shows headcount moves running on an entirely separate track from the HQ address.
The trend: Enterprise tech headquarters are migrating from the Bay Area to Texas, with companies increasingly decoupling the HQ address from both headcount and where employees actually work.
BREAKING: Hewlett-Packard is relocating its Headquarters to Houston, Texas. Welcome to Texas! Texas remains the best place in America to do business. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.
This “come to Texas, Big Tech” insanity has been the dumbest, least thought-out campaign in modern history. “Let's bring half of Silicon Valley to Texas; what's the worst that could happen?” https://twitter.com/...
Great news for #Texas! Today @HPE announced plans to relocate its global HQ to the Lone Star State. Not only will HPE serve as a welcome addition to Texas' thriving technology sector, but this move will also help to create new job opportunities for Texans. https://www.cnbc.com/..…
Can't imagine Bill and Dave approving. (I've lost track of which part of HP has the founders' offices, which—the last time I visited—were preserved just as they'd left them, and were wonderful.) https://www.cnbc.com/...
Everyone keeps trying to “well, actually, it's HPE me.” I'm aware. The HP that existed historically IS HPE. Just b/c most people recognize the consumer products doesn't change that reality. https://twitter.com/...