A Slack channel for Y Combinator founders who moved from San Francisco to Austin had to be capped at 150 because 'there were too many people'

• A portfolio company of VC firm Initialized created a Slack channel designated for Y Combinator founders who relocated from San Francisco to Austin, according to a tweet posted by a partner at the firm.
• The Slack channel had to be capped at 150 members because there were so many people who had fled San Francisco and made the move to Austin.
• The news is another piece of a growing pile of evidence that tech talent is leaving the San Francisco Bay Area during the pandemic — amid a remote work era — and leaving for Austin's tech scene.
• The Texas capital city has a long history with the tech industry, as IBM, Dell Technologies, and Samsung all having planted roots in the Central Texas region over the past few decades.

A company has reportedly created a work messaging channel full of Y Combinator founders who have relocated from the San Francisco Bay Area to Austin, Texas.

Initialized partner Kim-Mai Cutler tweeted about the group on Thursday and told Business Insider in an email that the Slack channel was created by one of the VC firm's portfolio companies. The group, Cutler tweeted, had to be capped at 150 people because "there were too many people."

The tweet comes as more tech talent makes the move from Silicon Valley to Texas during the COVID-19 pandemic and a subsequent shift to remote work. Corporate offices remain shuttered, and tech workers and executives are no longer tethered to living near them. Many are specifically moving to the Texas capital city of Austin.

Read more: Is Silicon Valley finally dead?

The tech industry has a long history in Austin, with companies like IBM, Dell Technologies, and Samsung having set up shop in the city over the decades.

Dropbox CEO Drew Houston is reportedly moving to Austin. Palantir cofounder and venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale already lived in the Central Texas city and confirmed in early November that he is moving his firm, 8VC, there as well.

And Tesla founder and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is the latest high-profile tech figure that has announced he's moving to Texas, but it's unclear where in the state he is moving. Tesla has a Cybertruck factory under construction in the Austin area.

"For myself, yes, I have moved to Texas," Musk told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. "We've got the Starship development here in South Texas where I am right now. We're hopefully going to do a launch later today. And then we've got big factory developments just outside of Austin for Giga Texas."

Tech companies like Silicon Valley veteran Hewlett-Packard Enterprise are moving elsewhere in Texas. News recently surfaced that HPE was relocating its headquarters from San Jose to Houston, Texas. The firm has been based in the tech region. since it was founded in 1939. The one-car garage that HP was famously launched out of has become known as the "Birthplace of Silicon Valley."