In Palo Alto, Google/Apple Would Have Been Evicted from Their Garage Offices

Yeah. Writing from front-window home-office here: I live in China. The windows is open and the view is greenery, there are birds chirping, with only distant hum from city noise, and the occasional walker-by. Every time my brother, an urban designer, comes to visit he comments on how intelligent and high-density the cities are here. Very human scale, though they're losing a lot to cars these days. Hanoi is another great one.

Anyway our team is 3 right now, we use the lounge room and large TV for meetings and stuff, the office is mostly heads-down space and storage. The last company I started here in China about 8 years ago was in a similar (ground floor, 3 bedroom) apartment, and we had something like 10 people at times. Never any complaints. I lived there too initially, but moved out to dedicate the space to the company after awhile.

Sure they could also go start their business in the middle of Kansas, too. However, There is a huge benefit to being centrally located in Silicon Valley

Neighbors don't like it because it impacts property values to be in commercial areas. (Strange people around who don't have kids) Of course worrying about protecting property value in Palo Alto is a little absurd.