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Comment by usaar333 | Hacker News Reader

> If Google created a new HQ in Kansas City, with it's fiber links, and low cost of living, and added really great benefits like free day care, etc, then won't software engineers move there, especially those that are ready to start a family? I bet you they would. I definitely would.

Maybe some, but I'd be really surprised if you get substantial numbers of your top people to move - which effectively blocks the overall team moving.

A Google Staff engineer makes $400k+. On such a salary, the high cost of living in the Bay Area really isn't a problem; sure in Kansas you could afford a mansion on that salary, but a lot of folks (myself included) prefer "paying" for the Bay Area's weather, scenery, and culture over larger living.

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At some point though, if Bay area housing prices continue to rise because of all the people who must must must live there, the Googles and Apples of the world aren't going to keep raising salary levels accordingly. And startups/smaller companies (to say nothing of many non-tech jobs) certainly won't/can't. Something's got to give and even if housing supply increases somewhat (as it's slowly doing) there's inevitably going to be some equilibrium where enough potential employees and employers go enough is enough and move elsewhere.

After all, there are plenty of successful, non-startup companies that are quite distributed.

Aren't there attractive places in California where tech companies could set up offices to accommodate those who want to leave the valley, while still making sure everyone is still just a few hours drive away if they should be required in a meeting at main HQ?

Attractive enough to pull the top talent? No

The underlying problem here is the same problem you have with remote work - it's vastly harder to get complex tasks done when people are remote. For all sorts of reasons (including project expediency), you ideally want the front-line programmers in the same office as the technical leaders.

So how do you think most open source software development, for example, happens? Or does that not qualify as a complex task? Because a huge amount of open source development happens through distributed individuals and groups many of which don't even work for the same company.

Tbf, Open source is as complex but it would be VERY hard in most open source OSS to coordinate things that must happen quickly. Email a maintainer or submit a pull request? Might be merged tomorrow. Or next week. When he gets around to it. That model just doesn't work in business.

Although I'll note that many businesses use/incorporate/sell software based on open source projects. The trick here is that you have expertise in and connections with the community so you're not just emailing a maintainer.

Quite a lot of open source development is much less distributed as you think.

Well, some projects are small and some are pretty concentrated in a specific co-located company team. But I'm aware of many that are pretty spread out geographically either because a company is distributed, there are contributors from many different organizations, or a combination of the two.

I meant, as an option to people already in the valley. There must be tons of talent that join these companies when they don't have kids, and would like to work some place where they have more space, more nature etc, when they get older and have kids.

I mean I moved out of a city to a distance of about an hour. I have the benefit of being able to work from home so I don't have to go to the office, but I'd very much appreciate if the company set up a satellite office closer to where I'm at. The alternative to having to work full time in the city isn't really an option. Either I work from home, or somewhere close. And these tech cos right now have to be losing people to rural companies, if they don't allow them to work from home and don't set up alternatives to SV offices.

One standard "alternative" to the Bay Area these days to be Seattle, which also is a culturally interesting metropolis.

There's always huge cost in fragmentation with adding an additional office; I'd imagine far more people would rather move to Seattle than a rural area.

None of them are cheap...just cheaper

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