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Comment by hourislate | Hacker News Reader

Why would a young professional person want to live anywhere where earning 100k + is not enough when they could live in quite a few other states and earn a 100k + enjoying a cost of living that is 1/3 of what it is in SF or NYC?

My wife and I both make well into the 6 figures working at boring corporations enjoying a lifestyle where we would have to earn the equivalent of 7 figures in the Bay Area or NYC.

There are a lot of great boring corporations that pay extremely well. They don't provide couches or hammocks and you have to drink regular coffee and sure you have to sit in a cube (no open spaces) but it sure beats having to scrape by on 100k + a year.

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Well, one reason is that it is possible to make a lot more than $100k in places like NYC and SF with a bit of luck/talent/hard work. Plenty of people in NYC make $1mm+ per year. But that is simply not going to happen in most parts of the country if you're not an entrepreneur. So you have to consider that "option value". Plus, NYC attracts some of the best and brightest, has great cultural offerings, is diverse in many respects, doesn't require driving, etc. It's a no brainer for me to live there.

Because when you're young you can live cheap and still have plenty of disposable income. There's also a huge benefit of spending a few years in the heart of the tech industry. Once you've been able to hack it there you can move wherever and take that experience/knowledge with you.

I'm in a similar situation but there are fewer opportunities in non tech hub cities. There may be 100 sr dev openings in my area vs 5000 in the bay for instance. When ever I'm on the market I usually see openings at the same 5-10 companies, and like you said most of them are boring.

Young people are likely to trade away living standards for living where they see the largest future potential, professional or otherwise. I think that's quite natural.

Probably because young people don't know about those positions or how to find them.

Yep, that's my situation. Been in the valley for a few years now since graduating. The work experience is good for now, but you quickly realize that affording a house here is mostly impossible unless you're on top of the bell curve or you have high combined incomes.

I want a garage, a driveway, a dog, the ability to really customize my living space, etc, but I don't think its going to happen here. I'd like to magically move somewhere else but its a somewhat intimidating process.

Other people want different things than you. The job market is better in SF than in most places in the country. There's more stuff to do and more diversity, leading to a bigger variety of things to do and things to eat.

I like my job. A lot. So we make sacrifices.

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