While most of us were gearing up for the new year, something happened quietly toward the end of last year.
The founders of Google — Larry Page and Sergey Brin — began moving parts of their business and investment structures out of California. Dozens of entities tied to them were either shut down or re-registered elsewhere. Nevada. Florida. Texas. A large home in Miami. A private air terminal moved under a different jurisdiction, the New York Times reported.
None of this is illegal. None of it is especially surprising. But it is telling.
Page and Brin built Google in California at a time when the internet was still young, smartphones didn’t exist, and Facebook hadn’t been launched. Google grew alongside Silicon Valley itself, feeding off the talent, capital, universities, and risk appetite that the state had cultivated for decades.
Now, California is considering a one-time wealth tax on residents worth more than a billion dollars. If it passes, it would apply retroactively. And that possibility seems to have concentrated minds.
Some of the reactions have been loud. Venture capitalists warning of capital flight. Entrepreneurs saying innovation will suffer. Others pushing back, arguing that extreme wealth should contribute more to public systems that are under strain.
But I’m less interested in who is right, and more interested in what this moment reveals.
In the digital economy, wealth travels easily. Code doesn’t care about borders. Intellectual property fits neatly into legal entities. For people whose fortunes are mostly numbers on paper moving is often a matter of paperwork and planning.
States, on the other hand, move slowly. Laws take time. Ballot measures take even longer. They are built for a world where capital stayed put longer than it does now. That mismatch is what we’re seeing play out.
Some tech leaders, like Jensen Huang of Nvidia, have said publicly that they accept whatever taxes California decides to impose. Others have chosen to quietly reduce their exposure. Both responses make sense from their own vantage points.
But together, they point to something uncomfortable.
The relationship between wealth and place is weakening.
In earlier eras, companies needed to stay close to factories, ports, workers, and infrastructure. Leaving a place meant real disruption. Today, many of the most valuable companies and individuals can operate almost anywhere.
That gives capital flexibility. It also weakens the idea of obligation.
California’s problem isn’t simply whether a wealth tax is good policy. It’s whether states can still shape outcomes when the people they’re trying to govern can so easily opt out. Push too hard, and they leave. Push too little, and inequality deepens.
While California’s case is not unique, its where the tension is most visible right now.
As AI and automation concentrate wealth further, more governments will face the same dilemma. How do you fund public goods when the most mobile people benefit the most from systems they no longer feel tied to?
There are no neat answers here. Only trade-offs.
What struck me most was the quietness of it. No press releases. No grand statements. Just filings, deeds, and addresses changing. That’s often how big shifts begin.
Not with drama. But with people calmly preparing for a future where allegiance is flexible, and place matters less than it used to.
And perhaps that’s the real question this moment raises — not just for California, but for all of us building and working in technology. If the systems we create allow us to move faster than the societies we depend on, what do we still owe them?
I don’t have an answer. But it feels like the right question to sit with.
(This was originally published as a Decoded column)
