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Quite good by local standards, but a far cry from Silicon Valley levels. Taxation is a killer as well, and the cost of housing in Sydney is not far off SV levels.

If you by "ambitious" you mean ladder-climbing/director/co-founder by 40, SV definitely has a lot more options. But if you just want interesting work, it's not too hard to find.

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I was thinking more like by late 20s if they start young, but basically yes.

I personally didn't enter the industry until my 30s and in many ways I think I'm fortunate that my first job was at a startup in Beijing and the next 3 years were all in SF. Back when I was there, it was an amazing place to learn, albeit very expensive and without a commensurate quality of life outside of work.

"taxation is a killer"... and yet, some of it is actually spent keeping people alive.

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