They bought their new building in Boulder for $131 million, which about doubled the available seating. They also expanded their Pittsburgh office in the last few years.

http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-business/ci_31319589/goog...

https://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2014/02/03/googl...

I work at Google in Pittsburgh and we are hiring & expanding.

Here's a story published earlier this year,

https://www.geekwire.com/2018/google-early-pioneer-pittsburg...

Munich and Zurich are both quite far from the coast.

Of course, they're also expensive cities: Zurich is one of the most expensive in Europe, and Munich is the most expensive city in Germany.

Now, maybe this is because the Google executive team loves throwing away money on the most expensive cities for no reason. But I think a more likely explanation is that the same desirability that drives up prices also makes it more attractive for talent and employers.

Let's be real, what non coastal city has the current talent pool or the cultural draw for the highly educated, politically progressive workforce Google is after? Spoken as someone born, raised, and currently living in the interior of the US. Google invests in proportion to the talent pool, with decently sized and growing offices in Waterloo, Pittsburgh, and Boulder. If tens of thousands of qualifed tech workers were clamoring to work in these locations, I'm sure Google would invest accordingly. But it would be ridiculous to think of Pittsburgh and NY as equals.

Google was known to have many remote offices during it's earlier years. It is rumored that they came to regret doing that so early on.