Look, you're preaching to the choir about not living in "the hip areas of SF". People around here have lost their minds -- they all want to crowd into the same 20-ish blocks of trendy real estate, and pretend that it's the city's fault when those blocks are expensive. But, I digress...

My point is that if a company wants you to work in SF, you should be demanding a salary commensurate with the costs of that lifestyle. Making an excuse for the company not to pay you is silly. Making a daily BART commute and living in Oakland is fine, if that's what you want to do, but you shouldn't be doing it because a tech startup won't pay you enough to afford housing near where you work.