[rspeer]

> Either the company competes and offers a high salary as well, or it just doesn't get to hire developers from Silicon Valley. It's basic supply and demand.

This statement is still correct and less loaded if you remove the words "get to".

I have no idea why a fully-remote company would want their developers to live in Silicon Valley so much that they would pay a premium for it. Why even bother being fully-remote then?

[hueving]

The company doesn't want the developer to live in Silicon Valley. The developer already does and that means any company that hires him/her will have to pay that premium because his/her market value is higher.

[mikeash]

The problem with this is that it sends unpleasant signals to the other developers.

If the SV developer's value to the company is the same but they get paid more, then you're saying to all the other developers who work there, "You produce enough value that we could pay you this much, but we don't want to. We prefer to pay you less, simply because we can."

This is, of course, their right, but that sort of thing tends to make people unhappy, and unhappy employees tend to be unproductive, and then gone.

[rspeer]

I'm asking something simpler than that: why would the company pay a Silicon Valley salary at all?

Several people here are taking it as a given that a technology company has to hire some quota of people from the Valley.

[paulddraper]

Yep.

It's like wanting developers to drive a luxury car so much they would pay a premium for luxury car owners.

[hueving]

What aren't you getting? There are tons of companies in Silicon Valley that only hire local developers because they don't believe remote working is as effective. If you want to hire a local developer, those are the companies you compete with.

You try to make it sound ridiculous by changing location with the car they drive, but that is intellectually dishonest because it's not clear remote work is as efficient. There is a reason Google doesn't allow it.

[paulddraper]

Sure, the location has value to some companies. And they'll fight each other tooth and nail.

But to a remote company, it's just as irrelevant as a luxury car. It's an artificial segment of the market to them. They don't need to enter the frenzy. There is a equilibrium of global supply and demand that is lower than SV equlibrium. Replace your SV hires with the others at that price, and save money. Capitalize on your remote work, instead of tossing it aside.