I don't think you appreciate just how crazy Silicon Valley, and by extension, most of the rest of California, is. You don't really get an option to not participate in the craziness if you live there. Your only real choice if you want financial sanity is to not live there. Naturally, it's difficult to work in a SF-SV-based startup if you don't live there.

So we're not talking about responsibility anymore, you're moralizing on people's life choices. There's no way to responsibly live in SV without being already rich.

That’s a nice hill and all, but you don’t have to die on it.

What's the deductible on your health insurance, my dude?

protip -- that fucking deductible resets 1 January, so if you were to get hurt in late 2017 and the treatment spanned calendar years, surprise, you pay it twice! One of the reasons I left my last shitty startup job is the deductible was $6k, ie a month's take home wages. That's not real health insurance.

Location, location, location.

Now, if you can get into a remote position, awesome, but I could see living in SV or NYC or similar and feeling middle class pangs at low 6 figures.