It is a level thing, even when I was working for Microsoft china, we could get lower level talent for cheap in India and China. But as the level rose, the costs became similar, and eventually the pay scale would flip (you could get a top level engineer in India, but they started costing the same or more than similar engineers in the Bay Area). So a $100k equiv engineer was cheaper, a $1 million equiv engineer was often more expensive. It really is a world market for talent at the high end, and the Bay Area has more of the top.