> The only way for Walmart to win the talent game would be by offering absurdly above-market pay packages or absurdly above-average work-life balance policies.

Fun fact: If you account t for cost of living, Wal-Mart does pay more than many others.

There's also many other perks from working at home base. Massive fitness center (Who else can can claim they have 3 pools), cheap Sam's Club memberships. Add in that you get to try all the cool things like most others do (Savings Catcher, Scan n' Go, Grocery Pickup) and you get a substantial boost to the value.

A big part of why cost of living is high in some places is that more people want to live there.

Very true! But not everyone wants to live in SF/NYC, and imagine your dollar goes a lot farther in Bentonville.

Also, supposedly the new museum is amazing, for what it's worth.

This reputation is meritless these days. I work remotely from a desirable town, with, ahem, very competitive pay, 4 weeks vacation, generous RSUs, etc. It's the outdated reputation rather than the actual facts that inhibits hiring IME.

BTW, we're hiring a mobile release engineer for our small Portland office if you're interested.

If you believe that the only "talent that has any merit" comes out of Stanford, you're right.

Good luck getting a talented engineer without either an Ivy League pedigree or a history of employment at AppAmaGooBookSoft hired at any of the trendy startups you've listed.

SV is a bubble, and there are good people outside of it.

I no doubt agree with you about the SV bubble (and credentialism is bullshit). But outside SV there are still tons of great companies offering the same thing that aren't walmart

Any "merit-less" walmart folks out there care to chime in?