[7thaccount]

I've had several offers to work in startups in California that don't do remote. Instead of just saying no outright I ask the HR person where the office is or look it up. It's usually near Silicon Valley and I have to explain that they'd have to pay me CEO pay to make up for the increase in living/home expenses. I mean...$1.5M to get a home similar to what I paid $150k for not that long ago is hard to justify.

[Jcampuzano2]

I was born in California and moved away because I wanted to experience other things after college. It's now 15 years later and plenty of offers have been given for me to move back, but not a single one would make up for my quality of life/cost of living hit I'd make moving back.

I'd have to make like 3x more than I do now to keep the same quality of life and nowhere comes close to that at the moment.

My whole family still lives there but I'd rather them move closer to me than me move there.

[ohples]

If high payed tech workers are being priced out, imagine how it is for people in other roles.

[jjtheblunt]

Yep.

I had for years a fantastic job in one of the inner engineering groups at Apple, loved it, loved the coworkers, the culture, and earned and saved very well, which is the point in mentioning this. but I quit to move far away eventually because I obstinately refused to pay exorbitant real estate prices to get a non shitty home.

Sadly I could understand how folks from outside the US have less perspective on what a shitty ripoff it is, but if you're from a well off suburbia in different parts of the US, it was clearly nonsense to buy there.

[newZWhoDis]

Exactly, and it’s not just the prices it’s the taxes. Sure you make more but you lose a huge % of that and what’s left over goes to insane prices, cost of labor, etc.

[newZWhoDis]

Exactly. Most of California is a huge QoL downgrade so the pay needs to be bonkers to compensate.

[ivalm]

Tbf, startup ceo pay is not that great. Except for maybe very late stage engineers often get paid more in base comp. And at late stage your startup should pay you enough to live in Bay Area.

[7thaccount]

True, but I was just trying to point out that they'd have to pay me a lot higher than they would ever do, to make it not a loss to me. Either you make it remote, or you maybe relocate to some place cheaper.