Originally Posted by
Midtowner
I think that's valid. 100%.
I think our long term prospects at keeping Paycom might be looking a little iffy at this point. Its CEO has picked a fight with the very influential GOP lobbying group, OCPAC, and suddenly, Chad Richison is now no longer welcome at his alma mater, even after making a pretty substantial donation to improve the athletic facilities. Our state is eating its own. Our neighbor to the South has mastered the art of cosplaying as yeehaw buffoons to get reelected, but they also know that higher education is necessary to support industry and growth. Here in Oklahoma, we have poltiicians talking about cutting 100% of the higher ed budget. I can tell you Texas would never do something so dumb--or even talk about it out in the open. Even talk like that is going to scare away investment.
And so now, we're left with companies like Canoo and it appears the State has just been a party to some overall pump and dump type scheme. Fortunately, we structured the deal around some solid metrics and the state isn't going to be left that much in the lurch. Maybe just a little embarrassed.
But no one is going to want to locate a major plant here until Oklahoma's public education sector can get it together--and I don't mean by privatizing.
I hire a lot of very high level CS engineers and EE's and it amazes me how flippant our government is to these segments and how little they understand that the cost of building a factory pales in comparison to the hassle and cost of securing the best of the best engineers. Oklahoma has got to get passed this "but we have cheap land" argument because in these spaces, if that's all you got, you got nothing.
Bookmarks