I definitely didn’t like working in NYC. NYC is a net negative for me, unless the wages are in the $300-400k range, it’s a non starter. If I could work in New Orleans, I would jump at the chance. I worked in NYC for years and got over it pretty quickly. Couldn’t afford to live in Manhattan so I commuted from Jersey City. And when it’s freezing cold, that gets old quickly. Then there is a NYC income tax along with higher prices for everything. If your goal is to recruit a bunch of naïve 25 years olds, sure, pick New York — or be prepared to pay some serious money. Talent goes where the opportunities are. If Apple’s HQ were Albuquerque or El Paso, you’d have talent moving to those places. For startups, obviously proximity to Silicon Valley, Austin or NYC is very advantageous because nobody wants to move across the country for a low percentage startup. But for a FAANG company— the talent will follow, perhaps even more merrily. There are a lot of talented engineers that would be great recruits for the FAANGs, but one look at the housing prices and tax rates in those areas sends them running. Wichita, Kansas isn’t particularly “hip,” but given that some important aviation work happens there, those in the aviation business live/move there. Hartford, CT is a shithole, but if you are in insurance, there are tons of opportunities there. Pharma companies are located all over the country, they don’t locate in New York because of talent, they locate where they want and the talent follows. Software and hardware engineers seem to think they are special and that the jobs should come to them; the real world is the other way around. Acting as if the entirety of software talent exists on the coasts is simply arrogant. For startups, of course, it’s different. For trillion dollar companies that can pay fat relocation packages and offer incredible compensation, there is much less incentive to care about Silicon Valley or NYC. A large portion of the talent recruited by Apple and Google, often come from somewhere other than SV. And, if the talent pool is so big in SV, why does nearly every company worth a damn bother offering relocation?