All companies must hire from anywhere. But only a few companies can afford to pull people to live near their offices. This deludes all other companies into thinking they can hire locally and win.
It's easier to notice this in professional sports. All the players on the Boston Celtics currently live in Boston.
Does this mean the Delaware Blue Coats can build a world-class team by hiring locally?
Nope.
In business, the situation is even more severe since more companies don't even understand who they're competing with or what game they're playing. Most companies look at big tech and assume it has nothing to do with them.
Until it does.
Pulling people to live near the office could mean actually paying them to relocate (which few companies can afford at scale). Or it could mean attracting certain types of people to move to an area in order to access the type of jobs that a tiny minority of employees can get hired for. This means big tech is already hiring from anywhere, even if it restricts itself to its offices in Silicon Valley, New York, London, and a few other locations.
In addition, even the most office-centric big tech companies have some employees that work remotely, flexibly, or have their own special arrangements.
The biggest trick big tech ever pulled was convincing the world they are office-centric. They already hire from anywhere, while everyone else argues about RTO policies and productivity studies on LinkedIn.
Have a nice weekend!
