Because you aren’t surrounded by peers. Some of us have lived in other areas and don’t want to go back for good reasons. People in other areas have jobs. People in SV have careers. Many more reasons to list. Average education among my peers is obscenely high (a bachelors is seen as being undereducated - masters is average with PhD being very common).
The area isn’t that bad except for COL. Once you’re rich, it isn’t that bad. So, just get rich. That’s the basics of it. It sucks but at least there is a solution for those that are ambitious enough. Can’t fix bad weather or jobs.
There are some companies on the east coast that want mostly PhDs. I have a Masters, but that's really nothing. I feel like degrees don't really mean much. They just show you put in your time (and money) and have at least half a brain. I've also seen highly educated people who aren't very good at independent thought.
"People in other areas have jobs. People in SV have careers."
This seems a little over generalized and even pompous. There are plenty of people who have careers in other areas. Just as a single example, how about the financial developers in NYC, like at Jane Street? There are plenty of people who leave SV too.
People here keep nitpicking about the generality of statements I'm making. They're not getting the general vibe and the general vibe is the point. Just because you can cherrypick some data that says there are people with careers or people with PhDs in some other area does not mean that it is like SV. Surely you understand that?
Who the fuck would move here when homes are $2-3m? People who are dedicated. That's the difference. People talk about leaving the bay area to slow down or give up careers. They don't talk about leaving the bay area to start the next big thing. (Regardless of all the BS you see about X cheap-ass company moving to Y city)
I think it's more about people who want some sort of status or virtue signaling. There are plenty of successful start ups in other cities like Seattle, NYC, NOVA, Austin, etc.
I think the reason people are "nitpicking" is because the majority of people don't live in SV. So if anything, talking about dev salary and saying $400k is barely enough, one would have to cherry pick data from SV to justify that statement.
The area isn’t that bad except for COL. Once you’re rich, it isn’t that bad. So, just get rich. That’s the basics of it. It sucks but at least there is a solution for those that are ambitious enough. Can’t fix bad weather or jobs.