This overall reduced cost to a company is significant enough to invest in the market. As India is still considered a developing country, the quality of life, while debatable, would be considered a downgrade for many who could potentially be poached from other regions.
Which is exactly what he was saying.
And, all the money in the world can't buy good air quality.
Tech companies are especially inclined or incentivized to offshore work because their highest cost/liability sinks are their employees. Other sectors, a significant portion of their costs/liabilities are equipment, supplies, etc. Tech industry is unique in that their employees are their biggest liabilities.
I know that tech companies have been struggling the past decade+ on trying to rein in their employee costs. HR departments have trying hard to lower employee costs.
The move to bring in more women and minorities into tech is a commendable goal by FB, GOOGL and the tech industry, but it's also driven by rising employee costs. It's not spoken about widely and openly but these companies are desperate to get control over rising salaries/costs in the industry.
Diversity is a great way to maintain and lower employee costs that have political/social benefits. Another way to lower costs is offshoring, but that has a lot of political/social costs.
But profits are profits and costs are costs. The industry isn't going to stop offshoring because of bad publicity given how much they stand to gain.