> To give a concrete hypothetical: you hire an ML research team in Poland. While ML is in demand, those people can easily get a job offer in London or Zurich an

> To give a concrete hypothetical: you hire an ML research team in Poland. While ML is in demand, those people can easily get a job offer in London or Zurich and get paid 2-3 times as much. They don't even need a work permit They actually need a work permit for London (it's not EU anymore). I believe that for Switzerland there might also be requirements for the employer to state that they couldn't find talent in the country, before extending an offer to foreign nationals (including EU: Switzerland is not EU, though it's part of Schengen... And thus EU citizens have freedom of movement) But your point stands... I think that fiefdom building, and needing teams close to where the execs (and/or investors) work and live is the other big reason why companies hire in high COL areas