By offering people medicore, local salaries, they are losing a massive opportunity to clean up on the great talent in remote areas.
Why would someone want to live in a low-end city (assuming they are mobile) - when they could live the same 'quality of life' in a much cooler place?
Assuming a degree of mobility - the whole point of living in a 2cnd tier place is that you can save a lot of money, which makes up for the '2cnd tierendess' of the place.
Montreal is 1/2 Boston. There are a good batch of great devs in Montreal. I could double my salary and move to Boston? I'd probably just do that. And still save more.
If they paid a 20% premium over other Montrealers, they'd be able to attract the best talent - and still save a lot of money over Boston/SF/NYC.
Paying 'regular market wages' for remote localities is not a winning proposition - it doesn't take advantage of the fact they are great startup, reasonably well financed etc..
Even talking about "Boston" as a single thing is tough. There's Boston/Cambridge urban folks and there are people who live an hour west or an hour north. That's an enormous difference in terms of housing prices. And even that is an oversimplification. School districts and other factors make a huge difference within that same one hour radius.
But what neighbourhood you live in Boston is a choice.
Picking up and leaving a city is not a choice for most people.
Also the 'cost of everything except housing' is pretty consistent - everyone pays roughly the same a gallon of gas, and an identical basket of groceries.
By offering people medicore, local salaries, they are losing a massive opportunity to clean up on the great talent in remote areas.
Why would someone want to live in a low-end city (assuming they are mobile) - when they could live the same 'quality of life' in a much cooler place?
Assuming a degree of mobility - the whole point of living in a 2cnd tier place is that you can save a lot of money, which makes up for the '2cnd tierendess' of the place.
Montreal is 1/2 Boston. There are a good batch of great devs in Montreal. I could double my salary and move to Boston? I'd probably just do that. And still save more.
If they paid a 20% premium over other Montrealers, they'd be able to attract the best talent - and still save a lot of money over Boston/SF/NYC.
Paying 'regular market wages' for remote localities is not a winning proposition - it doesn't take advantage of the fact they are great startup, reasonably well financed etc..