Austin Business Journal Celebrates 30 Years
South by Southwest has helped put Austin on the map in the past 30 years. Photo by KUT NewsAudio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
What a difference 30 years can make. The Austin Business Journal is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a special issue this week. The journal’s managing editor Tony Quesada joins KUT’s Ian Crawford to talk about how Austin has changed in that time. The main threads, it turns out, are technology and music.
Austin in the ’80s competed for and won the right to host what was called Micro Electronics and Computer Technology Corp. This was a consortium of a lot of tech company that did research, they spun out technology, and it was run by a gentleman named Bobby Inman, who was a retired Navy admiral. And it really put Austin on the map.
Then, of course, you have the cultural side. You have the South by Southwest music festival, which became the three-pronged festival it is today. ACL the television show was already existing at that time, but it also, in a way, spun out its brand to the festival of the same name that also brings a lot of attention, so our reputation as the Live Music Capital of the World flourishes today.
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