Airbnb will build a new tech hub in Atlanta

The article subheading states:

  Airbnb needed an East Coast home.

Why particularly an east coast home vs. just another home? What's the strategic benefit of the east coast in particular?

Most of the US population is on the coasts and their headquarters is on the other one.

Time zones are important if your teams rely on synchronous communication (slack, zoom, etc.). My org has gone "remote" but we still rely heavily on synchronous communication so we still prefer to hire people in the same time zone.

Time zones are also important if you are doing customer or client support.

A considerable portion of the US lives in the southeast. Georgia Tech is a strong CS program that is outputting a ton of qualified graduates. Not everybody living in the southeast wants to move to SF. The Southeast also has much better representation in traditionally underrepresented groups in CS, enabling tech companies to mitigate some of the "pipeline problem" that makes it basically impossible to achieve diversity goals. There are also few major tech companies with hubs in Atlanta, meaning that the first ones to really develop there can scoop up talent more easily.