It's not so much what they get paid as how much they could save by going elsewhere. If you imagine a generous 200k/year average in SF or NYC, you can also imagi

It's not so much what they get paid as how much they could save by going elsewhere. If you imagine a generous 200k/year average in SF or NYC, you can also imagine that it wouldn't be 200K in a place like, say, Des Moines, IA or Detroit, MI -- it might be closer to a generous 100K average, saving them $5bn/year -- or fifty percent cheaper. Just made up numbers, but it illustrates the point. If salary were the only criteria and Bezos went to the board and said, "Which would you rather pay, $10bn/year or $5bn/year for salary?" it's pretty obvious which one the board would pick. Even a janitor or desk assistant is paid more in SF and NYC than they are in Charleston, SC, so the principle applies even for low wage workers. (Now obviously, the criteria is more than just salary, so the above is an oversimplification.) That overlooks another aspect: what happens to a city when 50,000 new people show up likely making more than the average of that city? Do we get inflation? Do we have a housing crisis where all the nice houses are bought up and even the mediocre neighborhood property values skyrocket? Does gentrification become a problem? If you think "it's just 50,000 people and it's just one company," you'd be right -- but don't you think whatever city Amazon chooses is going to have a tech boom? There will be more tech jobs generated, leading to higher salaries and more expensive houses and... and... and... I think the peripheral side effects of such a move are much more interesting than the move itself. The salary thing, sure, you're right. It's only 6% of their income. But what happens if the move causes unimaginable traffic congestion or significantly increases the homeless population or puts a strain on local preschools. Fifty thousand people? Let's say a third of them have 1 kid -- that's ~17,000 to add to the local school systems! We need more teachers! We need more buses! We need more textbooks! Instant crisis! (I exaggerate, but still...) That's the kind of stuff I find to be fascinating.