Despite my rebuttal to the GP stating single people in California are the most taxed in the country, Californians do have a downright oppressive tax structure for upper-middle class high income individuals. Couple that with high cost of living and federal taxes and it's hard to have the same quality of life in San Jose that you can have in Atlanta or Columbus or Minneapolis on half the income or less (and you'll make much more than half!).
Not to discount the benefits of living in Silicon Valley. If you love the atmosphere and everything then it's probably the right place, and that's worth a certain amount of money. But just looking at the numbers in a spreadsheet it's objectively better to live in a small-to-medium sized city (or even rural area if you can find the work!) if you're looking at take-home pay, savings rate, retirement savings, etc unless you're in a very well-compensated role in one of a few very select corporations.