The press release says something about 4 people in Boise a long time ago?
None of the quotes have anyone from Boise or even Idaho. Not the governor of Idaho, not a University of Idaho faculty.
There are quotes from Lutnick, Cook from Apple, Jensen Huang, someone from Stanford.
What's the connection to Idaho? Why put this there?
As an Oregonian, I'm a little biased, but why not put this closer to ex-Intel employees and a source of labor. As an Oregonian living now in Florida, the stories about everyone from California moving to Texas and Florida definitely don't seem true to me. My opinion is that those migration patterns hide the realities which is that you've definitely got a lot of financiers and billionaires like Sergey Brin (i.e. tax evaders) declaring they are now Florida residents. And a bunch of people outside of high skilled fields (setting aside healthcare workers) who are migrating in search of cheaper housing. But not a lot of "middle class" tech people (I've been searching for four years and they aren't here). Probably they don't want to subject themselves to the worst public schools in the country and fight the culture wars.
But the point is, how do you staff this research lab without an expectation that thousands of people will move their families there. This is a research lab, not jobs for a data center (electrician and construction).
They were founded in Boise. Boise is their HQ and where most of their developer and research staff live. I worked there for almost 9 years. They have several fabs here, all on the same plot of land just outside of town. This will add to it.
I interned at that site about 20 years ago. Took me 30+ minutes to walk from one end (where their image sensor R&D was, before they spun it off) to the other end. As a 20 year old, it was amazing to walk past all the various clean rooms, watch the robots and the guys in bunny suits do their thing. A fun experience.
Yep, the "Micron Mile" where you can walk a full mile one end to the other and back, without going outside. Very nice in the winter for stretching your legs on the lunch break. The new clean rooms they have are amazing.
Boise is a desirable place to live if you love the outdoors. And it is a capital city. If you can't afford SF or Boulder, you might be able to swing it in Boise. Of course, Boise housing prices are expensive already, and this will make it even more expensive.
If one is or a member of your family is a woman, healthcare will be an issue, many healthcare professionals in obgyn specialties fled the state when abortion ban kicked in so only the older generation of providers who stuck it out are left and that is a cohort that is going to get smaller and smaller leading to longer and longer queues for care, they can only lure in anti abortion obgyns so the candidate pool is small.
This has been in news for years with recent article: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/news/content/ar-AA29YwYp
The press release was poorly edited. While everyone inside the semiconductor industry knows that Micron is based in Boise, the general public doesn't. The press release should have said so rather than leaving it to the reader to interpret the 408 area codes listed for the contacts. Oh wait...that's San Jose. Boise is 208.
Fwiw the story of how Micron ended up being founded in Boise is pretty interesting.
Yes, Idaho and Boise in particular are absolute hellscapes. Who wants an incredibly clean, safe city with kind people who value the rule of law, a low cost of living and great access to trails, mountains and rivers. People should definitely not move there.
The announcement being made by a CEO that wasn’t born in America is just the cherry on top. Can’t wait for the complete surprise when his citizenship is revoked. I imagine it will be something about “I thought they were just targeting the bad ones”.
Boise is a great city and the Micron HQ was very diverse when I worked there. Your comment also fails at basic logic: if 75% vaccinate their kids, then ~75% of straight white guys in fact do care about their kids getting terrible diseases. Also, in my experience ethnic and racial minorities aren't any less likely to be anti-vaxxers, so there are intersectionality failures going on here too.
Not every subject needs to be made polarized political. A company that’s already in Boise that is expanding production in Boise is ultimately not making any sort of political statement.
You’d be hard pressed to find a company that makes facility decisions based on social politics. I don’t think Subaru produces cars in Indiana as a reflection of conservative beliefs just like Chevron isn’t headquartered in California because of progressive beliefs.
Also remember that thousands to millions of progressive people live in every single red state. Similar story for blue states: millions of conservatives live in California, Illinois, and New York. None of those people are hypocrites violating their values for living near family or work. Individuals aren’t responsible for value misalignment of their government or other related institutions, especially if they vote consistently and are on the losing side of the vote.
Saying stuff like this doesn’t convince anyone from the other side to abandon their views and mainly serves to stoke flames.
The Clay fab is moving along, lots of trucks going through there. So I think it will be built, assuming the local NIMBY and Progressive contingent don't have their way and block it somehow (God knows they put up enough arbitrary hurdles in their way).
As someone who lives local to the Clay construction site - I'm not sure how they could be bringing it up any faster. The site is working pretty much 24/7 and progress is very visible week over week.
Idaho has lots of guns but a homicide rate similar to Canada. Boise is one of the few substantially sized cities in the U.S. with a homicide rate in the same ballpark as European cities (around 1 per 100k). The combination of orderliness and freedom is how America is supposed to be.
My brother lives in Boise. It's a great city. The access to nature is fantastic and relatively unique. I can't say much about the rest of Idaho (I've heard there's not much to see outside the nature and the pockets of affluent little towns), but as someone who has only lived in liberal cities on the east coast their whole life, I can assure you Boise is very nice and pretty progressive.
Of course, the state, itself, is pretty conservative. So if you feel you'll be directly affected by things like abortion bans or poor education, then you'll want to be careful where you end up and how you navigate any of that. But if you're making decent money in a city like Boise and enjoy the amenities of the area and can get over the state-level politics (because, again, Boise is quite progressive and you can get weed easily, etc.), then you'd probably experience a nice quality of life.
One negative thing I’ve heard about Boise and some other smaller western cities is that they have awful air quality due to the geography settling all the exhausts and particles in a sort of bowl. Not sure how bad this is in practice though.
As you said, Boise is in a sort of bowl (more of a valley), in the winter, a cold air system can get trapped in the valley by warmer air in the mountain area. This can lead to some pretty bad air (not nearly as bad as wildfires, just not very fresh). To me, the bigger complaint is about not seeing the sun for days. Idaho has a lot of sun throughout the winter, so it's noticeable. It isn't all winter, just a week or so at a time a few times per winted, depending on weather.
Idaho has a ton of incredible outdoor activities. You list some negatives but my biggest negative is all of the white supremacist groups. I felt uncomfortable just stopping for gas and going into a grocery store with everyone staring at me.
People in blue areas of Oregon are like that too. (My wife is from there and people do stare.) That part of the country is just antisocial and not used to seeing brown people.
They certainly aren't politically progressive, but Boise is probably one of the cleanest, safest, nicest cities in the US. It is really quite pleasant, at least it was when I visited.
I’m not a political conservative and I personally wouldn’t move to Idaho, but Idaho has a lot of appeal. There are plenty of conservatives who used to live in California who moved to Idaho in the past decade due to a combination of California’s high housing prices and wanting to move to a more politically compatible state.
Additionally, Idaho has a lot of beautiful natural scenery.
Three of those policies are fantastic. Stats about education and healthcare are often hiding other issues. If you are a researcher with Micron in Boise, you are going to have access to great healthcare and education for your children. Look at NYC for example one of the worst education systems in the country, but Stuyvessant is a top school in the country as well. But if you live in Boise, Idaho, you are not going to have to worry about your kids school not teaching algebra for equity reasons like California.
NYS typically ranks 1-10 in states for education. NYC is a big portion of that ranking. Would not be so quick to call NYC education poor. There are pockets of badness but the overall picture isn't bad. I know plenty of people making 7 figures that send their kids to public school in NYC.
Abortion should be banned. Marijuana should be banned, and permit-less carry. Taxes I don't particularly care, but on principle a 10000% tax would be an de-facto ban.
Probably some of those issues are not a big problem when you have a good salary (like child/healthcare). And a Silicon Valley salary in Idaho sounds like a pretty sweet deal.
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic but it's an incredibly beautiful state, full of mountains and sparsley populated with the exception of Boise. Further many people would love the things you said (I personally am not a weed fan and enjoy my human right to own guns). Boise is a beautiful place to live if you can afford it.
> One of the worst rates of education in the Nation.
Good point - it's ranked 30[0] for education, which is even worse than California (25).
> The state has an incredibly strict abortion ban.
The ban allows exceptions for maternal health, rape and incest within the first trimester, which are the three things people claim are the only things abortion is used for. So that should be fine. It's not as though over 90% of abortions are just gruesome contraceptives.
The press release says something about 4 people in Boise a long time ago?
None of the quotes have anyone from Boise or even Idaho. Not the governor of Idaho, not a University of Idaho faculty.
There are quotes from Lutnick, Cook from Apple, Jensen Huang, someone from Stanford.
What's the connection to Idaho? Why put this there?
As an Oregonian, I'm a little biased, but why not put this closer to ex-Intel employees and a source of labor. As an Oregonian living now in Florida, the stories about everyone from California moving to Texas and Florida definitely don't seem true to me. My opinion is that those migration patterns hide the realities which is that you've definitely got a lot of financiers and billionaires like Sergey Brin (i.e. tax evaders) declaring they are now Florida residents. And a bunch of people outside of high skilled fields (setting aside healthcare workers) who are migrating in search of cheaper housing. But not a lot of "middle class" tech people (I've been searching for four years and they aren't here). Probably they don't want to subject themselves to the worst public schools in the country and fight the culture wars.
But the point is, how do you staff this research lab without an expectation that thousands of people will move their families there. This is a research lab, not jobs for a data center (electrician and construction).
Fwiw the story of how Micron ended up being founded in Boise is pretty interesting.
You’d be hard pressed to find a company that makes facility decisions based on social politics. I don’t think Subaru produces cars in Indiana as a reflection of conservative beliefs just like Chevron isn’t headquartered in California because of progressive beliefs.
Also remember that thousands to millions of progressive people live in every single red state. Similar story for blue states: millions of conservatives live in California, Illinois, and New York. None of those people are hypocrites violating their values for living near family or work. Individuals aren’t responsible for value misalignment of their government or other related institutions, especially if they vote consistently and are on the losing side of the vote.
Saying stuff like this doesn’t convince anyone from the other side to abandon their views and mainly serves to stoke flames.
Mia: To Boise?
Sebastian: You can knock it off your bucket list.
~ La La Land 2016
The state has an incredibly strict abortion ban.
One of the worst rates of education in the Nation.
A blanket ban on Marijuana
There is no tax on fire arms, and concealed carry is legal.
Some of the worst child healthcare in the nation.
It has a similar median household income to California once you adjust for cost of living: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1nemaep/oc....
It has among the lowest income inequality in the country: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/income-ineq.... And similar income mobility to the California or New York: http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/neighborhoods/.
It has a lower poverty rate than California or New York: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2025/09/spm-below-off....
Better education than California and better on most subtests than New York: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile?sfj=...
Of course, the state, itself, is pretty conservative. So if you feel you'll be directly affected by things like abortion bans or poor education, then you'll want to be careful where you end up and how you navigate any of that. But if you're making decent money in a city like Boise and enjoy the amenities of the area and can get over the state-level politics (because, again, Boise is quite progressive and you can get weed easily, etc.), then you'd probably experience a nice quality of life.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/10/flock-safety-and-texas...
Moving to Idaho, and giving these states a tax base with which to further perpetuate these fascist policies is not a winning solution.
As you said, Boise is in a sort of bowl (more of a valley), in the winter, a cold air system can get trapped in the valley by warmer air in the mountain area. This can lead to some pretty bad air (not nearly as bad as wildfires, just not very fresh). To me, the bigger complaint is about not seeing the sun for days. Idaho has a lot of sun throughout the winter, so it's noticeable. It isn't all winter, just a week or so at a time a few times per winted, depending on weather.
But otherwise, Boise's air is quite clean.
Additionally, Idaho has a lot of beautiful natural scenery.
Good point - it's ranked 30[0] for education, which is even worse than California (25).
> The state has an incredibly strict abortion ban.
The ban allows exceptions for maternal health, rape and incest within the first trimester, which are the three things people claim are the only things abortion is used for. So that should be fine. It's not as though over 90% of abortions are just gruesome contraceptives.
[0] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education