So no tax or media related incentives to being in the Bay Area? You don't think it's worth more to Google to say: "Our headquarters are in SF" rather than: "Our headquarters are in podunk MT"?

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that 90% of the reason FANG companies operate in large metropolitan areas has almost nothing to do with employees and everything to do with global image.

That does not make a lot of sense to me. Google did not open a Seattle office because it enhanced their "global image", but because the presence of Microsoft, UW, Amazon, and a generally thriving tech scene meant that they would gain access to lots of experienced engineers who might be unwilling to move to California. Now they employ thousands of people up here. Facebook did the same thing; they also have a large Seattle office, right down the street from Amazon. Apple has a Seattle office too, focusing on machine learning. Not quite up to a thousand people yet, last I heard, but they have plans to grow. Lots of ML going on in Seattle.

When Intel acquired the AI startup I worked for a couple years ago, they built us a downtown office, much bigger than our team currently needed. Why? Because there are lots of AI people in Seattle who will not move to California, and Intel wants a chance to hire them. But it's still a very small office compared to Intel's global footprint; it does not affect their "image" at all. It's just a practical way of gaining access to Seattle's engineering talent.

It is a simple virtuous cycle. The presence of good jobs draws people who want to work in the field, and the presence of people with experience draws the companies who want to hire them. Geographic concentration is efficient.

Would that image or media related incentive exist without the huge amount of tech work in the Bay Area? My point is that the pull of the Bay Area is cyclical - supply of tech workers fuels the SV image which fuels more supply of tech workers. I think it all started with tech workers though.

If Stanford or another incubator of tech innovators was in podunk MT, then we would be discussing that location instead.

Yes, look at all the AI growth at Carnegie Mellon, University of Waterloo, Tallinn, Estonia - any relatively well-managed metropolitan area can position itself as an "innovation hub", the US West Coast certainly doesn't have a monopoly on it.

I think you're agreeing with my point? Those areas are hubs for hiring too, for the same reason? Albeit not to the same degree as the Bay Area.

Ever notice how competing drug stores are frequently on the same intersection? You might think they would try to be far away from each other.

That's certainly true at my parent company (Accenture) - we're (in a completely neutral way) a completely different animal than "Silicon Valley unicorn", but we still have a huge gleaming building in SF because it projects a particular image.