The rebellious Texas city—forged with the Longhorn State’s can-do persistence cut with a university town’s political activism and social diversity—has long attracted the misfits that didn’t quite fit into the south’s expectations. That foundation of thinking differently drew dreamers for decades, manifesting in one of the nation’s top music scenes. The city’s marking organization, Visit Austin, trademarked the city as “Live Music Capital of the World.” On any given night, the city’s various entertainment districts serve up performance experiences like nowhere else on earth. South By Southwest, the annual summit of film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences (plus a fair share of historic product launches like Airbnb) has seeded the area’s magnetism for new ventures. As such, monikers like ‘Silicon Hills’ have followed campus openings by Apple, Facebook, Google, Oracle, Dell, Cisco, and Hewlett-Packard. A skills shortage isn’t an issue, after all, with a steady flow of graduates pouring out from the University of Texas, and the promise of epic nights after hard days.