[debt]

I want to agree, but the scene here is really incomparable to anywhere else. There's simply too much damn VC money floating around which attracts top business people. Chicago does not have billions of dollars of VC floating around. Austin might. DC does not.

Also, the wages here in SV can not be matched anywhere else. It's economically impossible to pay someone a SV wage anywhere else. Economically impossible because if you're a business that has intentionally based your company in say DC then why would you continue to pay your engineers SV-sized wages. You'd be amongst the wealthiest people in DC if you were paid what a typical engineer is offered here.

[ryanSrich]

I'm not sure how reliable indeed is but doing a quick search shows that the average salary for a Web Developer in DC is $105,000. It says the average for a Web Developer in San Francisco (the most expensive city in SV) is $114,000. Now that roughly $10k difference could seem like a lot to some but they'd be mislead to think that money wont get eaten up by SFs extreme cost of living.

>...your company in say DC then why would you continue to pay your engineers SV-sized wages.

Because you value great employees? I mean think of it this way. A lot of people can't just pack up ship and move to SF. But a lot people can! Companies keep their salaries on par with the valley to keep up. Granted the numbers aren't a science. It is hard to compare salaries in different areas but It has been my experience that SV wages are not that much more than any other city in the US.

> You'd be amongst the wealthiest people in DC if you were paid what a typical engineer is offered here

This is just blatantly false. Do you know how much government workers and politician minions make? It makes engineering salaries look laughable.

1.) http://www.indeed.com/salary/q-Web-Developer-l-Washington,-D...

2.) http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Web+Developer&l1=San+francis...

[phamilton]

I suspect that those numbers don't tell enough of the story. The range of salaries in SV is huge. Netflix routinely pays more than 200k. Tiny startups pay < 100k. I don't imagine you see such a variance in DC. 50th percentile might only be 10k apart but I suspect the gap widens as you get deeper into the "above average space".

I do think that a developer getting paid 300k (not unheard of for top talent at top companies) in a place like Austin would be ridiculous.