Apple appears to be on its way to becoming the biggest employer in the Austin, Texas, area and may soon eclipse Dell. Having gotten under way in May with the construction on a new $16.5 million, 200,000-square foot building in North Austin to open by 2015, plus a second, $226 million, 800,000-square-foot office building due no later than 2025, Apple is required under a deal it reached with commissioners in Texas’ Travis County to hire no fewer than 3,655 workers on top of the 4,000 it employs in Austin now.

If current trends continue and Apple keeps adding people — and Dell keeps cutting, as it has been over the last few years — Apple will become the biggest job creator in Central Texas. The prediction comes from local economist Angelos Angelou.

The expected increase in Austin may or may not have something to do with Apple’s plans to shift some of its Mac manufacturing footprint to the U.S. and away from China next year. CEO Tim Cook disclosed the plan in interviews with Bloomberg Businessweek and NBC last week, but first hinted about it in his appearance at D: All Things Digital in May.

And Apple is also responsible for indirectly creating a lot of jobs. Example: South Korean chip giant Samsung manufactures Apple’s A5x and A6 chips used in the iPad and iPhone at a factory outside Austin.

That’s the classic line that companies often use when the choice was “resign or be fired.” It’s not exactly clear what happened. (Update: Not so much. See below.)

Suresh Vaswani was named to replace him. Vaswani is a 25-year veteran of India’s Wipro and is a former co-CEO of its IT business unit, and even served on its board of directors.

I spoke at length with Schuckenbrock in September. He had been co-COO at EDS, the IT services company that Hewlett-Packard acquired for $13.9 billion in 2008. (It later wrote down the value of EDS by $8 billion.)

Schuckenbrock was part of a new wave of senior hires at Dell — including Marius Haas, who’s running the Enterprise business, and former CA CEO John Swainson, who’s running the new software division and has been tasked with turning the old PC giant into an enterprise-focused full-service IT company.

It’s also odd that he would leave so soon, especially after Dell spent $1.9 million to move him and his family from Round Rock outside Austin, to Plano, Texas, which worked out to a cost of $9,655.19 a mile.

The move was to take over the services business, including the former Perot Systems business that Dell acquired in 2009. Before that, Schuckenbrock had been CIO and then for two years he had been President of the Large Enterprise Business Unit.

Update: I just checked in with a source familiar with the situation and he says it was definitely a resignation. The short explanation: Shuckenbrock wants to be CEO somewhere.

As usual, there are videos all over YouTube of J.R.’s greatest moments, and here is my favorite:

Luke Beatty, the founder of Associated Content, has been named managing director of TechStars’ Boulder, Colo., program.

Beatty, who had been an entrepreneur in residence at the start-up accelerator, had previously been a top-level content exec at Yahoo before leaving in April. The Associated Content unit had been bought by the Silicon Valley Internet giant in 2008 for $90 million.

As described on its Web site, the organization takes only 10 companies per city: “TechStars is a mentorship-driven seed stage investment program. We run a three month long program in Boston (MA), Boulder (CO), Cloud (San Antonio, TX), New York City (NY), and Seattle (WA) once each year … These companies get $18,000 in seed funding. In addition, companies accepted into the program are offered a $100,000 convertible debt note by a group of prominent VCs immediately upon acceptance into TechStars.”

“I really believe in the TechStars community-driven model and the viability of the start-up scene in Colorado,” said Beatty. “It is my good fortune to be able to work with the diverse group of successful entrepreneurs that TechStars supports — both existing and prospective.”

Added TechStars CEO David Cohen: “Luke has been a mentor here at TechStars for some time. Not only is he an amazing entrepreneur, but he’s the kind of person that digs in and goes deep. It’s obvious that he genuinely loves working with start-ups, and that makes him a natural fit here at TechStars.”

Here’s her question, which you can find on page 48 of the transcript:

Crowley: Mr. President, we have a really short time for a quick discussion here. IPad, the Macs, the iPhones, they are all manufactured in China, and one of the major reasons is labor is so much cheaper [there]. How do you convince a great American company to bring that manufacturing back here?

The correct answer is that, under current conditions, which are highly unlikely to change no matter who is president, the job of assembling iPhones and iPads and other consumer electronics is now done mostly in China by companies that specialize in manufacturing, and will never come back to the U.S. And that’s okay.

Sadly, both Obama and Romney flubbed their answers, and educated voters not at all.

Romney made his response about how China is a currency manipulator and steals American intellectual property. Obama got started down the right path, correctly admitting that certain low-skilled jobs aren’t coming back, and mentioned “high-wage, high-skilled jobs.” But he failed to close the deal on his point. He then got off track talking about investing in research and training engineers. In part because the time was so short, neither delivered a clear correct answer about an issue that is widely and fundamentally misunderstood by most voters.

Here’s what one of them — either one, I don’t care which, and assuming no time limit — should have said in response:

“Candy, I understand how some people might get frustrated when they see Chinese workers assembling iPhones. It’s easy to think that those jobs rightly belong in America. The reality is a little more complex, but when you understand it, there’s a surprising amount of good news for American workers.

“The fact is, assembling iPhones and iPads is the final step of a complex process, and is really a low-skill, low-cost kind of job. China has spent decades building much of its economy around these low-skill jobs, in part because it has such a large labor force and plenty of workers who are willing to do the work. And, frankly, here in America you wouldn’t want to try to support a family on the kind of wages a job like that would pay. I know it sounds harsh, but it’s true. So I know this may sound odd when I say it, but I ask you to hear me out: I’m perfectly comfortable letting those kinds of jobs go to China or somewhere else.

“In fact, some researchers at the University of California at Berkeley found that for every iPad or iPhone manufactured, Chinese workers add $10 or less to the value of an iPad or iPhone. On an iPad, they found that American workers add $162 worth of value, and on an iPhone it was more than twice as much.

“In America, when we talk about manufacturing, we should be talking about advanced manufacturing jobs for highly skilled workers that require a solid education and pay wages on which you can support a family. And the fact is, there’s a lot of American work that goes into an iPad or an iPhone or a Mac.

“For one thing, there’s our semiconductor companies, like Intel, an American company that makes the most advanced and complex device ever created — the microprocessor — and that does it better than any other company in the world. It makes the primary brain that goes inside the Mac, most of the world’s personal computers and most of the servers that power the Internet. And most of those chips are made right here in California and Arizona and Oregon. Some are made in Israel, too. But most are made here in the U.S.A.

“And the microprocessors that go inside the iPad and the iPhone are made right here in America, too. Apple doesn’t make its own chips, and when it went looking for another company to help it do that, it picked a Korean company called Samsung. And where did Samsung decide to build these chips? Some place in Korea? No. The answer will surprise you: Texas. That’s right. Samsung operates one of its very biggest chip factories in Austin.

“Then there’s the shatter-resistant glass that you touch every time you use an iPhone or iPad. It was invented in America. And it’s made in America, too, by American workers at a company called Corning, in Kentucky and New York.

“And that’s just one piece of it. There are a lot of other great jobs held by American workers. Apple has a lot of smart designers who sweated over every little detail of how the iPad and iPhone look, and how they feel in your hand, and how the button works. Teams of software developers slowly, painstakingly designed and built and tweaked and refined the software that makes it so fun and useful.

“And we’re not done there. If you have an iPhone or an iPad, you have a favorite app. Right now, my favorite app is the one created by my campaign staff. And when I take a break on the campaign bus, my wife and I like to relax for a few minutes playing Words With Friends. She beats me every time. And how many apps are there? A million? A zillion? But that’s an example of another American company, Zynga, creating jobs for the people who create game software. And there are lots more Zyngas, some of them really small companies with just a few people, and some a lot bigger. Apple once counted, and said that there were more than 200,000 people working at jobs just making apps.

“And let’s not forget that just a little more than five years ago, this branch of the technology industry didn’t exist at all. Apple brought out the first iPhone in 2007, and the first apps started coming to the marketplace in 2008. And don’t get me started about Google and its Android phones and tablets, and the chips and software that go into those. Or Facebook, and all the interesting things it’s doing.

“So, to answer your question, Candy, I’m not terribly worried that American workers aren’t assembling iPhones and iPads in America. They’re busy doing more important jobs, and earning good wages doing it right here in America. And as president, I’ll do everything in my power to help encourage the creation of more jobs right here in America, and to encourage entrepreneurs to start new companies so they can create the next Apple or Google or Intel or Facebook.

“It’s something we in America do better than anyone else. And we can argue about the details of how we should go about doing that. My opponent and I have some strong differences of opinion on some of those things we might do, and you should learn about those differences and think long and hard about them, because they’re important. But, over the long term, when I look at the iPhone and the iPad, I see something that could only have happened in America. And I feel pretty good about the role the American worker plays in it. And so should you.

“Next question.”

=====
Update: A few people have pointed out that President Obama in his response to Crowley’s question got off to a better start than I initially gave him credit for. However, I don’t think he quite closed the deal on the argument. Then, owing I think in part to the tight time constraints, he got off track. Either way, I’ve adjusted that lead-in paragraph above to reflect this.

For the sake of discussion I’ve added the text of the full exchange below.

CROWLEY: Mr. President, we have a really short time for a quick discussion here.
IPad, the Macs, the iPhones, they are all manufactured in China, and one of the major reasons is labor is so much cheaper [there]. How do you convince a great American company to bring that manufacturing back here?

ROMNEY: The answer is very straightforward. We can compete with anyone in the world as long as the playing field is level. China’s been cheating over the years, one, by holding down the value of their currency, number two, by stealing our intellectual property, our designs, our patents, our technology. There’s even an Apple store in China that’s a counterfeit Apple store selling counterfeit goods. They hack into our computers. We will have to have people play on a fair basis. That’s number one.

Number two, we have to make America the most attractive place for entrepreneurs, for people who want to expand a business. That’s what brings jobs in. The president’s characterization of my tax plan …

OBAMA: How much time you got, Candy?

ROMNEY: …. is completely … is completely false.

CROWLEY: Let me go to the president here, because we really are running out of time. And the question is can we ever get — we can’t get wages like that. It can’t be sustained here.

OBAMA: Candy, there are some jobs that are not going to come back, because they’re low-wage, low-skill jobs. I want high-wage, high-skill jobs. That’s why we have to emphasize manufacturing. That’s why we have to invest in advanced manufacturing. That’s why we’ve got to make sure that we’ve got the best science and research in the world.

And when we talk about deficits, if we’re adding to our deficit for tax cuts for folks who don’t need them and we’re cutting investments in research and science that will create the next Apple, create the next new innovation that will sell products around the world, we will lose that race. If we’re not training engineers to make sure that they are equipped here in this country, then companies won’t come here. Those investments are what’s going to help to make sure that we continue to lead this world economy not just next year, but 10 years from now, 50 years from now, a hundred years from now.

But it may not matter anymore. A new survey by Wells Fargo analyst Matt Nemer showed that consumers in Texas, the second most populous state in the nation, essentially haven’t changed their buying habits since the online sales tax went into effect in July.

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Kellbot

In a legal filing Tuesday, Google answered the suit Abbott filed against it in June demanding some 14,500 internal documents it has been witholding from his office, citing attorney-client privilege by once again arguing that they are protected communications. The email discussions Abbot has requested are indeed privileged, and Google is justified in keeping them under wraps, the company said in its filing.

Abbott’s office will undoubtedly take issue with Google’s response, and for the same reasons it sued the company in June: Many of the documents Google claims as attorney-client privileged aren’t protected because they either A) were never sent to an actual attorney, or B) were not accompanied by a request for legal review. As Abbott argued in his suit, “Google has not met its burden of demonstrating that the privilege is applicable to many of the documents withheld.”

Reached for comment, Google reiterated the statement it made in June: “We have shared hundreds of thousands of documents with the Texas Attorney General, and we are happy to answer any questions that regulators have about our business.”

News of the company’s filing was first reported by Mlex.

(Image courtesy of Kellbot)

This week, Texas AG Greg Abbott filed a civil suit against Google demanding the company hand over a bunch of documents it has allegedly been withholding from Abbott’s office. Evidently Google has, on a number of occasions, either redacted documentation or refused outright to turn documents over, claiming attorney-client privilege. But according to Abbott, many of the documents at issue aren’t protected because they either A) weren’t sent to an actual attorney, or B) didn’t request a legal review.

An example:

“On May 3, 2012 Google’s counsel wrote a letter to the Attorney General’s Office identifying eleven documents containing an allegedly privileged email and requesting that the Attorney General delete all copies of these documents. The email in question is from one Google Vice President to his superior. Though the email begins with a header noting that it purports to be “Attorney Client Priveleged [sic],” neither the author nor the recipient is an attorney and the content of the email makes no reference to legal advice.”

Abbot says Google has withheld about 14,500 documents citing attorney-client privilege, and while a number of them are certainly protected, there are others that are not. “Google has not met its burden of demonstrating that the privilege is applicable to many of the documents withheld,” the suit alleges.

Reached for comment, Google reiterated its pledge of cooperation. “We have shared hundreds of thousands of documents with the Texas attorney general, and we are happy to answer any questions that regulators have about our business,” a Google spokeswoman said in a statement.

The complaint in full:

Google Petition _6-18-12 FILE STAMP_ _1_ –

With the deal, the Seattle-based company is on track to collect sales taxes in 12 states, which make up about 40% of the U.S. population, by 2016. Amazon currently collects taxes in five states. Since 2011, it has reached agreements with seven other states, including Texas, to begin tax collection over the next four years.

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This version: “The Hipster Games,” with ironic young people from five districts — Portland, Austin, Brooklyn, Oakland and Silverlake in Los Angeles — fighting to the death for that old Talking Heads vinyl record album.

Enjoy: