[nuschk]

Well, finance takes also a large chunk of Switzerland's GDP and thus is scooping up many engineers as well. Maybe it's not as pronounced as in London, but it certainly isn't very easy to hire good engineers here because of all the banks and hedge funds.

I think google came to Zurich because of EPFL/ETH, the very high living standard and most of all the rather liberal labor law. It's very easy to fire someone in Switzerland, compared to the surrounding countries.

[saiya-jin]

Finance is 12% of Swiss GDP last time I checked. This country has this image of banking powerhouse, but in reality small/medium companies and tourism contribute much more.

healthier economical setup I must say. also, if they decide to trash banks with some end-of-data-privacy law (and it will eventually come, as for US persons), it won't be such a disaster for their economy.

[fnsa]

I think that Google went to Zurich because an early engineer was from there.

[config_yml]

Urs Hölzle (also an ETH alumni), who was googler n°8, but I'm not sure that was the reason; ;)