[e12e]

Isn't the real WTF why a cloud company needs to invest a quarter of a billion dollars just to inconvenience 3000 workers with a commute, and narrow their talent pool to the people they can hustle up work-permits for in the US? (Yeah, I know, Google has offices outside the US, too).

[Inthenameofmine]

I think the answer is a combination of culture and sunk cost. The people hiring do so locally for personal cultural reasons; hiring globally means changing almost all busines processes. They already have thousands of co-located employees, so switching to a global model would entail drastically changing the nature of their company.

[matheweis]

It's "only" about $85k/year, and as many others have pointed out the value of the building is not likely to go to zero (although seeing the ghost of Detroit...)

Anyhow, not saying I support it, but at the salaries Google can afford it makes sense...