> California remains the center because the companies are already headquartered there due to decisions made 50 years ago by the military for radar technology:
Poor argument. It doesn't explain why the auto industry didn't hire all the self driving car engineers to work in the Midwest or why the communications companies didn't hire them all to work on the East Coast. Google itself has offices all over the world, but it put the Chauffeur team in Mountain View. If you really think that the military industrial complex that started Silicon Valley gives it an insurmountable advantage for building a self driving car company, Arizona's decision to even try to pull them away looks even more stupid.
> Oh, red carpet for bad actors? Where is it that Uber is headquartered again?
In California, which reaps all the benefits from taxing its highly paid employees without incurring any of the costs of its out-of-control self driving car program, which Arizona's governor welcomed with much fanfare.
> And doesn't Waymo also test in Arizona?
It does. It also tests extensively in California and has engineered its vehicles to comply with the new California regulations that allow cars on public roads that have no human driver inside. Notably, all the highly paid engineers remain in California, and the advanced testing facility with highly paid testers (unlike the temp workers hired for the public road tests) was built in California too because advanced testing on private facilities is correctly less regulated. Arizona's problem is that it underregulated testing on public roads.