I looked at it early on, right when I was starting out. That was a little before the dotcom crash, enough that only the really smart people were starting to think it was coming. Everything there looked amazing, and everyone I knew there was miserable every day, and I couldn't spend all my time in the Castro. So I took a powder and ended up in Baltimore.
I wasn't sure I'd made the right call till a few years later, when I heard one of the guys I'd stayed with then had killed himself. Sure, so maybe I missed out on a shot at some lottery tickets. So I'll never have fuck-you money, so what? Neither will almost everyone else - we call them "lottery tickets" for a reason, and that's before we get to the shitshow the next five years are going to be.
With the time I didn't waste chasing after them, I've managed to build a hell of a good life for myself, work included. I sit every day in an office full of windows and surrounded by trees, and I'm even still able to enjoy the birdsong once in a while. I don't have to look very hard for good jobs by now; mostly these days they come and find me. I don't want for a thing in this world that money can buy. And it's been a very long time since I had to work with anyone I couldn't find a way to like.
So yeah, the choices I've made have been more than worth what they cost me. Can you say the same?