[bcatanzaro]

I've often wondered if Intel would still be a dominant force in computing if it had kept engineering in Silicon Valley. I worked at Intel both in Hillsboro and in Santa Clara and I feel that Intel's decision to put so much engineering in Oregon was done to insulate them from the pressures of Silicon Valley. They didn't have to pay very well, and they had a very insular culture - because they could afford it. They didn't have to work very hard to keep engineers at Intel because their engineers were basically trapped in beautiful Oregon and generally wouldn't consider moving back to expensive California.

Housing costs in the Bay Area are soul-crushing, but they do motivate people to work on the highest value projects because complacency just doesn't usually work if you're trying to buy a house. And so I wonder, if Intel had kept their workforce mostly in California, could they have stayed a dominant force in computing?