Companies do this all the time with their regional offices and factories. Usually they milk the city for subsidies and tax breaks while dangling the promise of

Companies do this all the time with their regional offices and factories. Usually they milk the city for subsidies and tax breaks while dangling the promise of job creation and trickle-down revitalization of local businesses. Then when the tax breaks expire, they move to greener pastures, leaving the city in a bigger financial hole than they left it. In Silicon Valley the dynamic is different, because it’s mostly global headquarters full of upper management and highly paid engineers. Unlike low-wage employees in regional offices, those people are not considered disposable, and aren’t willing to relocate on a whim. So relocating headquarters to another city or state is extremely hard for large companies.