Why stop there though? Why not open up shop near a university town with a low cost of living? Steady supply of interns, new hires, R&D partnerships, etc. Culture in a university town, while not on par with a major city, is generally quite well too.
This information may be out of date, its probably been three or four years since i was there.
But then of course, big companies will do it wrong. I'm reminded of companies moving to places like the D.C. area, where all their clients are in Virginia or Maryland, but go ahead and set up shop in D.C., where nobody from their client locations likes to go. Even better they'll pick one of the few spots in the city without metro access and make it even harder on themselves to do business.
Companies almost need relocation experts for setting up these kinds of remote sites.
As an example, I work in Oslo, and we have offices in Trondheim and Tromso as well due to the universities in those cities. Recruiting people to work in Oslo is quite easy, but almost nobody is willing to move to Trondheim or Tromso unless they were looking to move back there anyway.
The center of gravity also should move. Example, if all CXOs move then there is a chance that office will prosper and people from other parts of country would also move there even if they had no plans earlier.
Quite often I have seen that satellite office don't prosper because the center of action is still at HQ, that translates to freedom of moving between teams, opportunity to work on problems that really matter for the company, etc. Satellite office attracts only those folks who have reasons to be in those cities (usually for personal reasons, very seldom for professional ones).
Only way it can be really effective is if a company moves lock, stock and barrel to a new location - the way Boeing did in early 2000 (moved its HQ from Seattle to Chicago).
Apple, Intel, Disney, and a bunch of others still are.
0. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/dining/pittsburgh-restaura...
It's a delicate balance.
But before you see these companies trying to start a major hub in a university town, there are other large cities that would be more palatable: Chicago, Pittsburgh, Boston, and Portland are places I would expect to be considered. Even Raleigh/Durham and Charlotte since there's already a fair bit of momentum there, although I suspect them to be a more difficult sell for the same reasons I think Atlanta will have trouble attracting talent.
Atlanta would be somewhat attractive, except that Georgia has just passed their "Religious Freedom" law (i.e. the "We Support Discrimination" law). Tech companies tend to be more liberal and don't like limiting their applicant pool, and setting up shop there would certainly do so.