Yeah, I have to be pretty skeptical of the above take, for this reason:

1) I live in San Francisco. A ton of residents here commute to Mountain View and environs for work. A ton.

2) Most of those residents are young.

3) One of the few things that has been reliably proven to improve your happiness - even more than a salary bump! - is reducing your commute time.

4) With WFH (work from home) everyone who commutes from SF to elsewhere could cut their commute from 2 hrs round trip, daily, to 0.

5) Ergo, a ton of young people would quickly see the logic of this: WFH and cut your commute time to 0. They would want this option, and they will take it.

I know this complicated somewhat by the fact that you can work from the buses, but I still don't see the overcoming this widely shared preference, for no commute.

You mention this in passing at the end, but I think it’s worth emphasizing: Reducing commute time driving yourself to work has been well studied to have a very large marginal improvement in happiness.

Reducing time commuting on a comfy megacorporation’s arms-length-contracted-carriage-provider bus has been studied much less, and it’s not nearly as clear it improves people’s happiness that much.

Also, taking your commute time to zero isn’t obviously an improvement in happiness; there’s a lot of psychological benefit to having a separate space for work and home life. It’s possible for some people to prepare a home office that successfully feels separate, but it’s not automatic.

lol, imagine wanting to have a 2 hour public transit commute (one way) from SF to the googleplex

I did that journey twice. Was the first time I ever saw San Francisco so I didn't mind how long it took, but I'd hate doing that daily.

Yes, it's considered a want because you want to live in SF while working somewhere far. What is stopping you from finding a job in SF or moving down?

I completely respect wanting to live in SF ... I have personal reasons why I can't move away from where I'm at, but I also have a full time job with a company headquartered literally as far as possible from me in the continental united states. So I get to live where I have to live and make a good salary to support my family, and they get to use my talents as long as they continue to feel I bring them value.

That's the thing ... this discussion isn't saying everyone has to move away from SF, that's ludicrous. But if you want to live in SF, my point is why would you want to have to be on public transit for four hours every single day? It takes time you could use for living your life, and contributes to pollution.

In an ideal world, you could live in SF, work for google remotely, and maybe pop into campus every few days or even weeks, as needed. And then google can also hire from the millions of developers that live elsewhere as well. That way: you could live on the beach, live in socal, live in norcal, live on a farm in Iowa, live in Hawaii, live in New Jersey ... whatever kind of life you want to build, would not have to be linked to whether there is a company you want to work for in that place.