Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, a Republican, is welcoming top executives in the tech world who are moving their companies to his city. Suarez said that tech executives and workers have been won over by his telling them, “Hey, we want you, hey, we appreciate you.”
Now that tech employees have been working remotely for an extended period of time due to the coronavirus pandemic, they have begun looking for other places to live — locations that are more affordable and offering them a higher quality of life than San Francisco.
It appears that business leaders are doing the same, seeking to move their companies to states with more relaxed coronavirus lockdowns, and lower taxes, according to a report by the New York Times.
A lot of tech companies are now moving to Miami, and Mayor Suarez — who has been fielding inquiries from top executives in the tech world, including Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey — is welcoming the Masters of the Universe.
“It was a lightning-in-the-bottle moment,” said Suarez. “For them to hear an elected official saying, ‘Hey, we want you, hey, we appreciate you’ — I didn’t realize what a sensitive moment it was in terms of how people felt they were being treated by the governments where they lived.”
Among those moving to Miami include: PayPal co-founder and investor Keith Rabois, tech investor Peter Thiel, the head of the celebrity-video product Cameo Steven Galanis, founder of the stock-photography provider Shutterstock Jon Oringer, and media mogul Bryan Goldberg.
“We recognize the amazing and unique natural gifts that G-d and geology bestowed on California, but enough is enough,” wrote venture capitalist David Blumberg, who runs Blumberg Capital and moved from San Francisco to Miami in November.
“We certainly hope and pray that California will take action to remedy the disastrous self-inflicted political situation and restore its former luster and quality of life, but for now we are voting with our feet,” he added.
ou can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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