Speaking as someone who is both trying to hire, and also works extensively with very talented overseas groups: Balmer's an idiot.
If you are going overseas to save money, you've already failed. It's all about talent, and talent costs everywhere.
Idiots are cheap, though.
When I was recruited for the phoenix office I naively assumed it was because rents and salaries were lower. That is true for the production facility, but not for the engineering group. The reason for recruiting engineers in phoenix was that they could get better talent in phoenix than in the bay area for the same price. Competition for software engineers in the bay area is such that they pay too much for too little talent. Phoenix doesn't have the same labor market pressures in tech as the bay area does.
'Sworn to no party, and of no sect am I.' Frederick Vosper's republican motto.
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