Should You Move To Miami? (Why People Are Migrating Away From California & New York)

All right, so today we're going to talk about if you should be moving to Miami as an entrepreneur. So look, here's what is going on right now. I'm going to pull up on my screen. You can see this title: What Happens When the 1% Go Remote? So you got people like Tom Brady and Gisele bought a $17 million teardown on an island. You have Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump plunking down $30 million for a lot, and then a lot of people moving there talking. You have private equity, you have Goldman Sachs reporting moving there, and then also Chase or JP Morgan is considering moving down there as well. And then you have Paul Graham over here. He is the founder of Y Combinator, one of the co-founders, and he says, I keep hearing about Miami and now it's starting to look more like a trend, right? And then, you know, on the flip side of that, you have people like Elon Musk, you have Larry Ellison, Larry Ellison's Oracle going to And also Hewlett-Packard, they're going to Austin. So people are going to, you know, the states that have no income tax basically. And so, you know, you have— taking a look over here, I actually found on Twitter that the mayor of Miami is actually very engaging and very receptive. He's taking advantage of this move right now. So I actually hit him up because I might be going there in a week, and he's actually said he'd be down to tour, he'd be down to get on the podcast and talk about the benefits of Miami. So let me know in the comments What you what you'd like me to ask him about Miami, but you know look over here. You know talking about Goldman Sachs joining the ranks of businesses moving to South Florida. So what does it basically mean? Well, now that we live in a remote first world, you know does it make sense to stay in a in a state like California as an example where they might bump you know state taxes to 16.8 percent or something like that, right? Or if you live in New York, you have high taxes. So. New York actually had about 35% of its tech workforce migrate out. And what the initial— this Bloomberg article was saying was that, look, when you have a bunch of people move out, you know, the top 1% or so, you could be losing almost $1 billion in tax revenue, right? So if just 5% of these folks decide to move away, a lot of these cities like New York, they're in big trouble. And so, you know, you got to think about it. We're in a world right now where we're printing more money and someone's going to have to pay the piper. And well, at the same time, a lot of them are just like, well, I don't want to pay more taxes. I'm just gonna move somewhere else. So does it make sense to move to Miami? What are the benefits? What are the lack of benefits? And I've actually thought this through because I had at one point gotten ready to actually move to Puerto Rico because, you know, there's a good contingent of entrepreneurs there and investors that I actually met when I was there. And then obviously the tax benefits are great. And then Miami is another option too. It's actually pretty close. And then, you know, I actually love Miami in terms of the city and the life. And then so there's actually kind of ups and downs, right? So I actually pulled this up. This is written by Grant Cardone, who actually moved from Los Angeles to Miami, I believe about 9 years ago. And so, you know, he talks about it— Miami is business and family friendly. It definitely is business friendly because again, you have people like the mayor of Miami supporting and then, you know, actually being out there and engaging with the tech community. So you have Keith Rabois, who is an investor, Shervin I forgot his last name, but he also moved there too. Early investor in Uber. You have the CEO of Pipe. He's down there. I'm just thinking about the tech people right now. The CEO of Eight Sleep is actually down there as well. And then Anthony Pompliano, who we've had on the podcast, I think he said something about considering moving down there as well. And so people want to visit Miami. That's true. Miami is a really fun place. I remember that when I was there earlier, kind of when I was 23. So I remember talking to a guy and he's like, Miami's a playground. So, you know, people want to go to a playground. So that's kind of a double-edged sword. It could be too much. Too much fun and kind of might over-index on that in some cases. But I actually think it's perfect. You just have to have self-control. So it definitely is business-friendly. It has some of the best real estate in the world, just Florida in general. And I agree with that. Delray Beach especially, they have amazing spots. So as I just saw, as you just saw over there, and let's see, a bunch of people that live there. I mean, these are just a bunch of people. Tom Cruise, I guess, lives there. Tony Robbins is there as well. You have, you know, hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones who actually just put a bunch of money into, into Bitcoin. But I think it's worth checking out. I'm not saying, you know, everything Grant Cardone says is, is like the end-all be-all here, but I think those are the positives, right? You have an amazing spot. The airports are great too. You know, in general, traffic is not that bad depending on what area you live in. And, you know, in terms of traveling to European countries or kind of South America, you're not that far away. So that's, that's beneficial as well. And you're also not super far away from New York, right? So I think that's good. And, you know, obviously not paying the state income taxes is good as well. But what I would say is when I think about the flip side to this is, you know, I'm in LA right now and I have a book coming out that is tied to the gaming world. And gaming, the gaming world, the epicenter is very much in LA. You have some of the top teams here, you have some of the gaming companies here as well, you have some of the top entrepreneurs here. And so from a networking perspective, LA seems to make a lot of sense. And sure, you can say, well, Eric, you could live in Miami and then fly to LA every now and then, or you could live in Nevada and fly, you know, pop over really quickly. And that's certainly a possibility, but I would say, you know, having that ability, the network effects here are tough to beat, right? And that's why you have a lot of people that have— you have a lot of people here that have a lot of money. And, you know, somehow they've decided, up to now at least, you have like the Elon Musks of the world, Joe Rogan as well, you have a lot of these different people They've actually moved out to Austin, Texas because they just had enough. I believe, what is it, Ben Shapiro, he moved over to Tennessee. But, you know, the argument could be made that the network effects here are very strong. If you're in the entertainment world or if you're in the gaming world, it might make sense to stick around to see what happens, right? So, that's kind of what I'm looking at right now. In terms of how I'm making decisions, yes, LA is beautiful, you know, it's got, you know, awesome weather, it's got awesome people, you know, there's a lot of different things to do around LA. And we got to see how the book turns out. I think a lot of it revolves around the book right now. So I'm going to kind of wait and see. But I will say that, you know, what's on my list is either, you know, staying in LA or even taking a look at Miami or taking a look at Austin. And I will say that Austin's great for it in terms of the tech world, tech, the tech migration going over there. Miami is just good for a good lifestyle. And then, um, you know, very business friendly as well. So we'll just leave it at that and you make your own decisions. But I think it's just, it's nice to think about this. Because who knows what's gonna happen in the next, the next, you know, year or two around taxes, how business-friendly certain states are, and things like that. I can tell you, you know, looking at San Francisco, they lost a ton of people. Actually, you know what, it was actually San Francisco that lost 35% of its tech people, its workforce. New York lost about 20% or so. So both are still very high. So again, we're in a remote-first world now, and you have a lot more options. Whether you are a business owner or whether you are, you know, self-employed or, you know, just employed somewhere. So anyway, that is it for today. Go to levelingup.com to learn more about the upcoming book I have, Leveling Up, and we'll catch you later.