Forget the viral headlines about alligator wrestling or convenience store mishaps. The new \u201cFlorida Man\u201d wears a suit, works in finance or tech, and likely used to live in the Northeast.<\/p>\n
This is the archetype Mike Simas<\/a>, president of The Florida Council of 100<\/a>, is betting the state\u2019s economic future on (as well as his own). Partnering with billionaires Ken Griffin and Stephen Ross<\/a>, Simas is shepherding a high-stakes campaign to rebrand the Sunshine State, on behalf of top leaders from more than 200 companies across the state. The goal? To convince the world that Florida is no longer just a haven for retirees and Disney<\/a> tourists, but the premier destination for corporate headquarters.<\/p>\n A big problem is what everyone thinks they know about \u201cFlorida man.\u201d You know, the one that began as an X<\/a>.com account on 2013, moving the meme from basic cable programs such as The Soup into nationwide meme status<\/a>. HBO<\/a> even has a late-night comedy series<\/a>, It\u2019s Florida, Man, in which actors recreate the local-news headlines that went viral. <\/p>\n Washington Law professor Ira Robbins has explained<\/a> that the phenomenon most likely stems from Florida\u2019s Public Records Law, \u201cknown as one of the most expansive open records laws in the country.\u201d This implies that there is probably a California Man and a New York Man that we just don\u2019t know about yet, due to different public records access in those states.<\/p>\n This hits home for Simas, he told Fortune, a transplant from the Northeast (he\u2019s actually a Rhode Island Man) who is well aware of the need to tell the story of what he\u2019s found since moving to Florida at the beginning of the pandemic and starting a fascinating new stretch of his career. \u201cIf we don\u2019t step into this moment and do a good job telling Florida[\u2018s] story based on facts, things like the \u2018Florida man\u2019 meme will dominate the conversation,\u201d Simas said. \u201cAnd then we won\u2019t be able to attract the types of investment that we\u2019re looking to attract.\u201d<\/p>\n The \u2018Florida Man 2.0\u2018<\/p>\n Simas doesn\u2019t just represent this demographic; he is the demographic. A former executive vice president of the Partnership for New York City, Simas spent 15 years advocating for the Manhattan business community. Like many, he moved his family to Florida during the pandemic, assuming it was temporary. (He moved to Sarasota, the city with an outsized presence in American pop culture from the Ringling Brothers Circus to Pee-Wee Herman.)<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m literally the story in real life that you\u2019ve been hearing about Florida,\u201d Simas said. \u201cIf you asked me five years ago, \u2018will you ever live in Florida?\u2019 my answer would have been a hard \u2018no.\u2019 \u2026 And now looking back, it\u2019s incredible because I don\u2019t think I could ever go back to New York.\u201d<\/p>\n He describes the Sunshine State as much more than a great environment for business leaders to balance high achievement with a quality of life that has become increasingly difficult to maintain in legacy markets. \u201cWe think Florida is the next place for American exceptionalism to take off, and the place where the next generation of really innovative companies are going to be built and scale,\u201d Simas said. That\u2019s why Ken Griffin and Stephen Ross put their money where their mouths were.<\/p>\n The bold vision for the future<\/p>\n Simas\u2019 campaign, backed by the Council of 100\u2014a non-partisan organization of CEOs that has advised Florida governors since 1961\u2014wants more executives to consider the \u201cGold Coast,\u201d the moniker for a unified economic bloc consisting of Palm Beach, Broward (Fort Lauderdale), and Miami-Dade counties. Simas argued that the state is moving beyond its historical reliance on tourism and hospitality, industries that usually dip during downturns.<\/p>\n The executive revealed that the council partnered with McKinsey<\/a> several years ago, looking closely for the first time at the state economy and the key sectors to emphasize. Their research and resulting report<\/a>, for instance, found that over the past five recessions, the total GDP declines from dips in tourism averaged a 10% dip. And consumption-driven sectors \u2014 construction, real estate, retail, and tourism \u2014\u00a0accounted for 38.4% of real GDP in 2024, per the Bureau of Economic Analysis.<\/p>\n More broadly, the conclusion was that it was time for a new Florida Man. \u201cThere\u2019s a huge gap in what people think about Florida and what actually exists in Florida,\u201d Simas said, adding that he thinks the image is that Florida is a place only for tourism, not historically viewed as a place for business. Southeast Florida, where Griffin moved his Citadel hedge fund operations<\/a> and where Ross, the owner of the Miami Dolphins, oversees his real-estate empire, Related<\/a>, is just the start.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to tell the story around the whole state,\u201d Simas said, like his new home on the west coast in Sarasota. Simas said it reminds him of Providence \u201cin a lot of weird ways that I didn\u2019t expect,\u201d with a deep-rooted culture and design community dating back to the early 20th century.<\/p>\n The New York and California questions<\/p>\n Simas said the real draw for CEOs is certainty. \u201cUncertainty leads to hesitation on decisions,\u201d he said, but Florida offers a very business-friendly climate where \u201cthe rules are clear and they\u2019re not changing.\u201d<\/p>\n He argued that Florida will allow companies to grow without capping their growth and nodded to his old hometown of New York. \u201cWe\u2019ve been having this conversation for 25 years around 45% of entire state budgets relying on 1% of New York families paying the personal income tax. So the tax law in New York is inelastic. It is at capacity.\u201d (It was actually 46% in 2023<\/a>, the last year for which data is available.)<\/p>\n He noted recent comments from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul about the state losing income from people moving out. The Citizens Budget Commission<\/a>, a nonpartisan think tank founded during a New York fiscal crisis in 1932, found in August 2025 that New York had been outgained by California and Texas in new millionaires since 2010, while its share of millionaires fell from 12.7% to 8.7%, and an estimated $13 billion of tax revenue had left the state.<\/p>\n \u201cI think they\u2019re recognizing that as a problem,\u201d Simas said of New York\u2019s departing wealth. \u201cYou get to a point where people have to make a hard decision on where they invest next \u2026 Our view is that there are other options for you, and if you want to look at those other options, Florida should be on your list.\u201d<\/p>\n Simas contrasted Hochul\u2019s proposed budget of $260 billion<\/a>, released last month, against some 20 million in the state population, whereas Florida\u2019s budget is $115 billion<\/a> for 23 million Floridians\u2014a way lower cost of government per capita.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the case of California, with several high-profile billionaires decamping to Florida to escape an escalating tax burden, especially the proposed ballot initiative directly targeting billionaire wealth. Among them are several of the richest men on earth, including Google<\/a> co-founder Larry Page<\/a> and Meta<\/a> founder Mark Zuckerberg. It would be \u201cextraordinarily challenging\u201d to impose an income tax, let alone a billionaire wealth tax, he said, noting the state constitution forbids it. Beyond<\/a> that, Simas said, \u201cwe don\u2019t have potholes.\u201d<\/p>\n While it\u2019s true that Florida has attracted a wave of executives, financiers, and tech founders since the pandemic, Florida\u2019s economy remains built on consumption, not creation. Finance and tech may be expanding in Florida\u2019s \u201cGold Coast,\u201d but the New York City metro area has more finance than Silicon Valley and Southeast Florida combined. The Council of 100 told Fortune that the Gold Coast has more finance than Silicon Valley, however, citing proprietary data from Chmura\u00a0Economics & Analytics.<\/p>\n The influx of billionaires and fund managers has lifted luxury real-estate prices significantly, with even former Mayor Francis Suarez admitting to Fortune last October<\/a> that \u201cthere\u2019s definitely a gentrification happening in Miami.\u201d The Council noted that productivity, wages, and personal income have all increased in the the Gold Coast from 2022 to 2024. Florida has a long history of asset bubbles<\/a>, raising the question of how these trends would fare in a severe downturn.<\/p>\n Florida\u2019s default positioning, Simas said, is: \u201chow much of this money can we keep in people\u2019s pockets in the state while still doing a great job delivering services? And that\u2019s been consistent through the years.\u201d Since 2003, when Florida\u2019s budget was $54 billion and New York\u2019s was $100 billion, the populations of the states have forked in opposite directions. \u201cIt\u2019s really remarkable when you look at it, because it\u2019s just not a sustainable growth curve when you look at public revenue and funding.\u201d Florida\u2019s approach to government and its relationship to business \u201cisn\u2019t going to be anything that changes quickly, which gives investors, CEOs and founders confidence to deploy capital in this market.\u201d The water\u2019s warm, in other words. Are you ready to be Florida Man 2.0?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Forget the viral headlines about alligator wrestling or convenience store mishaps. The new \u201cFlorida Man\u201d wears a suit,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[16331,4535,28,30,29,802,14594,8527],"class_list":{"0":"post-156266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-billionaires","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-florida-headlines","12":"tag-florida-news","13":"tag-ken-griffin","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-taxes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}