>Anecdotally, I know some women in the Bay, working in areas like recruiting and marketing, who are dating VCs and CEOs exclusively and consider dating "plain engineers" to be beneath them.

No matter ones income, it's better not to go anywhere with that kind of women. Also life tends to adjust this pretty quickly: they can be that picky until their early 30's, maybe even late 20's. After that available options narrow down substantially.