By Gregory Kallenberg
American-Statesman Staff
Posted: Oct. 15, 1999
It was supposed to be about us, but it wasn't. It's beyond us. The world, which used to be about humans, has turned and left us behind. Now it's about the buzz, the click and the whir. Machines, chips, bytes and bits. Now it's all about the worst and the best of the "ology"s.
It's about technology.
Some were prepared, others weren't. Cities, ensconced in banking and steel and making cars, were left behind. But not us. We knew what it was all about, so we prepared. Got plugged in and thrived. Heck, we already called ourselves "The Live Music Capital of the World;" why couldn't we be "Silicon Hills" too?
High-tech came and crashed our party, seduced us, and we were there with open arms. It was a perfect fit. The new world didn't wear suits; we didn't wear suits. The new world was hip; we were hip. The new world dug live music and Shiner Bock; we dug live music and Shiner Bock. The new world worked hard and played hard; we, well, we played hard.
Now we have arrived. We are a presence, a player in this new technological world. A world where toasters talk, where your bike knows when you're tired of pedaling and where being "connected" is a good thing. A place where 100-hour weeks are revered, stock options are king and Cheetos is a food group.
Do you question this? Then you better sit down. The numbers are dizzying: More than 71% of Central Texans own home computers; there are more than 1,750 high-tech companies in the Austin-San Marcos-Round Rock area; we are No. 1 in Internet use in Texas and No. 3 in the country; Yahoo! reported that Austin is the second most wired city in the country and P.O.V. magazine said we were "the most computer literate big city in America." Austin even graced the cover of Newsweek as one of the magazine's "hottest tech cities." And if that doesn't do it for you, Austin's favorite son, Michael Dell, is worth $21 billion and has a 22,000-square-foot home.
Now, look to the University of Texas. Here, M. A. Syverson, a professor in the innovative "Technology, Literacy and Culture" program, stands in her computer lab, Macintosh monitors glowing all around her. She is helping set Austin apart, helping us rise above the technological fray.
Syverson is not only shaping the minds that will hopefully stay in Austin and bolster our local tech industry, but she is also making sure those minds remember they're human. She says her students -- the techno whiz kids and 'Net entrepreneurs of the future -- will make our city a better place, help it fuse seamlessly with technology instead of banging our heads against it.
"We don't want these young people to be cannon fodder for the big high-tech companies," says Syverson as she helps a student with his computer. "We want these students to take on leadership roles."
The "Technology, Literacy and Culture" program is meant to combine the three disciplines. Make students think about using technology in a humane, warm and fuzzy way. Make them think about how it affects us, how it can make us a better community, better people. It's all part of the university's grand plan to help make Austin a shining, beeping, whirring example of how technology can make a city great. It is the only undergraduate program of its kind.
"The great thing about Austin is we're interested in our way of life and we ask the right questions about our physical environment and social structure," she says. "In Silicon Valley, they are focused on one thing. They have this deterministic, narrow view of making things faster and making more money. TLC (Technology, Literacy and Culture) works to make technology benefit everyone, not just an elite few. In a sense, we are a larger expression of this city: technology, legislation and this university."
At Graves, Dougherty, a local law firm, there is a conference room that overlooks the pinkish purple state capitol. Present in this conference room are two of the firm's barristers, Diana Borden and Donald Jones. If you think this would be the last place you'd find evidence of Austin as a thriving technology capital, you are wrong.
For 50 years, the firm has handled all the regular litigious stuff, but, as of late, Graves, Dougherty found itself changing. It was no longer just about "estate planning" and "trial litigation." It advanced, evolved, "connected." Now, when Borden and Jones describe the bulk of the firm's work, they speak in terms of "software licensing," "trade secrets and patent infringement," "mergers and acquisitions." Their clients are Dell, Healthway.com and Radian.
"I've been here 20 years," says Borden, who decided on Austin after graduating Harvard and wanting a place where she could "go two-stepping and have some fun."
"I've seen companies like MCC come to town and spin these brilliant people off to form other companies. Then those companies spin people off and bring more people to town. The technology growth has been organic here and really melded with Austin's culture. It's made us who we are now."
"Just to let you how far things have come," Jones leans in and begins. "When I moved here there were only a handful of intellectual property lawyers in the intellectual property law association (an association primarily concerned with protecting patents and technology ideas). Now we number 150. Technology has treated Austin well on all fronts."
For a barometric reading of technology's impact on Austin, head downtown, duck into Sullivan's. Go past the smoky bar where venture capitalists talk dot com over live jazz. Walk to the table where enterprising teenagers are coming up with ways to change the ways we think and communicate over ribeyes, porterhouses and horseradish mashed potatoes. This place didn't exist four years ago. These people couldn't afford steaks four years ago. Now, meat, tech talk and equity are symbiotic. After you've finished your meal, drive through the Hill Country. The hills are now festooned with sprawling mansions, testament to our good work and our good ideas. It used to be a difficult task to spend a million dollars on a home in Austin -- now the task is a breeze.
Now stand in the Land Rover dealership on West Fifth Street. The lot is brimming with shiny new "Oxford Blue" and "Epsom Green" Land Rover Discoverys (known as "Discos" to those willing to plunk down $44,000+ on the vehicle) and the top-of-the-line Range Rovers. Inside the dealership, Michael Koltz, the sales manager, sits behind his desk. He is dressed in a pressed khaki Land Rover safari suit and wears $2,200 Tag Heuer "timepiece" on his wrist. He makes it clear he has made a lucrative career out of selling Austin the "most expensive sport utility vehicle in the world." He says his success and Land Rover's success in Austin -- in the southern region, this is the No. 1 Land Rover dealer per capita -- has all been connected to technology.
"Realistically, we sell people vehicles they don't need," says Koltz matter-of-factly. "And most of those vehicles are to people in the technology industry. To them, it's a reward, a status symbol. For example, if you go up to the Dell campus, I guarantee you'd see that the car of choice is a Land Rover or Porsche. And they pay cash for them."
Koltz goes on to name his clients. They include the creme fraiche of Austin's software developers, game developers and computer execs.
Now, visit Patrick Curry and Michael Rosenfelt. They are Internet leaders/gurus/ entrepreneurs who only agree to meet under a cloak of secrecy. They can't say what they do or how they do it. They can only give a name of their company -- NotHarvard.com -- and their titles -- Curry is the chief technical officer and Rosenfelt is the self-deprecating "marketing weasel." They can say they have grown from two to 27 employees in the past three months (and they claim that 300 e-mails a week arrive querying employment). That they only use cell phones. And that venture capitalists have been very interested in what they're doing.
Curry and Rosenfelt are young, spirited and creative. They are mavericks for whom failure is not an option. Both are stereotypes and prototypes for what Austin is and what it is becoming. Like the other citizens of Austin's new world, they aren't afraid to think in the "what's next?" mode and don't mind working the 80-hour week in order to create it. And, the best part is, they love their city and don't feel they could be doing whatever it is they're doing anywhere else.
"The great thing is that anything is possible here," says Rosenfelt, "It's the wild, wild west."
"The stress level here is such that the buzz can still be here, and it can still be laid back," adds Curry. "It's the Austin flavor."
"All that we ask," Rosenfelt concludes before leaning back and leaving the conversation in an impressive silence, "is that that the future allows us to do exactly what we're doing right here in Austin, Texas."
The Internet go-getters, techno lawyers, glitzy SUVs and neato college classes aside, it's not all good here.
We know that as much as technology launches us forward, it also keeps some of us back. There are poor schools where kids have to fight to use a computer, if there's even one to use. There are families more concerned with putting food on the table than taking part in the information age. There are houses being bought by Silicon Valley transplants that you will never be able to afford. We might be on our way, but we're not a technological Utopia yet. Yet.
No mind. Rome wasn't built in one day and Austin won't be either. Brick by digital brick, we will continue to construct, but, in the meantime, we are here, in our glorious city, in this glorious time, eating technology, breathing it. Our PDAs tell us when to say "Happy Birthday," our e-mail box lets us know when we are wanted and our cell phones tell us with whom we will be speaking before we are even speaking.
On Congress Avenue, it is the dead of an Austin night, a time when other, less advanced, cities sleep, a man sits in front of Digital Anvil, arms tight around himself, smoking a cigarette and contemplating those last lines of code as he calls someone on his cell phone.
Buzz.
Click.
Whir.
And it never stops.
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Why Austin is on top of the high-tech revolution and how (like it or not) you're a part of it