Great questions, just goes to prove corporations have “senior mgmt” specifically CEOs who are completely useless, because CEOs stop doing what they did to become CEOs when they get to the top. Why rock the boat. You have already made it so you listen to all your college educated expert subordinates tell you what to do. Ceos become the biggest yes men out there. Case in point, why is the CEO of AB still there? If he isn’t responsible for the actions of his subordinates, then who is? Some college educated geniuses who got laid, banged, drunk and screwed every night for 4 years in college, but never had a real job told the CEO of this company that SF was a great place to put a store. Cause the idiot kid went to the right school and every CEO wants to be in the in crowd they put a store there and the rest is yet another case study that will never make it into the case studies of management in the ivy leagues.
Also, San Francisco’s reputation still vastly exceeds its reality. Most foreign companies would still jump at the chance to open in a “world class” city like San Francisco, but they soon learn that actually means Calcutta class sanitation and Lagos class crime. :)