Crazy to me that some people in the comments believe that 80k$ dollar is peanuts. Even in Germany I could easily live with that for more than 5 years.
If I had that kind of money lying around I would move to another country, pay for my whole education, learn a new language and still have enough money for multiple full-time start-up attempts.
Cost of living in the US is very high. HN skews towards the SV crowd. $80k isn't even a year of rent for many here. If you instead bought a home recently in SV, $80k wouldn't even get you halfway through the year.
There's a reason people get paid $400k+/yr in SV. The place is expensive and you need to keep people there somehow.
$80k is more than the median annual rent on a three-bedroom house in San Francisco; if its "not even a year of rent", even in the "SV crowd", that's because of lavish personal choices, not location-based necessity.
> There’s a reason people get paid $400k+/yr in SV.
Yes, because the jobs paying that are highly selective and there is lots of competition for talent. The cost of living in SV is a consequence of the concentration of high-paying jobs, not its cause.
I do wonder what's keeping people there long term.
With that amount of money you can have an amazing life in so many places on this earth, and these people definitely have the resources to do that. Have these people never experienced life abroad? Quality of life is much higher elsewhere.
If I had that kind of money lying around I would move to another country, pay for my whole education, learn a new language and still have enough money for multiple full-time start-up attempts.