The fact is that having an employee in New York City, in the average case, is worth more than having an employee in Mongolia. They can talk to a customer more easily, given that your customers are more likely to be English-speaking Yankees fans in the Eastern Time Zone than Mongolian speakers in Ulaanbataar. They can go to an event more easily, since there are more conventions in NYC than Mongolia. They can fly to the company retreat more quickly and more cheaply. They can culturally align a product/brochure/email to a target customer more easily than their counterpart because the target customer is most likely to be in a high cost of living area (that's why they're high cost of living... lots of people with lots of money to spend on salaries or SaaS applications). If you need to read a bunch of English text, such as reading through a competitor's annual report or developer documentation, the New Yorker will likely be able to do so more quickly. They are more likely to understand "rich people" references that target customers make, like "I was at the regatta last weekend so I missed your call." There is an advantage to global diversitt for a company serving a global audience, but there are also a lot of reasons to, software engineering skills being equal, prefer the New York employee.