> Google is one of several thousand employers that are both hiring and pay reasonably well.

I lived in Dallas for almost fifteen years. The vast majority of those companies ignored me even when I applied. Many of those same companies are now starting to beat my door down because I changed my location to New York. This industry seems to have a serious problem with geographic myopia.

Just from your list, Facebook ignored me until I moved to New York, Intel ignored me, nVidia ignored me, IBM ignored me, Microsoft basically ignored me. The only companies that approached me or responded to my applications were Google and Amazon, and only Amazon has been persistent.