Thursday, November 18, 2010

California Has 33 NASDAQ 100 Technology Companies, Texas Has 2

I enjoyed reading Joel Kotkin's recent article on how Texas is trumping California in economic development, taxes, and other items important to growing a state economy.   And for any state planning a typical retail, education, health care type of economy, everything he said is right.   However, when it comes to developing a regional technology industry, taxes and government dysfunction have little to do with economic development.

California, the model of high taxes, union ownership of state legislators, and bossy government run by inept bureaucrats, is home to 33 of the 62 technology companies in the NASDAQ 100, according to a recent analysis I put together.   Texas is home to 2 - Dell and BMC Software.  My business-friendly home state of Virginia is home to just 1- the holding company spun out of the Sprint/Nextel merger.    No other state has more than 4, and the one state with 4 is Massachusetts, 3 of which are biotech companies HQ'd in  Cambridge, a city with one hell of a pinko legacy.

Building a technology economy first requires a technology community.   All the garage startups of legend didn't choose their location because of tax incentives, but through collaboration between people with common interests in uncommon topics.   Few places outside of Silicon Valley have this.    Still, every region/state/city/jursidiction with an econ dev budget is still wasting taxpayer dollars trying to promote itself as a technology hub.   But if that's what they really want, then the model isn't Texas, but California.


First Solar, Inc. FSLR Tempe Phoenix Arizona
Microchip Technology Incorporated MCHP Chandler Phoenix Arizona
Activision Blizzard, Inc ATVI Santa Monica LA California
Adobe Systems Incorporated ADBE San Jose SF Bay Area California
Altera Corporation ALTR San Jose SF Bay Area California
Amgen Inc. AMGN Thousand Oaks LA California
Apple Inc. AAPL Cupertino SF Bay Area California
Applied Materials, Inc. AMAT Santa Clara SF Bay Area California
Autodesk, Inc. ADSK San Rafael SF Bay Area California
Broadcom Corporation BRCM Irvine LA California
Cisco Systems, Inc. CSCO San Jose SF Bay Area California
DIRECTV DTV El Segundo LA California
eBay Inc. EBAY San Jose SF Bay Area California
Electronic Arts Inc. ERTS Redwood City SF Bay Area California
Google Inc. GOOG Mountain View SF Bay Area California
Illumina, Inc. ILMN San Diego San Diego California
Intel Corporation INTC Santa Clara SF Bay Area California
Intuit Inc. INTU Mountain View SF Bay Area California
Intuitive Surgical, Inc. ISRG Sunnyvale SF Bay Area California
KLA-Tencor Corporation KLAC Milpitas SF Bay Area California
Lam Research Corporation LRCX Fremont SF Bay Area California
Life Technologies Corporation LIFE Carlsbad San Diego California
Linear Technology Corporation LLTC Milpitas SF Bay Area California
Logitech International S.A. LOGI Fremont SF Bay Area California
Marvell Technology Group, Ltd. MRVL Santa Clara SF Bay Area California
Maxim Integrated Products, Inc. MXIM Sunnyvale SF Bay Area California
NetApp, Inc. NTAP Sunnyvale SF Bay Area California
NVIDIA Corporation NVDA Santa Clara SF Bay Area California
Oracle Corporation ORCL Redwood City SF Bay Area California
QUALCOMM Incorporated QCOM San Diego San Diego California
SanDisk Corporation SNDK Milpitas SF Bay Area California
Symantec Corporation SYMC Mountain View SF Bay Area California
VeriSign, Inc. VRSN Mountain View SF Bay Area California
Xilinx, Inc. XLNX San Jose SF Bay Area California
Yahoo! Inc. YHOO Sunnyvale SF Bay Area California
DISH Network Corporation DISH Englewood Denver Colorado
Liberty Media Corporation LINTA Englewood Denver Colorado
priceline.com Incorporated PCLN Norwalk NY Tri-State Connecticut
Citrix Systems, Inc. CTXS Fort Lauderdale Miami/Ft. Lauderdale Florida
Garmin Ltd. GRMN Olathe Kansas City Kansas
Biogen Idec Inc BIIB Cambridge Boston Massachusetts
Genzyme Corporation GENZ Cambridge Boston Massachusetts
Hologic, Inc. HOLX Bedford Boston Massachusetts
Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated VRTX Cambridge Boston Massachusetts
Cerner Corporation CERN North Kansas City Kansas City Missouri
Sigma-Aldrich Corporation SIAL St. Louis St. Louis Missouri
Automatic Data Processing, Inc. ADP Roseland NY Tri-State New Jersey
Celgene Corporation CELG Summit NY Tri-State New Jersey
Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation CTSH Teaneck NY Tri-State New Jersey
CA Inc. CA Islandia NY Tri-State New York
Paychex, Inc. PAYX Rochester Rochester New York
Virgin Media Inc. VMED New York NY Tri-State New York
FLIR Systems, Inc. FLIR Wilsonville Portland Oregon
Cephalon, Inc. CEPH Frazer Philadelphia Pennsylvania
Comcast Corporation CMCSA Philadelphia Philadelphia Pennsylvania
DENTSPLY International Inc. XRAY York York Pennsylvania
BMC Software, Inc. BMC Houston Houston Texas
Dell Inc. DELL Round Rock Austin Texas
NII Holdings, Inc. NIHD Reston Washington DC Virginia
Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN Seattle Seattle Washington State
Expedia, Inc. EXPE Bellevue Seattle Washington State
Microsoft Corporation MSFT Redmond Seattle Washington State