[jojo2333]

Employee salaries are by FAR the largest expense for these companies.

Office rent is nothing in comparison.

Companies will make decisions based on employee productivity, which IMO, means having people in an office.

[ponker]

Employee salaries are a huge expense because housing near San Francisco or New York City or wherever is expensive, so you have to pay those salaries to get people to sign up. If you can hire someone in Arkansas (who frankly would rather keep living there then move to SF) you can pay half the salary or less.