@NextRoll I agree with you on most points there, but... there is a reason that many of those stories come from Florida and the reason is that all the police records are available publicly, while SF is afraid to publish data on the crimes committed on BART and on all the drug usage.
guess what, whenever I talk to customer service people who are in Florida, or Utah, or New Hampshire, they sound really happy and stress-free. Some told me they only need to spend $1500 per month and his apartment is like $700 per month.
Everyone who is banking a high TC should pray that tech companies never go full remote although I think this is inevitable. If the labor market goes 100% remote there is little to differentiate between you and someone in a dirt cheap geo happy to work 7-11-7. Everyone in the Bay Area loves to believe that they are the elite and don't recognize that there are incredibly talented tech people in other countries that will work for a fraction of your TC due to LCOL and/or lower taxes. The Bay Area doesn't have a monopoly on leetcode and the barrier to entry is not as high as you believe. Your options will be to take a lower TC to compete or move to a LCOL location yourself. Hybrid, even one day per week, is the best compromise.
Nah. Outsourcing tech/IT to supposedly save on labor as been a thing for some time, and results are mixed to negative despite having been tried a near infinite number of times. If Big Tech goes full TC is bound to keep skyrocketing as he major players try to out compete each other for various WFH perks.
Google just went hybrid, again, after some flip flop. Which just means that prices in tri valley, Gilroy, south San Jose and all those far off nicer areas are going to go up even more!
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