{"id":750,"date":"2026-06-20T23:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T23:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/?p=750"},"modified":"2026-06-20T23:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T23:27:09","slug":"man-who-died-in-texas-plane-crash-was-a-key-figure-in-seeding-austins-technology-boom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/?p=750","title":{"rendered":"Man who died in Texas plane crash was a key figure in seeding Austin&#8217;s technology boom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"prism-article-body\">\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">Joshua Baer, who died when a <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/texas-plane-crash-9d1eb45ec3c4482f2362ec3a39693a82\">small jet crashed in Texas<\/a>, described himself as an \u201cAustinpreneur,\u201d a reference to the state capital and his specialty of helping people get into business.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Baer&#8217;s LinkedIn page shows him wearing a black T-shirt and pointing at the message: \u201cI help people quit jobs.\u201d His email had a similar handle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Baer, 50, was the founder of <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/capitalfactory.com\/\">Capital Factory<\/a>, which has grown into an important Austin-based venture capital firm supporting a wide range of technology startup companies, from robots to autonomous ships.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">He listed his life strategy as, \u201cPlant lots of seeds. Water everyone&#8217;s. Repeat.\u201d Austin&#8217;s business leaders said it was the truth. The mayor in 2023 gave Baer a key to the city, a symbol of civic honor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cWhether you&#8217;re in technology or not, there\u2019s a hole in the heart of Austin today,\u201d Thom Singer, CEO of the Austin Technology Council, which promotes the local tech industry, said of Baer&#8217;s death. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Bryan Chambers, co-founder and president of Capital Factory, said his business partner was a \u201ctrue super connector.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Baer was aboard a business jet that crashed Tuesday on a highway in Laredo, Texas, after the pilots reported mechanical problems and requested to make an emergency landing at an airport.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">After graduating from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he created an email marketing business, Baer moved to Austin in 1996 to work as a software developer at Trilogy Inc. He started Capital Factory in 2009 and regularly held business chats with people at a coffee shop.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cMy hobby is startups,\u201d Baer told the Austin American-Statesman in 2012. \u201cI don\u2019t watch sports or anything like that. So this is what I do. &#8230; I want to be an investor in every great tech company that comes out of Austin. That\u2019s probably unrealistic, but I\u2019m going to try anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Baer often spoke to high school students and had the title of \u201centrepreneur in residence\u201d at the University of Texas. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cHe was passionate that technology could change the world and make people&#8217;s lives efficient and better,\u201d Singer said. \u201cAnd if entrepreneurs did it right, they could make money and help their communities. He believed in those two things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said he was deeply saddened by Baer\u2019s death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">\u201cJosh has been one of the most significant figures driving innovation and entrepreneurship across America. In Texas, he made our state a global leader,&#8221; Cruz said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.com\/US\/wireStory\/man-died-texas-plane-crash-key-figure-seeding-133978662\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joshua Baer, who died when a small jet crashed in Texas, described himself as an \u201cAustinpreneur,\u201d a reference to the state capital and his specialty of helping people get into business. Baer&#8217;s LinkedIn page shows him wearing a black T-shirt and pointing at the message: \u201cI help people quit jobs.\u201d His email had a similar&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1newslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}