One thing to consider is that if you spend several years with zero friends, zero romance and doing only single thing, then it is hard to start socializing again (assuming work is work and not socializing moved to workplace). You forget what it is like, how to do it, how to choose people to be with. You wont know what to do with time.

At the same time, it's better to be rich and miserable than poor and miserable. It is easy to have zero friends, zero romance and zero meaningful hobbies under almost any circumstances for the kind of people that end up getting jobs in SV anyway.

The dichotomy here is not between dirt poor and apple CEO.

Also, most young people who end up in SV are normally adjusted fully able to have friends and romance. They are also able to enjoy movies, read books, etc etc etc the same way as other people.

100k$ won't create much savings in the Bay Area. At least aim for 200k$ there if you want to sell your life for years.

100k in most of European big cities are not going to send you to pension at 40 either, 200k is the 6figures salary of the 90s

True, in Europe high taxes take an additional toll, also the salary situation is so that it's basically impossible to get 200k in Europe if you're an employee.

Where, in the entire US, does tech not pay $100k? startups pay more than that here. You don’t need to come to SV to make $100k. Any city will do.

Are you talking entry, low, mid, or high level compensation? Anecdotally, in the Midwest entry level is well below $100k. If you want to make $100k here, you have to be at least mid level and be at a company that values developers. According to "Developer Salaries in 2018: Updating the Stack Overflow Salary Calculator" [1], the median pay is roughly 100k in the prominent Midwest cities.

[1]: https://stackoverflow.blog/2018/09/05/developer-salaries-in-...

Thanks for the link. I guess I overestimated starting salaries nationwide by quite a bit! But in my defense, I really meant total comp, not just salary.

I know of 2 SF startups that pay $120k ish for entry level. At entry level, forget about equity, the amount you will get will be worthless. The base is your entire package.

Google will give you a total comp (salary, bonus, RSU) of about $150-$160k for entry level. No senior+ person I know there is making less than $250k total comp. Google designs salaries very well to keep everyone in the same level centered at the same total comp. If you take a high salary, your raises and RSU refreshers will be less, regardless of your performance. Personally I think that's very unfair but hey I don't work at Google so who am I to say.

I was making $125k base (maybe $150k total) as entry level at a mid-peninsula bigco back in 2000. I never dipped under $100k going to smallco and startups since then. As you can imagine, I make a fortune these days but I am very highly specialized.

If indeed startups are paying less than $100k here, I can't imagine how they hire anyone, certainly not anyone good.