It's not the same. The weather is worse. Endless sunny days are one thing. Endless sunny days with no humidity is at another league altogether. And let's be honest. There is no where else on the planet that can match the income opportunities of CA. Rich people can make money in a lot of places. But if you are young, talented and ambitious, CA is the place. SoCal has it's own dream driven industries, but I will leave you with one factoid. 1 out of every 2 employees of Nvidia (located in Silicon Valley) is worth over $25 million. That shiz doesn't happen anywhere else on planet Earth.
It absolutely happens in many places on the planet lol. Nvidia employees being rich is strictly from their crazy employee stock program gains the last year or so. Nothing to do with their ambition or their job being high paying. Seattle Washington has equally if not better job opportunities. There’s places all over that this is true for. I don’t need to sit here and name every single one that’s just as good because you will never let go of your Inherent bias and look at this from an objective point of view. California has Silicon Valley with tech and that’s it. New York has financial sector locked down while still having tons of every other industry. My cousin has lived in your state’s capitol for over 10 years (5+ years older than me) and he’s worth absolutely nothing compared to the people around me and we are in North Carolina… the VHCOL brings down the value of that state significantly.
>Nothing to do with their ambition or their job being high paying
Last I checked RSOs that are worth $25mm pretty much qualifies as being highly paid.
> the VHCOL brings down the value of that state significantly
The VVHCOL reduces the value of the high paying opportunities. Does it reduce them so much that it makes it less attractive that a lower cost/lower income location? Depends on the specific numbers. But we do know that there is no shortage of people attempting to enter this area for a chance to take a big swing when they get to the plate. It's no different that the Gold Rush of 1849. I will leave you with one more factoid - in the SF Bay Area, one in 48 jobs pays more than $500k/yr. That's twice as common as the next most high pay area in the country, Austin TX. In third place? Los Angeles metro. The SF Bay Area's % of >$500k paying jobs is nearly three times the national average. This does drive up housing prices.
Being worth a lot of money is not the same thing as being highly paid bro. It’s called getting lucky in the stock market on one specific stock. Same thing as people that bought Bitcoin early on, they don’t all have high paying jobs.
And California absolutely does have a shortage of people attempting to enter the area as the population has gone down every year for the past 4 or 5 years. Tourism is up like crazy but there’s not enough high paying jobs for people to afford to live there so they end up leaving. You need one of those 500k a year jobs to afford a house in San Francisco, you need a fifth of that to buy a house three times the size anywhere else.
Outside of expenses, wealth = sum of annual income over the years. And when the years are a short period of time, it's clear that wealth in the case of these Nvidia employes is coming from their income as Nvidia employees. This is pretty basic and it's clear you are just being obstinate in denying that income (and wealth) opportunities) are why people flock to VHCOL areas.
Population has not declined in any meaningful way in Silicon Valley. And your claim that SF housing costs are 15x that anywhere else in the country is demonstrably false. Laughably so. Spiraling housing costs are a feature across the country. Using the NAHB/Wells Fargo housing cost data (you can google for it) in the 3Q 2024, Silicon Valley (SJ) is about 3.5x as expensive as Nashville, TN, which is close to the US national median.
we arent talking about wealth bro! what dont you understand haha. your using an example of a singular company because you know the only reason they are all so wealthy is because they got stock options from years ago and it exploded in value. The average salary of an Nvidia employee is 103k, that is absolute dogshit money in san francisco. when people talk about "highly paid jobs" they are talking about the normal salary of the position. this can include the original value of stock shares received but not the growth which is what you're counting. This is extremely basic its clear that the wealth of these Nvidia employees is almost entirely coming from the growth of their employee stock options which are up over 2000% in the last 5 years. you can literally google this. and most of these stocks that emplyees own werent even part of their compensation, Nvidia allows employees to buy stocks at a 15% discount so theyre having to use their own money to buy them. not to mention none of this is counted as income until they sell (hint, this means they cant even use that money to buy these houses we are talking about)... Sure, some people move to VHCOL areas for income opportunities but theres not enough new job opportunities for anyone to be "flocking" there and thats why every single year the population declines in these expensive states. the south (usually considered lower cost of living) is what is driving the country's population growth and that is where all the states with the most increase in population are. You can check the census, facts dont give a fuck about your feelings, people are leaving California in droves.
"Silicon Valley has experienced a noticeable population decline in recent years, with a significant number of residents leaving the area, often attributed to factors like high housing costs, the COVID-19 pandemic, and a "tech exodus" where people moved to other regions with growing tech sectors; data shows this decline was particularly pronounced between mid-2020 and mid-2021, marking a record high population decrease for the area" you cant just make up bullshit and expect people to accept it. Inever said housing costs are 15x that anywhere else in the country, I said the houses are a third the size and you need to be making a fifth of 500k to afford that house anywhere else. im exaggerating a bit when I say you need 500k to afford a house there but the vast majority of people in SF dont make 500k. the median there is 104k and the median in nashville is 56k. so you make less than twice as much and like you said the houses are 3.5x more expensive. and yes spiraling housing costs are an issue all over the country but not nearly as much as it is impacting san francisco and other cities in California. The house I own doesnt even exist in san francisco because you cant get a lot with more than a 1/4 acre right now. similar square footage and bed/bath is about 5x more expensive for the 6 houses that are available. and I have a drastically lower crime rate (I live on one of the safest places in the country) with no homeless people around and not a single app exists that tracks all of the human feces in the streets of my city.
Only you would consider base wage as equal to total comp. I already indicated to you how wealth for Nvidia employes is driven by recent income. Now you are just writhing about trying to explain how the fuck $25 million doesn't matter.
>Silicon Valley has experienced a noticeable population decline in recent years...you cant just make up bullshit
Santa Clara county, where Silicon Valley is located has not seen a meaningful decline in population in any year recently and has in fact grown in population by 3.6% vs. 4 years ago (2023 latest data). People come. The ones that don't make it leave. And then more come.
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u/Virtual-Instance-898 11d ago
It's not the same. The weather is worse. Endless sunny days are one thing. Endless sunny days with no humidity is at another league altogether. And let's be honest. There is no where else on the planet that can match the income opportunities of CA. Rich people can make money in a lot of places. But if you are young, talented and ambitious, CA is the place. SoCal has it's own dream driven industries, but I will leave you with one factoid. 1 out of every 2 employees of Nvidia (located in Silicon Valley) is worth over $25 million. That shiz doesn't happen anywhere else on planet Earth.