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Comment by Slix | Hacker News Reader

I can't find any reason to be optimistic after reading this article.

Is there any reason to even consider moving to the Bay Area after graduating? It seems like any other city would be more manageable.

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You only read bad news; the reason to move here is because the bay is the hub of the both entrepreneurship and tech in the US. Having said that, rent is expensive but salaries are more or less commensurate.

No, no they are not.*

Several times in my career I have looked at moving to SF, and when it's gotten to the point of talking about salary and upscaling that to what I made at the time, that's not true.

The numbers discussed were about 20% more, but that did not cover the huge delta in housing costs.

Were you looking at google & co or a startup? Usually your bonus & stock compensation is around %40 of your total compensation. Startup stock is non-liquid, and therefore unusable.

It is true that you will spend proportionally more on housing here. It is also most likely true that your total savings will be higher here. EG, you could save 50K$/year in the valley whereas you could only save 20k$ a year working in Iowa. The 20K is much larger compared to the cost of living, but you will be better off when you retire if you squirreled away the 50K$. If you want to move to Iowa at that point, all the better, you can now afford a palace. This assumes you can incur the cost of moving and can stay employed.

And if one purchases a property, they are on the receiving end of massive home price appreciation-- housing becomes an investment rather than an expense.

IMO, Bay Area shouldn't get special consideration from you.

If you really like the work, then, yeah, go for it. But don't choose a crappy job there just because startups.

Edit: it's well worth investigating specific domains that don't get as much airtime on HN. They're probably more technically interesting and demanding, which is what you want from a first job. Ultimately, I can't imagine a technologist finding long-term happiness in pop-tech culture.

"whargaaarbl startups whargaaarblr"

No, there's no reason. You can find a good paying, interesting job elsewhere. Life is not all about the newest Instagram for Pets (iPhone 6 only)

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