They'll have lots of options, and importantly, if they do cycle back into startup land, they may just pick a winner.

The next generation of startups that will become giants are being started now. Right now is a great time to start something new.

They're still workers, don't be silly.

primates get a rush when they see peers beaten down

More like a crab bucket

And yet the company still makes 2-3x their salary in profit

Hmm, so what?

cost of living in those areas means these guys live at best above middle class unless you want engineers to essentially never have children and live in an apartment all their life, then even 200-300k in these areas isn't much.

I'm not going to address the other aspects in your comment but:

1. Apartments can be perfectly fine for a happy life, everywhere across the world.

2. Conception and child upbringing do not mandate having a house.

> engineers to essentially never have children and live in an apartment all their life

Welcome to most of Europe.

As an engineer living in Europe and inside an apartment I can confirm.

Also wanted to add that when we want to feel less trapped we can very easily escape to many other nice places that surround us in the near vicinity, I usually go for bookstores and coffee-shops (from where I’m writing this comment), other people also choose parks, bike-rides, stuff like that. We manage.

They could simply move. It's what normal people had to do because these overpaid engineers outpriced them.

This is not true in any city in the US by any statistically valid definition of “middle class”.