> $80k isn’t even a year of rent for many here.
$80k is more than the median annual rent on a three-bedroom house in San Francisco; if its "not even a year of rent", even in the "SV crowd", that's because of lavish personal choices, not location-based necessity.
> There’s a reason people get paid $400k+/yr in SV.
Yes, because the jobs paying that are highly selective and there is lots of competition for talent. The cost of living in SV is a consequence of the concentration of high-paying jobs, not its cause.
