In addition to reporting fiscal Q2 financial performance this week, Oracle Corporation made additional headlines in announcing plans to move the address of the company’s corporate headquarters from Redwood City California to Austin Texas.
In a regulatory filing the company indicated that the move would mean that many of the company’s employees can choose their office location as well as continue to work from home, and that the company will continue to support other U.S. locations in Redwood City, Santa Monica, Seattle, Denver, Orlando and Burlington Massachusetts. Reportedly, there are no plans to move staff from its existing headquarters.
In its initial breaking of this news, Bloomberg pointed out that in 2018, Oracle opened a campus in Austin in an effort to recruit a younger and less costly workforce. At the time, the Austin campus was designed to eventually host 10,000 employees.
There is little question that Oracle had served as one of the original success stories of the growth of Silicon Valley. The company’s glass surrounded buildings and Redwood City campus was readily visible from Highway 101 that traversed Silicon Valley and often wowed new tech graduates looking to grow their careers in the valley.
On the reading of this news, the analogy that came to this Editor’s mind was Hershey suddenly announcing that it would move its iconic corporate headquarters and campus out of Hershey Pennsylvania. Besides the highly visible campus, there is the newly branded Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants baseball team, and who can forget the many annual Oracle Open World customer conferences that brought upwards of 20,000 attendees to occupy all of the Mascone Convention Center in downtown San Francisco, swarming every available hotel, restaurant and cocktail venue. Least we also mention Larry Ellison’s and other Oracle corporate executive lavish residences in the area.
Another contrast to draw as well is that rather than a prolonged and highly visible campaign preluding a search for an alternative headquarters, the announcement was just a matter of fact, it’s a done deal.
Business media outlets such as Business Broadcast News Network CNBC placed context to a number of other prominent Silicon Valley companies also announcing corporate headquarters moves out of California including Hewlett Packard Enterprise. In its reporting,
The Wall Street Journal, reporting on the announcement, was quick to point out that: “Many of the executives that are turning their backs on Silicon Valley share conservative political views and, at times have taken issue with what they regard as the region’s liberal politics.” Noted was that co-founder Larry Ellison has been an active supporter of President Trump and earlier this year hosted a fundraising event for the President. CEO Safra Catz also worked on Trump’s transition team in 2016. A further outspoken conservative is Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, who recently announced the changing of his personal residence to the Austin Texas area. Larry Ellison is a board member of Tesla.
One would suppose that one of the future benefits of this Oracle development is having Oracle Open World conducted in the South by Southwest venues format.
Look out Austin, the Oracle hoards are about to descend in the post COVID economy.
Bob Ferrari
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