It does help to retain the talent, those 5-10y engineers have a house on mortgage and need a higher pay incentive to uproot their lives. At least, that was probably the reasoning before, things have changed:

- WFH means you do not even have to move.

- Competitors have set up satellite offices in Hillsborough/Portland to poach talent.

- Intel does not feel like the stable employer anymore, with the almost yearly layoff waves since the BK era.

This case kind of depends on your priorities. If your goal is the Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Mountain View lifestyle and lateraling between the various companies in the area, then it's an opportunity cost. Has other positives also: low crime, wealthy neighbors, investment money, startup opportunities, mountains and hiking in the area, ocean nearby.

Has it's downsides though. Having visited NASA Ames over in Mountain View because of space agency work, it has a lot of the same issues as Aspen. Lot of sameness, lot of architecture that's McWealthy pseduo-Pueblo, lot of expensive blast plain suburbia, lot of people that start with "you're leaving money on the table" mentality, San Jose and San Fran traffic nearby can be nightmarish, and the crime of Oakland doesn't have that far to walk.

With many family in the Portland, Hillsboro, Beaverton area, that area also has it's positives: relatively low crime in Hillsboro / Beaverton (Portland's not great on the East side)[1], wealthy neighbors, huge amounts of hiking / outdoors / mountain climbing / biking / botanical gardens / parks, much less of blast plain suburbia, somewhat private feeling / hidden housing developments, ocean nearby, Columbia River nearby, significant art culture, lots of breweries / restaurants / food trucks / foodies, decent public transit, if you want dry desert wealth like Cali then Bend is not that far away.

Comparing the shows Portlandia vs Silicon Valley and Weeds is not a bad approximation.

[1] https://www.thetrace.org/2023/02/gun-violence-map-america-sh...