The 115 software engineers in Auger's Bellevue office still have their jobs. But the executive payroll, the customer-facing roles and the corporate headquarters of the supply chain startup founded by former Amazon operations chief Dave Clark are now in North Dallas.
Clark, who spent 23 years at Amazon and once ran its worldwide consumer business, co-founded Auger with his wife Leigh Anne Clark in Bellevue in 2024. The company has raised $150 million, counts Meta, Fanatics and Kimberly-Clark among its customers, and employs about 130 people. In a GeekWire interview published Wednesday, Aug. 12, Clark said the relocation was driven by family ties, weather and Dallas's deep pool of supply chain talent, not taxes.
Then he kept talking.
"Seattle should just be careful. It's not preordained that they win these things. It's not preordained that these big companies stay in town," Clark told GeekWire.
He said he sensed an "anti-business" sentiment in the Seattle region since returning to launch Auger but declined to name a specific policy. About 15 employees now work at Auger's Dallas headquarters on the 15th floor of One Galleria Tower. Clark expects to add 20 to 30 more there by mid-2027, while the Bellevue engineering team should grow 20% to 30%.
The vacancy pattern
Auger is one company. But it lands in a pattern that neighborhood commercial corridors across Seattle are feeling. Downtown Seattle's office vacancy rate hit 35.8% in the second quarter of 2026, the worst of any major U.S. downtown, according to Cushman & Wakefield data cited by the Downtown Seattle Association. The city has lost roughly 30,000 downtown jobs since 2020. Office properties have shed $15 billion in value, shifting $128 million in annual property tax burden onto homeowners and small businesses, per King County assessor data reported by the Seattle Times.
Downtown Seattle leased just 2% of its office inventory in the first half of 2026, compared to 6% in Bellevue, according to brokerage Kidder Mathews.
The tax debate
The Downtown Seattle Association's June 2026 report found Seattle's JumpStart payroll tax costs employers between $1,450 and $9,390 per job. Bellevue has no comparable payroll expense tax, and Seattle's B&O tax rate runs two to four times higher depending on industry. About 70% of JumpStart revenue comes from just 10 companies, most in tech.
Jon Scholes, president and CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association, told KOMO News in June that the city is "going in the wrong direction" and blamed the B&O tax, the payroll tax and "the tone and tenor over many years of city government toward employers." In a July 26 Seattle Times profile of Mayor Katie Wilson, Scholes said some of her public comments have been "damaging to Seattle's brand" but added he doesn't think "all is lost" in the business community's ability to work with her.
City Councilmember Robert Kettle has proposed lowering the JumpStart tax rate and threshold as part of a budget realignment plan. Seattle faces a projected $175 million deficit, and Wilson's budget proposal is expected in September.
What's next
The Association of Washington Business found nearly one in four state employers are actively considering leaving, roughly triple the share from 16 months earlier, after lawmakers approved a 9.9% levy on personal income above $1 million. Mayor Wilson's office has not issued a public statement responding to Auger's departure. Her September budget proposal will signal whether the city intends to adjust the tax structure that business groups say is accelerating the exodus.
