[deadtofu]

I once went drinking with a couple very smart women in Mountain View. Both went to a very well known school, got good grades, and had degrees in math heavy STEM fields.

One worked for Google, and lived in a shared house in Sunnyvale because it was the only way to save towards something

The other was a teacher at a fancy school up in SF that will remain un-named. She literally lived in a kitchen pantry in the tenderloin. (Deep pantry - deep enough to fit a bed).

[b34r]

The tricky thing about Google compensation is they tend to weight total comp toward RSUs. So it's totally conceivable that woman may only be making $90-110k per year in hard salary. I lived in MV for a year and the rental prices are high enough (2.3k for a two bed in the burbs) that living in shared housing might be advisable at that salary level.