It's possible. I came to Silicon Valley with a Honda CRX and the stuff that would fit in it, a degree from the University of California and a net worth of about negative $2500. I left sixteen years later a multimillionaire.

I'm glad I left. It is a good place to get rich if you're a programmer. But I'm never going back.

I enjoyed the first couple of years in Silicon Valley. I started to hate it more every year after that.

If I was 21 years old now with a CS/CE/EE degree, I'd go to another second-tier tech hub, like NYC, Austin or maybe Boulder.