The situation in the valley developed in the 90s and 00s, so that companies could be located close to their investors. That was a time when remote work tools sucked and work practices forced people to be in the same office as the founders, so it made lots of sense that the proximity to capital spiked rents and comp to match.
But now, post-pandemic, remote work is the norm. The founders can relocate to the valley because investment finance is largely a relationship game and those are still way better done in person, but there’s no longer any reason the technical team needs to be located near the founders or even each other.
There is huge disparity in engineering salaries — if you work for a smallish company in a rural area you’re probably making $80k/yr for doing the same job someone in the bay gets $175+ for. Ideally it will work the other way around though — the folks making $80k are much more likely to jump ship for a remote job that pays $125k than the folks making $175k are to jump to the same job.
Of course, if organize via collective bargaining we can likely push that even higher, so listen to your union organizers.