Where on the Peninsula would you live that's substantially cheaper than SF? The area around Stanford is fairly pricey.
Mountain View rents for a 1BR are running around $1700/month in a not-so-great neighborhood, or about $2k/month if you're close to the Googleplex or downtown (except for a few smaller family-owned apartments...owner-rented places tend to have smaller rent increases than manager-rented places, since usually a family just wants to find a good tenant and have them stick around rather than take the risk of getting a bad tenant).