Also, it's currently the middle of the night in the USA, so current users will skew towards those outside the Americas.

Well there are the Zoogler's and the ETH ;)

While Zurich is definitely an important IT hub, but "Bay Area of Europe" stretches things a lot.

Name one other place on the continent that has:

1) At least token engineering presence by every major tech company

2) Tech-savvy VC, legal, audit and tax services you can get on a short notice

3) A pool of talent to fill any engineering position

4) A funnel from a big engineering university to the industry that generates startups

5) Tax authorities willing to work through complicated situations like acquihires, IP riders in contracts for a consideration in the form of stock, etc.

It’s much smaller than the Bay Area, of course, but it’s the only place in Europe that has everything you need in one spot. (Except maybe London, but that’s more like the New York of Europe, minus the high salaries.)

Also, “IT hub” is a place where salaries are low and you plop down a call center. IT are the support roles that install antivirus, not a profit center. There’s a huge difference between that and a “tech industry.”

Berlin?

>>A pool of talent to fill any engineering position

Is it true for Zurich? Due to extremely high cost of living I guess there is small amount of unemployed IT people there.

Berlin’s tech industry is to Zurich and London as Berlin’s art scene is to New York or Paris.

And yes, Switzerland, but especially Zurich, is on another level compared to the rest of Europe. (Except maybe London.) I’ve been a hiring manager at multiple large tech companies: Europe in general has less tech talent than the US, but in London and Zurich you can fill any role, from kernel, through ML, computer vision, hardware, manufacturing, robots, quantum computing, etc.

You said it yourself. I like Zurich, but I'm not sure just a list of checkmarks makes it comparable to Bay Area, or even brings it to the top in Europe. Quantitative metrics are important, and I think Zürich is too a bit small, and not quite fast-moving for the grande title.

Dublin competes on almost all these bullets, except maybe #4, even though there are a few universities in the area with prestige.

I’ve done hiring in tech, and the availability of broad spectrum talent in Europe really only exists in London and Zurich. There are hubs for different fields, but only those two places have everything, IME.